Melben Seafood and Crabs!

MELBEN SEAFOOD!

Okay, I know they've been around for years now but I haven't had the time to try them out since the outlets are kinda far away such as in Ang Mo Kio and Toa Payoh and I probably live at the other end of that spectrum. Everyone somehow RAVES EXCESSIVELY about their crabs and how good they are so it's great that I finally had the chance to try them out.

I'm not sure about this, correct me if I'm wrong, but Melben doesnt do reservations for Saturdays and Sundays. Not too sure so don't quote me on that! Please take a look at how long the queue was at the Melben Ang Mo Kio branch. This was possibly about 615pm. The queue has snaked and looped once and people are still queueing in the sunset heat outside the eating area.

We were lucky cos Shuwei's mom managed to get us a table for 10 beforehand. Apparently, since you can't make reservations, the only way to reserve a table is to book through the boss of Melben or someone of higher authority I guess. I really have no idea how we would have survived through that snaking queue if not for our table reservation. The lady at the front said that with the looks of the queue at that point of time, estimated time till which we get a table would be 2 hours or so. WTF. (and wait that's not all.. we're getting into it)

So basically Melben is set in a coffee shop like venue, right beside an open air carpark. They even had people keeping tabs on parking attendants and when you hear the whistle, you see EVERYONE leaving their seats and crabs and rushing to their cars to put coupons or extra coupons for the matter of fact since people tend to take their own sweet time with handling and devouring crabs.

The early birds getting worried we didn't had a table reserved cos we had no idea what name it was reserved under LOL.

Melben is apparently very famous for their Claypot Crab Bee Hoon as shown in the picture above. It is like their specialty dish and everyone who goes there HAS to get one of it. Definitely can see why after I've had my share of some haha

They have many different ways and methods you can cook your crabs

This is the reason why it was almost impossible to actually queue to be seated. We got seated at only 650pm generally when we finally figured out whose name the table was under. After making our orders, we had to WAIT for another hour odd to be served with our food. You do the math.

Birthday girl with a pink bow in her hair.

This was the Pork floss and Mushroom Tofu. The menu didn't exactly state the prices of most of their dishes as well since most of it is generally crabs and with crabs, owners charge them usually by their weight. I have no idea how much are the dishes actually so no info on that!

I love tofu so this was an absolute hit for me. The tofu was really soft and the mushrooms complemented them well topped with an extra hint of pork floss. Gravy was savoury and had just the right thickness to it.

We also had 2 vegetable dishes. One was the Sambal kangkong and another Broccoli dish.

JUST TAKE A WHILE AND MARVEL AT THAT!

I love crabs so I really can't help myself. Even looking at this picture right now gets me hungry. So for crabs, we ordered 2 Butter Crabs, 2 Chilli Crabs and 1 Crab Bee Hoon with 2 extra bowls of noodles and soup. The 2 extra bowls of noodles and soup I later found out cost $10. Wow. The crabs you see above are the BUTTER CRABS and they were probably my favourite for the night.

Their sauce was a combination of lots of butter and I'm pretty sure they added salted egg yolk as well and it was simply Divine! It tasted slightly similar to salted egg yolk but much more watery and buttery if that makes any sense at all. There were also curry leaves infused into the sauce which is why I'm thinking it tasted very similar to salted egg yolk crabs. They managed to infuse the sauce so well into the meat of the crabs so that with every bite you take, you're sucking up delectably fragrant butter crab. It was definitely finger lickin good I must say.

How can you have crabs without man tous? I absolutely LOVE fried man tous. I can eat them any day anywhere, even without the sauce of any crabs.

 

The Chili Crabs are spicier than your normal chili crabs so if you're looking to taste some sweet and hot sauce that you normally get with Singapore chili crabs, you won't like this. But if you're Singaporean, then hey, you probably like chili like a true blue Asian does and you'll love this. The spice level is not that high so don't worry, but it's definitely on the moderate side and not for those not inclined to chili.

Seriously, just look at that whole plate of crabs just dunked in chili crab sauce. Noms.

Here's Debby scooping out the crab shell from the Claypot Crab Bee Hoon. Sadly no photos of that cos by the time the lazy susan turned to my direction, the dish didn't look very photogenic anymore LOL.

What I loved about the Crab Bee Hoon is definitely hands down the soup broth. Oh My God. It is beyond anything in this world. The soup has a milky buttery base and is quite similar to the broth you get in Fried fish noodles except 3 notches higher. It is generally thicker and creamier and is absolutely addictive. I'm not kidding. Please be warned that it is also probably very high in cholesterol.

"Crabs for you?"

Darrell looking extremely happy with his crab accomplishments of the night.

It was a good meal and a good day in general just because I spent the entire day doing one of my favourite things in the world - EATING! lol. See all our happy faces after eating so many crabs! Deep down we are probably thinking, "Crap. I'm so stuffed. I can't move anymore" All in all, we had 5 crabs, extra bee hoon and soup, 2 veg dishes, a tofu dish and a sweet and sour pork. The bill came up to about $392!

We still managed to drive ourselves down to OverEasy at One Fullerton for wine, beer, waffles and some good old chit chat over Scramble with Friends haha. Why doesn't Scramble with Friends have unlimited coins? Kinda sucks that they don't. Can't wait for our next Crab outing already. (:

Melben Seafood is located at

232 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3

Singapore 560232

Tel: +65 6285 6762

(also available at Toa Payoh)