An Evening With Anuar Zain

Last Saturday night, lelaki ini...

 

Got to meet Lelaki Ini...

 

 (promotional poster courtesy of playpause)

Yup, finally found the perfect belated birthday gift for The Hasbern. The Krups Espresso Maker was too expensive, he said; my humble Nescafe-tarik would taste much better :P

Yes, so anyway, we spent An Evening With Anuar Zain. You see, The Hasbern is a HEEYUUGEE fan. Our car is our private karaoke box where the driving gets to sing and try out vocal acrobats, and of course, the oft-playes CDs would be Anuar Zain’s. From the first album to the latest, The Hasbern has it all covered, and I must state here for the record – he’s got an amazing voice. The Hasbern, that is. Even Ilhan loves crooning “Mencinta ibuuuu tak mengenal waktuuuu…” (notice the honest mistake; it should be mencintaimu, not mencinta ibu, but a lovable mistake nonetheless J ) and warbling “Lelaki ini yang selalu mencintaaamuuu…selaaaaaluuu….tanpa raguuu..”

So that night, with the kids at their nenek’s place, we dressed all spiffy and made our way to The Esplanade. Did some nonchalant celebrity-spotting “oh that’s so-and-so”, entered the hall, and waited for the night to begin.

 

And what a night it was. Aku tak rasa ada orang berani kata suara Anuar Zain tak sedap; “jiwang lah” is as far as they’d go, but let them listen to him live and it’d bring them to their knees. His rich and impeccable voice almost made me weep. He didn’t have to resort to dancing (he’s a self-confessed kaki bangku) or costume changes or anything. It was all about his charm and The Voice.

 

To me, the most memorable pieces were Jangan Bersedih Lagi – my favourite, and the most difficult to sing, according to him – and Mungkin. Goodness...he scaled the notes effortlessly and the soulfulness gave me goosebumps. He ended with my current favourite Teman Terulung, and teased the audience by pretending to end the concert, only to return with the wajib Ketulusan Hati and Lelaki Ini. Simply brilliant! I feel apart from The Voice, the lyrics of his songs are what makes them really special. Sure, they are about love as all songs are, but somehow the words are more so beautifully and thoughtfully picked and woven into sentences. When sung with The Voice, cair beb!

 

                                     My Lelaki Ini with Lelaki Itu

 

We enjoyed the concert, had a great date in a long while and topped it off with a grossly overpriced Brownie Explosion at Haagen Dazs. A measly brownie with 3 scoops of ice-cream is grossly overpriced i tell you.

 

My main grouse were Suria-worthy kakak-kakak and makcik-makcik who heckled shamelessly at the most inappropriate times. Behave lah kakak…save your heckling for your tkc karaoke idol or something, not at the Esplanade Concert Hall with Anuar Zain, who, so politely laughed it off.

Check out pujanggamalam for a more complete and proper review. In the meantime, I shall pop in the CD and melayang-layang di awang-awangan……

 

Halloween Party

We were invited to our first Halloween Party by one of The Hasbern's colleague at work. A last-minute rush for costumes didn't really work out so I fished out Ilhan's $10 pasar-malam Black Power Ranger costume/pyjama (lucky the mask was still around) and got him a ranger sword from Toys R Us as an accessory.

Being halloween virgins we were unfamiliar with the trick-and-treating part - some greedy Singapore kids were just grabbing candies from our bowl - apparently you have to say the trick-or-treat password beforeyou are given some. And most of the potluck food wasn't halal, save for the satay we brought and some cheesecake. So we left just before maghrib to and grabbed some dinner at, where-else, good ol' Maccas.

Those days.

I was at Cold Storage over at Rail Mall looking for ingredients for The Hasbern's tak-jadi strawberry swirl cheesecake. And then wherever I turned I saw things which reminded me of a lot of things....

used this for my creme potato au gratin and baked potato...i'm such a potato person, can you tell?




somehow this just didn't grow on me, but it's so Aussie nonetheless...

aaahhhh......i used this on pasta, lasagna, bechamel sauce, mornay sauce, salad, sandwiches, everything! and this was when i learnt that 'tasty' cheese, is really, very very tasty...

Tim Tams dan rakan-rakan Arnotts yang sewaktu dengannya were our weekly treats.

Suddenly I got this sense of deja vu, of wheeling my trolley through the aisles of Woolies/Coles with Ilhan in the trolley ( those days we were joined at the hip), having a serious discussion with him on what to cook for lunch, scrutinising labels to look for non-halal
stuff. Simple stuff like that.

I so miss Aussie living.

Ilhan is 4!

Our families have never really been that big on celebrations and parties, but we thought it’d be nice to celeberate Ilhan’s 4th birthday on a slightly bigger scale this year. 10th October had been falling in Ramadhan since he was born (meaning no chance for a fancy celeb), and last year it was just the three of us in Perth. This year’s timing’s slightly better, although being the 10th day of Syawal means a party would have seen zero attendance since members semua sibuk jalan raya.

Not that we are bent on having a party either. This mum is birthday party novice who remembers almost dying of embarrassment at her own 4th or 5th birthday party (the one and only party she ever had) decades ago (yeah, she hates being thrust in the spotlight like that).


This mum also dreams of baking that perfect cake, but since she botched The Hasbern’s Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake (made with lots of help from her nice younger brother…see icu..i acknowledged you hokay), she thought maybe save the trouble and just outsource lah. The cheesecake was so pretty tapi pahit nak mampus cos dunno what possessed her to add one TABLESPOON of vanilla powder instead of the standard one teaspoon.

So outsourced it is - a Power Ranger Mystic Force one for school of course. And yesterday we had an adventure of sorts looking for goodie bags at The Concourse. I didn’t know that The Concourse was no more, and the 3 party shops have moved to somewhere in Middle Earth.Middle Road. But oh…how we love the shops! So many fun stuff to choose from to put in the goodie bag.

Happy 4th Birthday baby!