Latest news with #Canvas
The Star
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Star
Restaurant Shu revisits Chinese diaspora cuisine in brand new ways
When Wong Chin Hua first opened Restaurant Shu in Kuala Lumpur over a year ago, he was determined to showcase the Chinese diaspora cuisine so peculiar and precious to people of Chinese descent scattered all over the world. A year later, the intrepid chef finally feels like he has found his groove in terms of rediscovering his heritage in brand new ways. Chin, as he is better known, is a Malaysian who grew up in Singapore, where his parents worked. He went on to pursue his passion for culinary arts by working in top restaurants around Singapore like Tippling Club, as well as international eateries like the one Michelin-starred Canvas in Bangkok, Thailand, as well as Ensue by Christopher Kostow in Shenzhen, China. Ironically, the first time this Malaysian actually lived in his homeland was when the Covid-19 pandemic struck. The dissonance of belonging and yet not belonging somewhere, and the compelling narrative of his own life trajectory is what drives his cuisine. It taps into heritage, roots, migration and how cuisine can evoke both a sense of identity and conversely, be completely borderless. 'As someone who grew up as a third culture kid, and who has never really been home anywhere, identity is a very curious thing, right? I've never felt Singaporean, or even Malaysian because I didn't grow up here. Identity to me was ... 'I'm Chinese'. That was the one thing I could hold on to. 'Living in China and realising I knew nothing about my own culture ... this was my inspiration to not cook Chinese dishes but to cook instead, without identity. 'I looked at certain things which I thought really screamed 'Chinese'. But I didn't want to cook Chinese food. I just wanted my dishes to have that little sense of Chinese-ness,' he says. Chin's menu takes diners on a journey through the Chinese diaspora. — Photos: Restaurant Shu KL/Instagram With his most recent menu, Chin says these are the sort of stories he is trying to tell through food. 'When we settled on it, I was like, 'Huh, yeah, this is what I was trying to do'. I just didn't have the words to express it. And because I couldn't express it, I couldn't cook it. But now, I hope I do,' he says. The restaurant only serves tasting menus. The current one, called Identity, is priced at RM520++ per person and takes diners on a wondrous journey of discovery through meals that evoke a sense of familiarity while infusing ambitious new ideas and concepts into each meal. Chin works with just one other person in the kitchen to construct and develop the menu, and yet everything is made almost entirely from scratch, which tells you volumes about both his work ethic and ambition. Highlights from the menu include the Pomfret, Salted Plum, which is a play on Teochew-style steamed fish. Here, the fish is aged to increase its glutamic acid and give it a richer sense of umami. A riff on Teochew steamed fish, the aged pomfret is packed with flavour. Accoutrements like salted plum, ginger and mushrooms adorn the fish while a sauce fashioned out of fish bones is poured over it. Overall, the dish has those tangy, acerbic notes so reminiscent of Teochew-style steamed fish but also a sharper, almost smokier countenance from the ageing. It's a refreshing take on a classic that still pays respect to traditional ingredients and components. A course simply named Rice is actually not really rice, but bread fashioned out of it! 'The bread is something personal to me, because it is something I have been working on for eight years,' says Chin. The bread course showcases the east Asian affection for rice by using rice as a leavening agent. Here, jasmine rice is used as a leavening agent to make the bread, which is paired with gan lan cai butter accentuated with a pork fat emulsion. Gan lan cai is a traditional preserved vegetable dish typically made by curing olives and mustard greens in oil, salt and soy sauce. In this iteration, the bread is very memorable – a hardy crust gives way to a tender, airy chew while the butter is an unctuous, slightly vegetal offering with an animalistic richness running through its veins. A crowd favourite is the simply-named Yellow Wine, which highlights the beauty of Shaoxing wine, in this case, a drinking quality one transformed into a buttery liquid, which courses through the arteries and veins of the seafood that swims alongside it. This dish is a seductive mistress whose bewitching qualities will endear itself to you the minute your spoon lands on the homemade Shaoxing wine butter, which screams 'Oriental opulence' from the very first mouthful. The hands-down winner of the menu is the Shaoxing wine course, which will leave you feeling drunk with joy. If you're lucky, you might just get something off-the-the menu like the roast duck instead of the Hao You Beef or Ginger Scallion Lobster offered as part of the