* The Palm Beach Seafood Giveaway is now closed. The winners are Daniel (29), Chloe (18), HahazZ (57), Vivian (37). Thank you for participating, better luck next time! *

“My all time favorite is chili crab with deep-fried mantou, what’s yours?” I asked on twitter.

Everyone replied enthusiastically, the popular choices are pepper crab, chili crab, crab bee hoon, salted egg yoke crab and butter crab. Even though I just had chili crab and double baked cheese crab at Palm Beach Seafood recently, I find myself craving for  the thick, sweet-and-spicy gravy of the chili crab, with deep fried mantou of course.

While we are at the topic of crab, I realize people like to debate on which restaurant has the best crab in Singapore. Like what I always say: whichever place you like – has the best crab!

HOW TO ENTER THE PALM BEACH SEAFOOD CRAB GIVEAWAY

I totally understand how it feels to be on your end, looking at all the photos and yet cannot get to taste the food; so I’m happy to announce that Palm Beach Seafood has kindly agreed to giveaway $50 vouchers (no minimum spending required) to 4 lucky readers. If you want a chance to win, here is what to do:

1. Leave a comment on this post

Tell us what’s your favorite crab and why. I’m asking for your favorite style of cooking for the crab, it does not have to be from a particular restaurant. Just tell me what style do you like, and if you happen to like an exotic way of cooking crabs which can be anything for example, Double Baked Cheese Crab, let us know! (***updated***)

And ONE entry per person, you are encouraged to get your friends to join the contest but please play fair and do not post multiple comments under different names.

2. Use a valid & contactable email

Please use a valid & contactable email when you post the comment. I will email the winners shortly after the contest ended, remember to check your email on Monday.

3. And the Four lucky Winners . . .

The four lucky winners will be decided by a highly sophisticated method, and I reserve the right to re-pick if there’s any discrepancy or foul-play involved. I know there are folks from the States, Malaysia, Australia, and other countries reading my blog, but unfortunately this contest is only open to those currently residing in Singapore. But all of you are welcome to share your thoughts too!

The closing date for this giveaway is Sunday 28th of Feb 2359 hrs, and so you have exactly forty eight hours before it ends.

I hope you enjoy the little gift I have for everyone!

Seng Kee Black Herbal Chicken Soup is located just opposite Kembangan MRT station. I happened to chance upon this zi-char restaurant because my friends had cravings for their mee-sua.

So another venture into the east side of Singapore for LIC, as i stay in the west and the east is so far away. But there are simple too much good food in the area, so you will be seeing more food from the east in the future!

The zi-char store has all of its seat on the street, its rather cooling but when bad weather comes then it will be very difficult as i don’t think there are much shelter from rain.

The store has quite a few selections of fish available for customers to choose, and with the method of cooking the fish. But we didn’t have any fish because we ordered crab already.

Mee Sua ($3.50)

The rendition of Mee sua at Seng Kee comes in a stronger flavour than the normal ones, with ingredients like pig kidneys, mushroom in it. The mee sua is smooth and silky to the mouth.

We had 5 bowls for each of us, and i saw most tables ordering this dish and at $3.50 its definitely worth a try.

Egg Omelette ($8)

$8 for an egg omelette dish at a zi-char store might be a tad too expensive, if I’m not wrong egg dishes usually are about 6 bucks? Nevertheless, the egg omelette is quite good and we finish it very fast.

Crab Bee Hoon ($38)

The crab bee hoon is usually done in soup, but here at Seng Kee they do it “dry”. We were quite shocked at the size of the crab when it came because usually crabs at zi-char stores goes in the region of $30 for 1kg?

But the one that we had is $38, and the small crab that we had is definitely not 1kg. I felt ripped off as the price tag is certainly too expensive for the size of the crab.

The bee hoon is not bad though, as it absorbs all the essence of the crab and all the juicy wet part is at the bottom of the bee hoon.

Total bill including drinks for 5 person comes up to $76.80. At initial look, for a zi-char store and considering we had 5 person, its definitely not expensive. But, looking at the amount of food that we had, the crab bee hoon was definitely over-priced.

I’m not too sure about their other dishes as i have not tried them and it will not be fair to judge base on this experience. But their mee sua is worth a try, do give their crab bee hoon a miss.

