Critique Cafe

Champions League Final

2008-05-26T08:48:00.001+08:00

The clash of two mighty English teams, Manchester United and Chelsea in the Finals is a sight to behold. Although surprisingly the England national team didn’t qualify for Euro 2008, their domestic league is still one of the best in the world. The money involved in the league is really out of this world and the football skills displayed are equally amazing.

In the finals, Manchester United’s Alex Ferguson once again displayed his arrays of tactics by deploying Cristiano Ronaldo on the left flank to counter Michael Essien’s playing at right back. Essien is essentially a central midfielder and with his lack of defensive awareness, his position is one to be explored. The next tactic was to employ Owen Hargreaves at the right side to prevent Ashley Cole from roaming forward and to protect Wes Brown on the right side. Hargreaves is a superb player who could play in many positions and his adaptability is just amazing.

Chelsea’s Avram Grant is still employing his usual tactic to have a strong central midfield to push the team forward. Seeing Ronaldo on the left side did not seem to bother him at all and it prove costly as Ronaldo headed in a goal in the first half with Essien close by doing nothing to challenge his glorious rise to score. But still Chelsea is still a team filled with plentiful of talent. The midfield battle is evenly matched but Chelsea was many a times outclassed in the flanks. Goalkeeper Petr Cech was simply too good. His many heroics save Chelsea from time to time and in the end of the first half, Frank Lampard managed to slot in the ball courtesy of a deflection off Vidic and Ferdinand.

The game went into extra time and more drama unfolds. Didier Drogba overcame with frustration slapped Vidic, his nemesis. The red card was flashed and off goes Drogba to the shower room in what could be his last game in a blue shirt. The penalty was nerve-wrecking for both set of supporters. Of all people, Ronaldo’s, Man U’s regular penalty taker, shot was saved by Cech. His usual tactic of stopping once did not fool Cech as he stood his ground and wait for him to shoot a lame shot. I guess Chelsea’s fans were really glad about this miss and their excitement was erupting. So when John Terry walked towards the penalty area for his turn, their fan’s hearts must be in their mouth. For the first time in Chelsea history, Terry, the captain could be in the honors rolls for firing the team into history books.

The rain continued to beat, the cold winds in Moscow howled, John Terry probably never took notice of them and as he run off to kick the ball. He probably regretted his carelessness of not perceiving his environment with assiduousness. The grass gave way and his foots slid a few centimeters off course. The ball flew and hit the post. Oh gosh
Chelsea’s advantage had disintergrated.

When Ryan Giggs, breaking the club’s records for most appearance, scored it was down to Anelka, Chelsea’s latest recruit to break evens.The experienced goalkeeper, Van der Sar saw his shot coming and leapt out a flying save to secure Man U’s third European glory.

Two David in the Top Three

2008-05-09T10:25:00.006+08:00

Both David Cook and David Archuleta are in the top 3 for Season 7 of American Idol and they rightly deserved to be as they had impressed over the weeks with their fantastic vocals. They also had never been in the bottom 3 so far this season.

Really impressed with the 17 year old Archuleta, whose vocals was really good but as a person who like rock music, I very much prefer the raw attracting vocals of Cook. Image wise, I think Archuleta is too young to be crowned as the American Idol, Cook is a more suitable person.

But of course,fan base wise, I guess Archuleta had a slight edge, with mothers and young girls will be voting for him.

We'll see how it goes when it finally come to the end.

Here's the clips on the two Davids' performance.

David Archuleta

David Cook

Man Vs Wild

2008-04-05T14:49:00.002+08:00

Man vs wild is a documentary show about survival in the wild.

It is hosted by the Bear Grylls, an ex-officer in the Special Force.The show featured him travelling through very hostile environment and trying to conquer them. The show is very similar in the way the plot move in all episodes except for the environment.