RM120++ supplement option. The duck is a burnished beauty with a waxy, golden-brown skin that segues to juicy, succulent meat within. It's a dish that highlights the natural attributes of this avian sensation without too many additional elements getting in the way. End your meal on a sweet note with the Dumplings, Smoked Coconut, Coconut Cashew Ice Cream. The rice dumplings here are meant to represent QQ, which is a term used in Taiwanese to describe food like fish balls or tapioca pearls (boba) that represent springiness and chewiness. This is complemented by a smoked coconut sauce and coconut cashew ice cream. As a whole, the dish has tropical nuances that pay homage to the strong coconut overtures enjoyed by many South-East Asians. The Chinese element here is in the rice dumpling, which is chewy and bouncy to the touch. It's a very pleasant denouement to the meal that will remind many Malaysian diners of home and hearth. Ultimately, Chin says he has done a lot of growing up since opening Shu and the food he serves now is telling of his odyssey of self-reflection and realisation. 'This is a direction that I feel very comfortable with,' he concludes. Restaurant Shu KL Level 8, Annexed Block, Menara IMC Jalan Sultan Ismail 50250 Kuala Lumpur Tel: 011-2769 6838 Open Tuesday to Saturday: 6pm to 11pm
Sydney Morning Herald
21-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- Sydney Morning Herald
$800 a week for that? The battle for better apartment design
I've always rejected one-bedroom apartment listings that show bed, kitchenette and toilet in tight proximity, but I've lived in plenty of apartments. And while I prefer a detached house, I know that if I ever want to buy a home in Brisbane, I'll probably have to downsize my ideas. It's a reality that Brisbane is grappling with broadly. We've held on to the Australian ideal of a home with a backyard for longer than Sydney and Melbourne, but as our population grows, we have little choice but to embrace mixed density. Census data from 2021 shows 60.2 per cent of all dwellings in the City of Brisbane were separate houses. High density accounted for 21.4 per cent of dwellings, and medium density for 17.8 per cent. The latter figures will nearly certainly grow after the next census in 2026. The question then becomes: what makes a well-designed apartment? The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute says good apartments have the same qualities as well-designed homes, and they're comfortable places to occupy. Social enterprise organisation Cities People Love looked at how apartment design policies affect design quality and, in turn, the health and wellbeing of apartment dwellers. Their study measured the implementation of 96 design requirements that could plausibly affect health, from policies in NSW, Western Australia and Victoria, and across 172 buildings in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne. They found residents who felt more positive or satisfied with the design of their apartment had higher mental wellbeing, 'with the strongest evidence for natural ventilation, summer-time thermal comfort, indoor space and layout, and communal space quality in the apartment building'. Loading While I wonder how the 'unsellable' Melbourne developments might fair against the study's metrics, plenty of Brisbane proposals come to mind. Last year, billionaire developer Harry Triguboff unveiled plans to build twin towers on Alice Street overlooking the city's botanic gardens, adding more than 1000 units to Brisbane's CBD. Replies to this masthead's story conveyed the cynicism felt towards this style of apartment living. 'Very bad feng shui living in one of those places,' one reader commented. Another replied: 'Nothing says welcome like a thousand overpriced concrete chook boxes.' Of course, Meriton's twin towers sit on the more extreme end of density. An 'apartment' could also be a unit in a six-pack, like the blocks that dominate New Farm. A few weeks ago, I did a walk-through of Canvas, a luxury three-storey apartment building in Bulimba designed by architecture practice Bureau Proberts. They turned the site of two old warehouses on a 1600-square-metre block into 21 apartments, or – as Bureau creative director Liam Proberts describes it – 'a 21-pack'. Canvas mimics the advantageous qualities of a detached home and builds on the philosophy that good design, implemented by architects and developers, can make apartment living more desirable. Loading 'These were specifically designed for people to live in, rather than what often becomes a rental or investment property,' Proberts says. 'To do that, you need to have a sense of place and identity ... because you want to feel at home. 'We were taking back the qualities of Queensland living, where people are used to a backyard, and translating it into apartment living. It's a home alternative.' A three-bedroom Canvas unit sold last year for $2.2 million, having previously sold for $1.9 million in 2022.
