SINGAPORE: Long Beach Seafood Restaurant

East Coast Seafood Centre,
1202 East Coast Parkway

Last but not least of the Singaporean posts – this was our dinner at Long Beach with the family (look…you can see Singapore CBD in the background!).

The East Coast Seafood Centre is obviously a popular spot for locals. Back in the 50′s, Madam Cher Yam Tian ran a hawker stall right on the beach, cooking up live crabs in a zesty chilli-infused sauce, the first version of the famous Singapore chilli crab. Basically, this is what we came  for.  And yes, we conquered.

First up we started with a bowl of drunken prawns – a flavoursome soup infused with dried scallops, herbs, ginger, garlic, sugar and chinese rice wine.  The delicately poached King prawns were delectably tender.

You may recognise this prawn – it occassionally pops up in the tummyrumbles header photo.

Then it was the star of the show – Singapore chilli crab.  The tangy, tomatoy, chilli, eggy sauce was absolutely to die for, and the wonderful Sri Lankan crabs were generously meaty.

Of course you need something to sop up that wonderful gravy, such as mantou, a sweetish, in this instance, baked bread dough.

Another speciality of Long Beach is their black pepper crab, stirfried with a mouth tingling paste of cracked black pepper and butter.  Ooh…I just salivatied as I typed that!

The lovely Miss Intercontinental Kimberley Anne Byers professes that Long Beach is the creator of the original black pepper crab in Singapore.  Well then…there ya go.  Her crowned glory adorns the the front of the wet towelette pack, which is very much needed
when cracking into those crab shells to release all that sweet meat. 

Then steamed grouper – not the best looking fish, but very tasty in a delicate light soy, ginger and coriander dressing.

Pippies, served up once again in a tomatoy, chilli type sauce.

Lacquer roast chicken – with skin so crisp and sweet, and meat so juicy and tender.  This one actually surprised me by how good it was.

Youtiao, or Chinese doughnut, stuffed with fish paste, coated in crushed sesame seeds, and deep fried. Mmm…tasty!

We finished with this rockmelon soupy thing which bubbled with a few little flakes of dried ice.  It was a little too dark by this stage to take a good photo, but it was a lovely palate cleansing way to end this fabulous meal.