It's an interesting show which show the viewers on the floral and fauna found and some ways to get the best out of them. Bear also taught you how to look out for signs of dangers, various method of starting fire and building shelters.Some of the more important lessons taught are, throwing rocks into an empty cave to check for animals, elephant dung can hydrate your body at the last resort, use smoke to calms the bees and obtain honey.

He is not always successful which add realism to the show but of course, there are always criticism on him that he had additional help and some things are concealed from the viewers but still important and essential survivals skills are being show and it might save your life one day. Who really care if it's all fake?

Here's a link to his Blog: http://beargrylls.blogspot.com/

State of fear

2008-01-26T21:10:00.000+08:00

This is a 2004 novel by Michael Crichton.

Compared to his past novels, I actually found it quite hard to get myself into the story. It begin with a series of scenes from different locations and it's get really confusing because readers will not know what's the story about until they finally pieced together at the end. From Paris to The depths of the jungle in Malaysia and then to London and Japan, each scenes seemed unconnected from each other. It's only when the story reached it's middle portion, that readers will have some idea what was going on.

State of Fear is techno-thriller about Eco-terrorist. An environmental organisation is trying to garner more funds to support its clause and had gone to extreme ends to as collaborating with an terrorist group to manipulate the climate and cause "natural" disasters so as to make it look like the world is in serious dire states and need quick remedies soon.

A young lawyer and the rich patron for the organisation are the heroes in this novel and with a pair of FBI agents, they tried to halt their efforts. There are two major parts of the story where I considered more exciting than the rest. The part where they went to Antarctica to investigate and nearly got killed and the last portion where they head over to the Solomon islands in a stand-off with the terrorists and the natives.

This novel is rather unusual from the rest of his novel where in which the entire novel is peppered with citations from real papers and journals in the field of climate science. It had been given it's fair share of criticism from this scientists over the misleading information and the misuse of their information.Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton had actually scolded him for views that "muddy the issues around sound science"

Overall I think this novel is quite average and thought-provoking in some sense

FAIRPRICE FINE BLEND INST COFFEE

2008-01-26T21:01:00.000+08:00

This is quite good coffee from NTUC fairprice.
I was a bit surprised by the taste of this brand cause I never expect it to be that good.

It had the usual nice coffee aroma but the taste is smoother and richer than some other brands. It had the retro feeling too, a taste of the coffee from old coffee shops in the eighties.

The big advantage of it all is that this brand is cheaper than your usual coffee's big names. For the same great taste, it's definitely worth the buy

Tao's

2007-12-09T10:41:00.000+08:00

This restaurant is located at the basement of Paradiz centre.

It's a whole new dining experience if you have never been to the place. The first thing and perhaps the most attracting factor of the restaurant is the excellent customer service they provided. The staff are unbelievable friendly. Every now and then, They will pop over and ask for your needs and if you are satisfied with their service and the food they provided. As each dish is being served, the serving staff will provide a little commentary on the food. It may be a little disturbing for people who like their meals in a peace and quiet environment but nevertheless, it's quite refreshing to have friendly staff who pop over to have a little chat with you. They treat their customers like family and one can easily felt the warm and friendly atmosphere at the first step into the place.

Environment aside, let's get to the main focus on food. The menu is planned in such a way that you choose each dish from the different categories. They have starter, salads,soup,main entrees,desserts and beverages and for dinner they throw in the grilled mushroom and mango sorbet.

The starter: bacon & mushroom gratin. This is one unique starter that is worth trying. The mushroom gratin was served up on a tin plate place on top of a ceramic tile. It's was piping hot and the slightly toasted bread are a great companion to the mushroom gratin. Spreading or dipping them with the mushroom gratin bring a rich favour to your mouth. The taste is just right and it really enhance your appetite. Not to mention, the restaurant is quite generous with the toasted bread, often needing 3 slices to empty the mushroom gratin served.

The salad: a few choices are available. The curry yogurt prawn salad is a must-try. The curry yogurt had a slight hint of the usual curry we had and the prawns they used were very fresh. The only downside is the small portion: 3 small prawns.