The Age
21-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Age
$800 a week for that? The battle for better apartment design
I've always rejected one-bedroom apartment listings that show bed, kitchenette and toilet in tight proximity, but I've lived in plenty of apartments. And while I prefer a detached house, I know that if I ever want to buy a home in Brisbane, I'll probably have to downsize my ideas. It's a reality that Brisbane is grappling with broadly. We've held on to the Australian ideal of a home with a backyard for longer than Sydney and Melbourne, but as our population grows, we have little choice but to embrace mixed density. Census data from 2021 shows 60.2 per cent of all dwellings in the City of Brisbane were separate houses. High density accounted for 21.4 per cent of dwellings, and medium density for 17.8 per cent. The latter figures will nearly certainly grow after the next census in 2026. The question then becomes: what makes a well-designed apartment? The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute says good apartments have the same qualities as well-designed homes, and they're comfortable places to occupy. Social enterprise organisation Cities People Love looked at how apartment design policies affect design quality and, in turn, the health and wellbeing of apartment dwellers. Their study measured the implementation of 96 design requirements that could plausibly affect health, from policies in NSW, Western Australia and Victoria, and across 172 buildings in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne. They found residents who felt more positive or satisfied with the design of their apartment had higher mental wellbeing, 'with the strongest evidence for natural ventilation, summer-time thermal comfort, indoor space and layout, and communal space quality in the apartment building'. Loading While I wonder how the 'unsellable' Melbourne developments might fair against the study's metrics, plenty of Brisbane proposals come to mind. Last year, billionaire developer Harry Triguboff unveiled plans to build twin towers on Alice Street overlooking the city's botanic gardens, adding more than 1000 units to Brisbane's CBD. Replies to this masthead's story conveyed the cynicism felt towards this style of apartment living. 'Very bad feng shui living in one of those places,' one reader commented. Another replied: 'Nothing says welcome like a thousand overpriced concrete chook boxes.' Of course, Meriton's twin towers sit on the more extreme end of density. An 'apartment' could also be a unit in a six-pack, like the blocks that dominate New Farm. A few weeks ago, I did a walk-through of Canvas, a luxury three-storey apartment building in Bulimba designed by architecture practice Bureau Proberts. They turned the site of two old warehouses on a 1600-square-metre block into 21 apartments, or – as Bureau creative director Liam Proberts describes it – 'a 21-pack'. Canvas mimics the advantageous qualities of a detached home and builds on the philosophy that good design, implemented by architects and developers, can make apartment living more desirable. Loading 'These were specifically designed for people to live in, rather than what often becomes a rental or investment property,' Proberts says. 'To do that, you need to have a sense of place and identity ... because you want to feel at home. 'We were taking back the qualities of Queensland living, where people are used to a backyard, and translating it into apartment living. It's a home alternative.' A three-bedroom Canvas unit sold last year for $2.2 million, having previously sold for $1.9 million in 2022.
Daily Mirror
19-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
School guidance counsellor avoids jail after raping boy, 14, in his own bedroom
Kelly Ann Schutte, 36, was found to have molested a teenage boy she met as a guidance counselor at Pennridge South Middle School in Pennsylvania over the summer of 2023 A paedophile school guidance counsellor who admitted to repeatedly raping a minor teenager in his own room has avoided jail after her shock crimes came to light. Kelly Ann Schutte pleaded guilty in February to corruption of minors after she was found to have fostered an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old boy. The grooming, the unnamed pupil admitted, began in earnest at Schutte's home after the two sat together on a bus during a school trip in 2022. The two continued to meet during school hours, with the consellor calling the teen to her office, resulting in missed classes at Pennridge South Middle School in Perkasie, in Pennsylvania, the US. The Daily Mail reports that a filed affidavit later revealed that Schutte continued to contact the student even during the school holidays through apps like Canvas and Snapchat. As did their physical interactions, which court records said took place in the disgraced counsellor's car as it was parked outside a local supermarket, and at the teen's home while his family was away. Shutte was told during a court apppearance by Montgomery County Court Judge Wendy Rothstein that she "sexually molested a student" and breached trust place in her "on multiple occasions". The judge told the court: "As a guidance counselor, you were in a position of trust. You breached that trust on multiple occasions. You were supposed to offer guidance, and instead, you sexually molested a student." She pleaded guilty to having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old in February, and appeared with her husband at the hearing where she was sentenced to just seven years of probation. But is also required to register as a sex offender for 15 years, and may not have any further contact with the victim. She must also avoid any unsupervised contact with children, may never be employed as a school counselor again, will have to undergo a psychosexual evaluation, and comply with treatment recommendations. Additional charges, including insitutional sexual assault and indecent assault, were dismissed as part of a plea deal. The teen's mum delivered a heartbreaking statement to the court in which she said revelations of Schutte's grooming "jolted" her family, adding the woman's impact on her child had been "substantial". She said: "When someone, who we as a society have deemed trustworthy, breaks that trust, the ramifications are great and far-reaching. "We as a family have been jolted by this offense. The cost to our child has been substantial. Peace was stolen along with innocence and normalcy. The effects on both his reputation and daily school life are noticeable and inescapable. "No sentence can right this wrong or undo the damage that has resulted. But consequences are essential in order for justice to prevail."
