Ming Kee Live Seafood is tucked among a busy row of restaurants and eateries on Macpherson Road, and they are known for serving good and fresh seafood at affordable prices. Singapore is famous for our Chilli crabs and most people usually bring their overseas friends to popular places like No SignBoard, Palm Beach, Red House or Jumbo Seafood restaurant.
I have been putting off my visit to Ming Kee Seafood Restaurant as it is not very accessible. But my excuse came when my friends from New York were in town, and thankfully the food did not disappoint.
Many Singapore Food Blogs had written on Ming Kee Live Seafood and the Guinness Pork Ribs was highly recommended. Even though I have never had anything similar before, I must say Ming Kee’s interpretation of the Guinness Pork Ribs was excellent. It had a good proportion of fats to lean meat, and every bite was so good.
Almost every table at Ming Kee Restaurant that night went for the signature Triple Cooked Bee Hoon Crab, but we wanted to show the famous Singapore Chilli Crabs to our New York friends, so we gave that a miss.
Like always, deep fried man tou and chilli gravy are the best couple together. All my friends thought that the Chilli crabs ($58.5, 1kg/$45) were exceptionally good, but I felt otherwise, they were good but not great.
Some of the items that we had at Ming Kee were the Stir-fried bean-sprout ($8) with salted fish, and Sambal kangkong ($8). The vegetables were very well-done, and we particularly enjoyed the bean-sprout.
We were quite full by the time the Sea Grouper came ($114, 100g/$6) came to our table.
Steamed Hong Kong-Style, the whopping 1.9kg grouper was amazingly fresh, and meaty. I do feel that it is a little pricey to pay over a hundred bucks for a fish. After-all, you can get more crab and prawns for the same amount of money. However, if you are a big fan of fish, it is worthwhile to order it from Ming Kee Live Seafood.
Ming Kee Live Seafood is an excellent place for fresh seafood, and the prices are pretty reasonable. I will definitely bring my family back to try their other dishes.
Speaking of which, I need some recommendations for good Zi Char restaurants in Singapore, please leave a comment and share with us.
Singapore Food Restaurant Review
Ming kee Live Seafood
556 Macpherson Road Singapore
Tel: +65 6747 4075
// Closed during Chinese New Year from 3rd – 8th Feb 2011
love the shot of the Sea Grouper. your photos are excellent. noticed you use a D700. are you happy with that? i’m looking for a SRL camera and can’t decide between nikon or canon. maybe it doesn’t matter?
You can try sin hoi san at tiong bahru or ah orh at lower delta.
ah orh serve fantabulous teochew food.
somehow i felt that they’re a little pricey though.
Simon: I think it doesn’t really matter, do you have a brand preference? If not, just go down to a camera shop, “feel” the camera and see which one you like
Juang: yeah i used to go to Sin Hoi San and Ah Orh last time, haven’t been there for a long time. Probably will go back soon! : )
I’m not much of a crab person but even I swooned at the bee hoon crab at this spot. Really enjoyed it. Especially sitting outside on a warm night, sipping beer while NY gets slammed with snowstorm after snowstorm.
Two chefs eating place at commonwealth link! Their butter pork ribs are to.die.for, among other things.
For bee hoon crab, my friends and I still reckon nothing beats THE famous one in Geylang.
You can try Ban Tong Seafood at Clementi Ave 5 Blk 378.. Their prices are resonable and most of all the food is good…. I would simply recomend their cereal crayfish (which the crayfish is served shell-less so you would not create a mess with your hands) and the Thai fish which is yummy… Must try… But please go weekdays if not…..
Ming Kee has moved to a spanking new premise at 520 Macpherson Road. The owner Ivan will be doing the cooking himself for now. Don’t miss his marvellous cooking! Call 67445520 for reservations.
I haven’t been to any of the Ming Kee Seafood restaurant. Apparently there are two outlets- 520 (opened by the owner’s son) & 556 Macpherson Rd. Can anyone advise the difference in the outlets, price, ambience, food etc..
Do not ask me why there are two restaurants on the same street – it baffles me totally.
It was painful finding parking here during dinner time. At least the 556 one was near to the HDB open-air carpark.
I dined here with my family last December 2013 and it has taken me sometime to decide to write a review because I felt that this has really wrong.
This restaurant has a window at the front of the kitchen where diners could look into. Was utterly disgusted when I witnessed the chef cooking and smoking at the same time in the kitchen. Is this allowed? How clean will the food be? The chef was also drinking whisky at the same time.
Food was over-rated, especially the signature crab bee-hoon which tasted like it had been cooked with seawater. The Guinness Stout pork ribs were chunky and difficult to bite, especially for older folks.
Service was horrible…there was only one waitress to service 4 tables who was also the order taker and cashier. We had to DIY to get our own tea pot refilled at a pantry at the back of the restaurant and our bill took the waitress close to 20mins to process??? My final bill for 4 persons was $363 which included a service charge of 10%???!!!!
I suspect that I have been ripped off here. This is because like most Singaporeans, my family enjoys eating crabs and we have cooked our own Sri Lankan crabs at home before. We buy the big ones from the Tekka market for $37/kg and Ming Kee serves at $50/kg which is considered value as most major restaurants charge more than $60/kg. The supplier had told us that normally the big Sri Lankan crabs are available in 1kg/1.2kg sizes only. What really bewildered me was that the crab that was served to us was the most 1.2kg however my receipt showed that I was billed for 1.7kg which was like 500g heavier or rather $25 more, not to forget the 10% service charge that was imposed on the total bill?????
We had ordered a plain steamed Soon Hock in Hong Kong style which was fresh and easily the best dish of the night but the final bill really made me uncomfortable. We can buy fresh Soon Hock from the market at $25/kg but I was charged $88/kg here. The one we had looked like it was the most 800g but we were billed for 1.1kg…
We did have a word with the chef Ivan (the one whom I witnessed smoking)who gave us excuses and said that he was not the boss and couldn’t make decisions.
We were sick at the attitude shown to us and just wanted to get out ASAP.
To sum up, as food-loving Singaporeans sometimes we can overlook being “carrot-heads” when we eat out if it has been a fair dining experience, especially if the food and service is good, but this????? I think this has gone really overboard. These people should be put out of business.