The soup:fish soup,cream of mushroom,cream of pumpkin and sharkfin melon herbal soup. The most unique of them all is the fish soup, even though it had the most common name. The fish soup is served in a teapot and there's a small cup available where you pour the soup into from the teapot. You drink the soup as though you are drinking wine. The fish soup is refreshing with a few slices of fish inside the teapot which would have to be taken out using a fork. The sharkfin melon herbal soup is quite misleading, cause there's no sharkfin in it. Sharkfin melon should be read as one. It's basically a sharkfin shaped melon served with some common Chinese herbs like ginseng and red dates. Other than the misleading name, this soup is also quite cooling with a slight hint of ginseng favour.

The grilled mushroom: This dish will always be served, one of those dishes that cannot be chosen caused there's no alternative. For mushroom lovers, this is highly recommended. The mushroom is grilled to perfection and the sauce is rather sweet that covers the slight bitter taste of the mushroom.

The mango sorbet. According to the staff, this is to help rinse all the taste in the mouth to prepare one for the main course. It's quite sweet and cooling, served in a small glass.

The main entrees: tao's oven roasted steak, marinated lamb cutlet, stew beef with rice (Japanese style),grilled snapper with Japanese sauce, slow cooked pork back ribs, baby lobster pasta in white wine sauce,tao's grilled chicken,baked Atlantic flounder with cheese. The tao's oven roasted steak has with a few choices of 30 to 70 % rare. The steak is quite thick but in smaller sizes than usual one and served with mashed sweet potato ( not the usual mashed potato) The snapper is very fresh and together with the sweet teriyaki sauce, it's just melt in your mouth. The ribs have the biggest portion of them all and looks and taste very good.

The dessert: creme brulee was highly recommended by the staff , otherwise there's still choices of sesame pudding yangsheng (养生）poached pear green tea or yam ice-cream, home-made chocolate mousse. All equally rich in favour.

The beverages: Their iced tea is another must try. They are super cooling and refreshing, especially after a meal. If not, the usual stuff of coffee, tea and juices are available.

The price is on the steep side. Cost about $28.80++ for dinner and would easily adds up to about $50 after all the cost had been added

Overall, the restaurant is highly recommended. A whole new style of dinning and excellent food.

Orient Ocean Restuarant

2007-12-04T10:45:00.000+08:00

Located at Miramar Hotel. This restaurant offers Chinese Dim Sum buffets at lunch and dinner time.

The usual dim sum fare were all available. The food is nice and tasty, always steaming hot when they arrived at the tables. There's a piece of paper with the names of the dim sum available in the restaurant and you simply just put down the quantity of the dim sum you want by the names and pass it to the serving staff.

Some recommended Dim-sum are: Phoenix feet, the chicken herbal soups, the crystal dumplings and their desserts: watermelon sago.

The prices are relatively cheap. Cost about $15 per person after all the costs had been added.

Highly recommended for people with huge appetite and looking for value for money cuisine.

Singapore VS Vietnam

2007-12-04T10:05:00.000+08:00

Singapore U23 football team caused an upset against the tournament favourites Vietnam U23 in the 24th SEA Games on Monday.

The Vietnam team went into the group stages in the Olympic qualifiers (Asian Zone). The only Southeast Asian team to do so and in that tournament they narrowly lose to Japan Olympic Squad by 1-0.

Having trashed Malaysia U23 on Saturday, their confidence level must be sky high. Yet they were brought down to earth by a unified Singapore team whose 0-0 draw against Laos on Saturday had nearly put them out of contention.

The Singapore team changed formation. Coach Raddy dropped the ineffective Agu Casmir and in come the defensive midfielder Isa Halim to beef up the defence in face of the Vietnam's onslaught.