Time of India
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Indian Mythology Finds New Life in Global Webtoon Fantasy
Credits: Reddit In recent years Webtoon platforms have seen a surge of fantasy comics drawing on Hindu mythology. Series like Kubera and Abide in the Wind blend Asian magic with concepts like reincarnation and karma, while independent Canvas titles explicitly rework Indian epics. South Korean creator Currygom's Kubera centers on a 16-year-old girl who survives her village's destruction and learns her fate is entwined with gods and demons. As the official synopsis explains, the pair journey through a world of 'Gods and Suras' (suras being analogues of Hindu asuras). In fact, one fan-review notes that minor characters include 'Agni, the fire god' and even 'the actual god Kubera' in human form, making the Hindu roots plain. Kubera has attracted a large international following (the Webtoon page lists over 260,000 subscribers), and its plot hinges on destiny and duty reminiscent of the Mahabharata . Another hit is Abide in the Wind (Shin Weol), a Korean webtoon about a village girl and a dragon whose journey across realms ends in sacrifice and a reset of time. Though not explicitly Hindu, it evokes Eastern cycles of rebirth and dharma: a protagonist willingly gives her life (absorbing a magic pearl) and 'resets' the world, echoing the idea of karma and reincarnation found in Indian thought. Such narratives of sacrifice, fate and cosmic order remind readers of similar themes in the Ramayana and Mahabharata , even if filtered through a fantastical dragon tale. On Webtoon's Canvas platform, new creators are freely weaving Hindu lore. Nerya: The Unblessed by Neto Rito is set in a world where being 'Blessed by the Gods means everything'. A reviewer praises its Indian touch: characters wear saris and bindis, adding 'a notable touch of difference', and one god is literally named 'Ausra' (a play on the word asura ). This infusion of myth makes Nerya feel 'incredibly unique' compared to more generic fantasy. Likewise, Astradhari (by Vishal and Ajay) is billed as a 'Hinduism pioneering fantasy web comic', promising warriors and sorcerers who bring 'the rich tapestry of Hindu mythology' to life. Even traditional tales get a digital retelling: one Canvas series titled Ramayan explicitly 'explores themes of dharma (duty), righteousness, and the triumph of good over evil', summarizing Rama and Sita's epic rescue quest. (Another Canvas comic, Radha and Krishna , directly recounts the divine lovers' story.) These series openly reference gods like Vishnu and Hanuman and adapt mythic lessons for a modern readership. Key mythic motifs recur across these stories: Gods and Asuras (Demons) – Kubera's world is built around battling devas and suras, just as Hindu epics pit devas against asuras. Blessings & Karma – Tales often hinge on divine favor. For example, Nerya's very setup is a girl striving in a land where 'being Blessed by the Gods means everything'. Characters suffer or succeed based on past deeds or godly boons, mirroring karma. Reincarnation & Rebirth – Many plots involve life-death cycles. Abide's heroine is reborn via cosmic magic, and Kubera hints that Leez's fate spans lifetimes, reflecting the transmigration of souls. Dharma (Duty) – Righteous duty guides heroes. The Ramayan Webtoon explicitly highlights 'dharma (duty)' as its theme, and characters across series make hard moral choices that feel drawn from Hindu philosophy. This blend of mythic depth and adventure is resonating globally. Fans praise the novelty: one reviewer notes that because Webtoon 'notably lacks works that are culturally different,' a series with Indian elements 'stands out' and feels unique. The infusion of elements like gods, karma and cosmic justice gives international readers fresh stories grounded in rich lore. Even mainstream platforms seem to notice: Webtoon's description of Astradhari boasts that its 'diverse cast brings to life the rich tapestry of Hindu mythology', signaling how creators and platforms are highlighting this trend. As audiences around the world embrace these fantasy webcomics, Indian-inspired epics are finding new life online. By combining anime-style visuals with Hindu cosmology and themes of karma and dharma, the creators are building bridges between cultures. The result is a new global fanbase eager to explore worlds where sari-clad warriors, dragons, and gods of fire and wealth share space – proof that ancient Indian myths have truly gone international.
