A crab feast for the ages

Quick, name a local food dish in Singapore.

I bet pepper crab (or its cousin, chilli crab) is dancing in your head right now. And for good reason, it is a delicious delicacy. It is such a must-have that the sole recommendation from a friend upon hearing I would be in Singapore: "eat crab". Our destination for this superb dish: Long Beach Seafood Restaurant, the branch in Dempsey. This place has been around for almost 50 years, so they must have figured out something about how to make this dish.

We grabbed a large-ish outdoor table, and went to work understanding the menu. Essentially, each page is a different type of seafood with many preparations. You pick the seafood and the style, and eat up. Unhelpfully, the price of some of the dishes is "market price". Even more unhelpfully, the price of other dishes is listed as the S$ / 100g, when the actual dish is of variable weight depending on the seafood chosen. But through these travails we persevered.

First up was eu fu noodles topped with crab. A nice, basic dish to get the palate going. The crab was tasty, still firm to the bite. The noodles turned out to be a great chaser to some of the dishes to come.

As our only non-seafood dish, we got braised matrimony vine. I'm not sure if it actually was matrimony vine, or what matrimony vine is, but so said the English menu. It was a fine green with a slight bitter note as aftertaste, done in a chicken stock braise.

And the main event: black pepper crab. Using the extra-jumbo Sri Lankan crabs, this dish serves one whole, large crab that has been completely smothered in black pepper sauce. It was delectable, it was divine. The pepper first hit my nose, luring me in closer. a quick struggle for some meat revealed a large section in a claw. One bite, and the pepper was an accent to the slightly sweet crab. As the bites continued, intermixed with finger licking, the pepper built and built and built. So lovely. It oddly reminded me of eating an In'n'Out burger in the particular style where a whole packet of pepper is placed on the burger before each bite. This crab was heavenly, and it went fast.

As a lark, the final dish was golden phoenix river fish steamed a la Penang. Penang is a island town in northern Malaysia known for its excellent cuisine. This fish more than represented the town. The whole fish was splayed on the plate, with one fillet to the left and one to the right. It was literally bathing in rich sauce of tomatoes, chillies, scallions, and spices. The fish was perfectly cooked: one touch of chopsticks and chunks of flesh removed themselves from the bone. The cheek meat was so tender and so rich. The sauce, well, it was addictive. After each bite the first thought running through my mind was "when can I get some more sauce". It was so good that we had to order some steamed buns to soak it all up. It surprises me to say this, but it was even better than the pepper crab. A+ for flavor.

The perfect Singaporean cap on the evening was dessert: durian and mango puddings. These were delightfully served atop a bowl of water with dry ice, keeping the pudding cold and bringing some clouds to the table. A nice reminder of home, too: at a recent dinner party we had experimented with dry ice and gazpacho and this looked pretty similar. The durian pudding was proper durian, very rich and a mix between fruit and trash. A bit overwhelming for me, so I made sure to end with a bite of mango pudding.

In retrospect, what a meal, what a meal. Definitely on the list for "best of" of the trip, as they managed to do an awesome pepper crab and then top that with the steamed fish. As recommended as they come.