That onslaught never came and the Vietnam team went into a slumber in the first half. Instead, it was the Singapore team that were 3-0 up by half time. Thanks to horrendous defending by Vietnam and a Shahril Ishak's sweet blast just before half time. The only glitch in the first half is Isa Halim's double yellow cards which send him off for early showers. The referee was inconsistent on several occasions. He awarded yellow cards on some illegal tackles and miss out on similar ones later on.

The Vietnam team regrouped after half-time. The feared attack of the Vietnamese began to pound attacks after attacks on the Singapore's goalmouth. The Singapore team played well defensively, although at times seem vulnerable by some quick movements of the Vietnamese players. Nevertheless, The Vietnamese team finally break the deadlock through PT Binh.

Hassan Sunny, the Singaporean goalkeeper was kept even busy by the Vietnam team after that goal. But he respond tremendously, saving at the feet and spreading himself very big on one on one situations. He was alert at all times and even contributed to the counter-attack tactics with his power kicks from his box.

The game gets more interesting when Vietnam had a player send off for elbowing a Singaporean and the most puzzled decision came when the referee awarded the Vietnam side a late penalty even though the replays show it's a situation of ball to hand,an unintentional handball which in that case was not the defining situation that would cause the Vietnam side a goal. In most cases, referee will ignore the situation. Furthermore, the Vietnam side never called for it.

As always, the Vietnam side converted and this turn out to be the last kick of the game.

Singapore will next faced Malaysia on Saturday while Vietnam took on Laos.

The curious incident of the dog in the night time

2007-12-01T10:53:00.000+08:00

The curious incident of the dog in the night time is a strange title for a book. For one thing, the title seem a bit too long and the incident was not the main focus of the story. Rather it's a starting point for the book where events of the story are born out of this incident.

The book took the perspective of an autistic fifteen years old, Christopher. Christopher's world is very logical and things like love and human interaction had little meanings to him. He lived on patterns and rules he made himself, not caring about the world as he went on achieving his goal to score an A in the A'levels Mathematics.

Christopher's curiosity took him to found out that his neighbour's dog had died. What happen afterward began a trail to uncover the truth about the death of the dog. Yet, interestingly, he uncovered more about his family instead.

Throughout the book, Christopher shared with us his thoughts and thinking. The author, Mark Haddon seem to understand the minds of the autistic. While many people cannot comprehend the strange actions of those who are autistic, he is able to tell us how their thinking was mapped out in their minds.

It's a moving book and the story unfold in a nice way that makes readers unwilling to put the book away once they started reading it.

Woeful Man U!

2007-11-25T10:34:00.000+08:00

Man U just lost to Bolton yesterday.

It's was bad. Why did old Fergie leave out Ronaldo when he was left with injury-prone Saha, (travel-round-the-world-and-I'm-tired) Tevez, and (I'm-still-young-blame-others) Nani as their strike force.

Little doubts they cant scored with such little fire power up front and they are missing ever reliable Vidic at the back, that make things worse. For his replacement, Gerard Pique missed his header and up goes Anelka to blast past VDS.

Old Fergie still got the cheek to blame the man in black and got ousted to the stands at half time. Maybe that's his idea of shifting the blame. He always like to blow up certain things to cover for his mistake and now his idea of not showing respect to the Bolton team (by leaving Ronaldo out) seem not to be the major impact.

As the Chinese sayings goes "Arrogant army will meet defeat" , Old Fergie with all his experience can forget this simple theory. He need a refresher course on tactics and strategies.

Now that Arsenal had gone 3 points ahead with 1 game in hand, it's look like Man U had to play catch-up during the Christmas period. The depth of the squad must be strengthened, at least to Arsenal standards

Bushells Coffee

2007-11-24T23:08:00.000+08:00

Anyone had drank this coffee before? It's not that popular but it taste super nice.

It's an Australian Brand and most NTUC supermarkets Singapore should have this in stock.
So probably this can be easily found.