Seng Kee Black Herbal Chicken Soup
467 Changi Road
Tel: 9001 4000

Joe’s kitchen may look ordinary on the outside, or even you might totally missed it when you passed by the place at its location at Bukit Merah, just directly opposite Alexander Hospital. I did. Having passed by the area a few times, i didn’t know there was this hidden gem offering authentic thai food experience in our midst of our heartland.

I was given this opportunity for the wonderful Makan experience organized by Leslie of ieatishootipost fame. A total of 47 food punters joined us on this occasion. Some of which were ieat’s old makan kakis, while many like me were first-timers joining ieat on his makan session.

The interior of the place was simple, the place wasn’t very big but it managed to squeeze all 47 of us inside the place. I wondered how all of us managed to eat inside that night. Miracle!

The event was supposed to start at 7pm, i got there around 645pm and there were people there already. Damien was the co-organizer for the outing. Jiawei and Shanice were the earliest there if i’m not wrong, i seated in the same table with them. Also on the same table as me were liverpool, eastcoastlife & hubby, yanti & friend. All of us had a wonderful time chatting taking photos, and savouring the food.

The crowd starts to come in and by around 740pm or thereabouts almost everyone arrived. The menu was to be 14 dishes including some starters, mains, and desserts. All the dishes came in sampling tasting size so that we can have a bit of everything. The female boss, Jamie (chef Joe’s wife) is friendly and attended to us warmly.

Crispy rice cake

The Kao Dang Na Dang help to kick-start our makan session. Not commonly found in Singapore. the cripsy rice cake, was supposed to go together with the peanut sauce. I didn’t quite enjoy this appetizer as i found it to be way too dry for my liking.

Prawn Cakes

The Thot Man Goong or Prawn Cakes was nice to eat, it was crispy and the prawn taste is just right.

Green Papaya Salad

The Som Tum or Green Papaya Salad is one the appetizer dish that you will not be surprised to find in a Thai restaurant. No doubt about it, th salad is packed with everything. The first taste of it, refreshing. The initial impression was its not as spicy as i thought. But the magical part of it was the longer it gets, the spicier it became. A few more bites and the mango salad got to its “full level”

As most of us waited quite long for everyone to turn up before the dishes to serve, by the time the mango salad came out everybody were famished. We literally “attacked” the salad, and it was until ieat told us to hold our horses, that the salad was supposed to eat together with the sticky rice and chicken which were not out yet then we realized that.

Gai Yang (Grilled Chicken)

The grilled chicken was quite good to be honest, everyone got a bite of it. Placing the papaya salad and the chicken onto the sticky rice, the taste is very different from eating the three dishes separately.

Grilled Pork Collar

This was no doubt for me, the star of the show! The Khaw Mu Yang, or grilled pork collar was somewhat similar to our Chinese char siew, albeit Thai style. Many of the kakis found it to be good too! Its also commonly eaten together with the sticky rice and papaya salad. But its so good that we eat it on its own.

Tom Yum soup with fried fish

In my personal opinion, how good a Thai restaurant is can be based on the test of their Tom Yum soup. Unquestionably. Tom Yum soup is the first thing that most people will think of when they think of Thai food. Well i say the Tom Yum soup by Chef Joe should passed with flying colours. The soup is really spicy, at least from my perspective. Dipping the crispy fried fish into the soup was quite a experience for me.

Green curry beef

The beef was tender, and immersed with the essence of the green curry.

Deep fried Grouper with Thai chili

The Thai chili was excellent here, real hot and a little sweet spicy. But i couldn’t help drinking more water so as to have a few more mouthful of the chili with the deep fried grouper.

Red Curry Roasted Duck

Having seen the green curry earlier, my first thought was red curry after green? This was followed by roasted duck curry? I have never heard of roasted duck curry, let alone tasting it. But this dish was really not bad, i’m not sure how the roasted duck came about, whether Chef Joe roasted the duck, or he brought it from elsewhere and cook it with the red curry, but nevertheless its good.

And to our astonishment, there were grapes, yes grapes inside the curry! Talk about surprise, first roasted duck in curry, then grapes?

Basil leave minced pork

I was never a fan of minced pork in the first place, n’uff said!

Claypot Crab Vermicelli with fatty pork

Although the claypot crab was suppose to be the highlight here, but we got into eating the vermicelli instead. After cooking, the essence of the crab and fatty pork all went into the vermicelli, that alone should suffice for eating the vermicelli.

