Techniques
The city cools slowly after sunset. The neon signs warm up, and the crowds thin into something quieter. This is the hour when a bowl of fluffy Japanese rice topped with cold raw fish starts to make sense. Not the flash of a grill or the roar of a wok, but something still. Cubed sashimi…
The steam rose before the light did. I stood with my camera lowered, watching a hand lift a ladle over the pot, waiting for the moment the vapour would catch the fluorescent tube overhead. It came in a slow curl, thin and pale, drifting up past the vendor’s wrist. Then the fish slices went in.…
The day heat lifts slowly here. By the time I reach Newton Food Centre, the sun has gone and the light has changed hands. No longer the flat white of afternoon. Now it comes from the stalls themselves, bulb by bulb, a row of small fires holding back the dark along Clemenceau Avenue North. Newton…
Orchard Road lets go of its crowds slowly. By the time I reached Cuppage Plaza B1 28, the shopping stretch behind me had thinned to a few late walkers and the low hum of traffic sliding past shuttered windows. The bright malls were already dimming. The night was settling in the way it does here,…
Orchard Road empties from the top down. By a quarter to midnight, storefronts have started pulling their shutters, glass gone dark over displays that glowed all day. Escalators still run. A few people drift toward the Somerset MRT with shopping bags softened at the handles, while red tail lights smear across the wet glass outside.…
Finding Apollon AM-Bar on the First Floor The first floor of Orchard Plaza’s dining oasis is quiet in that way old shopping centres go quiet at night. The bright shops of Orchard Road felt far away by the time I found unit #01-29. Inside, there isn’t much room. A counter, a handful of seats, staff…
It’s past eight, and the lingering heat warms the pavement. A grill flares beneath bare bulbs, smoke rising as a vendor fans the coals. Satay skewers sizzle, coins exchange hands, and the queue shifts, a fleeting moment in the vibrant night market in Singapore. Most visitors miss this dynamic scene. They arrive ready to photograph…
6ix 6ix After Midnight Cuppage Road goes quiet after the dinner crowds thin out. The shophouses along Cuppage Terrace dim, Cuppage Plaza rescinds into darkness, and the street holds only the low hum of a few late cars and the occasional figure walking home. Then there is 6ix 6ix, spilling warm light onto the pavement…
The first time I tried to photograph nigiri at a proper counter, I ruined the piece. I fussed. I tilted the plate. I leaned back for a better angle, checked the screen, tried again. By the time I actually ate it, the rice had cooled and the fish had warmed, and that careful balance the…
I nearly walked into Cuppage Plaza by mistake. That’s the thing people get wrong about Al Capone’s. It’s not inside the plaza at all. It sits a short walk away at 37 Cuppage Terrace, along that covered open-air stretch where the tables spill almost onto the walkway. I found it by following the sound first.…