About the taste: Well, it had that slight chocolate favour that make it quite distinct from other coffee and it does not had that rich coffee smell lingering in your mouth after drinking it.

The powder is brown in colour and very fine. It's probably like your talcum powder that you use after bathing only that's brown in colour. That's how fine it is.

Some recipe from their official website:http://www.bushellscoffee.com.au/

Mocha Ice Latte
Ingredient List
30ml White Rum
30ml Chocolate Liqueur
150ml coffee ice cream
1 tbls shaved sweet chocolate
1 tbls Bushells Coffee & Chicory Essence

Directions
Combine all ingredients (except chocolate shavings) into blender and blend at a low speed for a short length of time. Pour into a chilled champagne flute, garnish with chocolate shavings and serve. You deserve it!

Russian Summer
Ingredient List
60ml vodka
30ml Bushells Coffee & Chicory Essence
30ml Butterscotch Schnapps
30ml Coffee LiqueurCream

Directions
Add all ingredients into a cocktail shake. Shake and pour over ice into a highball glass. Sure to give you that summer buzz!

Cost about $5.80 From major Supermarkets in Singapore.

England Football Team!

2007-11-24T20:26:00.000+08:00

England Football team just got kicked out of the Euro2008 qualifier.

Unbelievable! Consider the fact that they had one of the best domestic league in the world. The national team can actually fail to qualify for the most prestigious tournament in the continent.

The coach, Steve McClaren had to be blamed largely for their pathetic state. He lacked the wit and tactical know-how to succeed at the international stage and relied too much on his players’ reputation. He is afraid of making bold decisions and doing what is right. He didn’t come with a big reputation before taking the England’s hot seat, and now his reputation will surely take another huge dent.

Steve McClaren struggle to find the correct formation to fit all his superstars. It’s almost like he tried to pacify all his players’ needs and wants. It does make him seem like a kit-man trying to serve all the players together.

Every department in the team all seem to go haywire. From his coaching staff to the goalkeeper and right up to the strikers.

He make a mistake by having Terry Venables, the former England manger as his assistant. Terry Venables is a man with a much bigger reputation than he was and it sure caused some of his power over the team to be diminished.

The Goalkeeper problem was probable the single most important factor on England’s failure. Paul Robinson the previous number one was made to sit out after making several mistakes in the previous qualifiers but he actually had made improvements over these couple weeks . Beside, He had the experience! What a crazy stunt to pull to put Scot Carson, who just earned his first cap during the friendly against Austria as the Goalkeeper for the most important match of the qualifying campaign.

The defenders are not to excused from the blame as well. Yes, you might argued that McClaren actually missed all his first choice defenders but still he can make full use of the players available. His selection was totally wrong. Why did he put Joleon Lescott as centre-back when he was playing as left-back in Everton. While Micah Richards was Man. City’s centre-back was made to play as rightback. The obvious choice would had been: Right-Wes Brown, Center-Sol Campbell and Micah Richards, Left-Joleon Lescott.

The midfield department was quite alright but it could be better if Beckham had start. His crosses could have been crucial in the first half. While Shaun Wright-Phillips offered more penetration, his inclusion in the 2nd half would have been useful when the Croatia’s full back had used up most of his energy. And in this crucial match it’s always important to get the first goal. If Beckham had started, he might just be able to provide the cross for Crouch to score just as he did in the 2nd half in the match. That probably will calmed everybody nerves, especially Scot Carson the goalkeeper.

The strike force is really doom when he made the selection. Not that Peter Crouch was bad, but McClaren would probably not have a selection headache had he not play Michael Owen in the friendly. Why waste an established players over a meaningless friendly? Choosing Darren Bent was also not working either, as he is still trying to find the form he had when he was in Charlton.

All that spelled disaster and probably had a say in his sacking. It’s not just that one match, He had the whole 18 months to get things right, yet at the end of it he still can get the wrong combinations that caused their downfall!