Poom Fy Dang – Kang Kong Thai style

Like all the other dishes in Joe’s Kitchen, the first taste was not very spicy, but the second bite was real hot. The Kang Kong got hotter with each bite, i suggested just swallow the veggies!

Mango Stick rice

To round off our authentic Thai food experience, we had Mango sticky rice, the mango was real sweet!

Tapioca with Coconut milk

I didn’t like tapioca, so this dish was not to my taste bud

Total Bill was $1646 for 47 people, $35 per head for the Authentic Thai food experience at Chef Joe’s place. I love going to Makan outings with big groups because we can get to know more people. Think Yebber Party @ MINT where there were about 50 people, the Social Media Breakfast with around 40 odds people, and now this ieat makan outing with 47 people.

Credits to Leslie (ieat) and Damien whom organized this makan session for everyone to get together and enjoyed food. I looked forward to the many more outings organized by them, to meet more people and eat more food!

The beauty of food, it can bring everyone from all ages, different backgrounds together, for one common purpose that is to savour all the good food. How often do you see strangers getting together and seating down for a meal? I’m going to organised LIC food event soon, do watch out for the post!

Joe’s Kitchen
Blk 125 Bukit Merah Lane 1 #01-182
(Opp Alexander Hospital)
Tel: 6270 8484

” Authentic Thai Food experience, in the midst of our heartland “

Seafood Station, okay lets go straight to the point, the food is rather good but i wont go back again. Why? Poor service, price rather expensive relative to its small servings. But the main reason is the poor service which makes me think twice about going back. Anyway, when we reach the place at 730pm, the inside was full so we had to make do with the outer area. I did make a reservation prior going, but it was for 3 person, aunty geraldine family join us last min. The outside area had a lot insects flying around, so we was saying even if the insect drop into our food we also won’t know. O well, we saw a lot celebrity photos with the boss, so we thought the place must be quite good, but the dinner end up in a way we did not expect. Clearly fame does not shows anything.

Pepper crab was suppose to be Seafood Station Signature dish, but to our disappointment, the crab here was totally in a different league as compared to NoSignBoard or Jumbo, nowhere the standards to the other two. The meat was not firm, when we complain to the manager, he did show his goodwill by compensating us with abalone (the relative cousin not the real one) Any guesses how much this crab cost? A whooping $98! They claimed the crab was 2.8kg, but seriously there are only two crab, and we felt then that the crab was quite small and here they are telling us the crab was big? Come on man. For anyone who will like to try the true-blue singapore pepper crab, just go to NoSignBoard or Jumbo.

Deep Fried Baby Sotong ($8), although tried this dish a few times at different place, but can’t really tell the difference, all taste about the same

Golden Vegetables ($10)

Golden Crab Meat Fried Rice ($15 for Medium) This fried rice is good, i would say it is one of the better fried rice that i have tasted so far, but at $15 for the small servings i would think twice about ordering it again. It is just normal fried rice with a few slices of crab meal and voila a premium price is charged.

Fried Seafood Mee Swa ($12 pictures removed*) this one is also quite good, but you-know-what? Due to the poor service which the manager cited as mix-up in the kitchen, we waited one hour plus for this dish to appear. By the time the Mee Swa came, we were already full with anger. Need i say more?

Craypot Crab Bee Hoon ($31.50) We ordered this as a last add-on, so it came rather late also, i think compared to the pepper crab, the price for this crab is reasonable. The soup for the Bee Hoon was not too bad. But we were too piss off to really enjoy this dish.

All in all, i confirm guarantee plus chop that i will not be going back for Seafood, if someone wants to treat me there i will have to consider. The food can be not too bad, but with the service that i got, i wont consider going back. When we ask the manager why our food hasn’t arrive, he took the bill and ask us which one hasn’t arrive. I mean as a manager shouldn’t you all know which dishes have arrive and which have not? This is a serious sign of poor service. Although one of the manager tried to show his goodwill by giving us the fake abalone, the other manager was nonchalant about us, when we asked about the long delay in food served, he just went to check without really giving us a proper explanation. Come on, being a restaurant, the least you can do is to make sure the dishes arrive promptly, saturday for restaurants are considered peak periods, can’t they handle their peak period properly? Total damage was $ 220.10 for 6 person, 10% goes to service charge when they did not provide us with any service. Heed my advice, avoid this place, steer clear of it!

887 East Coast Road 459090

Tel: 6447 8885

Have you Blurb?