A Seafood Extravaganza

Having our friends, the Greedyguts, in town gave us the perfect reason to head East to the East Coast Seafood Centre, something we've been promising ourselves we would do for the last couple of times we've been in Singapore on holiday, and since we moved here to live. Everyone you ask has their own personal favourite from the bustling outdoor restaurants that line the seafront, with their views of the mass of off-shore ships, but this time we settled on Long Beach, having had three separate recommendations.

I have to say we had a great evening - the atmosphere was fun and relaxed, the service friendly and efficient and the food really did not disappoint (except, ironically, for the Black Pepper Crab, but more on that later).

We ordered up a feast (as we always do when the Greedy Gluttons and the Greedyguts get together!) Despite being in a seafood restaurant, we actually started our meal with BBQ pork ribs in a Honey Glaze, which were just awesome – you just need to look at the picture to see how sticky and sweet they were, although you obviously can’t taste the melt-in-the-mouth goodness we got from them.

From there on in, it was a seafood extravaganza – Fresh Live Prawns with Ginger and Spring Onion, Fresh Live Seabass in Hong Kong Style (not on the menu, but they were happy to oblige), and of course, Crabs.

We had not yet tried Chilli Crab (a travesty, I know!) so that was the first crab dish and it really was fantastic – the thick chilli sauce was just delicious, particularly when smothered over the accompanying dumplings once all the crab had been devoured.

The second crab dish was the Black Pepper Crab. We have had this a couple of times before now and always hugely enjoyed it, and as it’s the Signature dish of Long Beach, it would have been rude not to sample their version. I’m obviously no Black Pepper Crab expert and I’m sure everyone has their own ideas as to what makes the perfect dish, but I really found the black pepper here overwhelming (and this was unanimously agreed on our table) so that you couldn’t taste the crab flesh – or anything else after you’d eaten it for that matter.

I would certainly be up for a return to Long Beach, we enjoyed everything about it except for the Black Pepper Crab… which unfortunately was mostly left uneaten… a tragic waste of a Sri Lankan crab’s life…

Long Beach Seafood Restaurant – http://www.longbeachseafood.com.sg/