No Signboard Seafood in Singapore 11/2006 |
| Category: Gourmet Dining | 2009-03-25 |
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| On one of our trips to Singapore, we made some new friends on the flight from San Francisco and chatted about restaurants in Singapore. When I mentioned that I wanted to try chili crab, he immediately recommended No Signboard Seafood. |
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| According to No Signboard Seafood's website, back in the late 1970s, the restaurant got started at their stall at the Mattar Rd Hawker Centre. The founder Madame Ong Kim Hoi created the recipe for the white pepper crab dish, and gradually the word of mouth spreaded with customers telling others about the hawker stall with no signboard selling wonderful pepper crab. Today, No Signboard Seafood has expanded to many branches in Singapore, and we visited their location at the Esplanade. |
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| Instead of ordering a set-menu for our early dinner, we decided to order individual dishes off the menu. We started off with a lobster salad mix-platter. |
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| The waiter tried to convince us to order something different, and wanted to steer us to some of their specialities. I think we should have listened to him, as the lobster platter was so-so, and it was actually quite expensive. The fried items were quite oridinary appetizers with normal shrimp filling, and the lobster salad was quite average. |
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| Since crab is their specialty, we had to order it. Unfortunately at the time we did not know that the white pepper crab is their signature dish, and in our ignorance, we ordered the chili crab instead. |
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| The crab turned out to be very very good, and the chili sauce is delicious. The texture of the carb is very very different from the dunguness carb in the San Francisco bay area. The sweetness of the crab meat and the tenderness makes it one of the best crab dish I have ever had. |
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| We also ordered a fresh steamed fish, since my son Alex really really like fish cooked this way. |
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| The steamed fish was priced as seasonal, and usually this means that it is expensive. However, our steamed fish was certainly less costly than the lobster, and it is definitely the best steamed fish we have ever had. The fish was steamed absolutely just right, and tasted so fresh that it might be swimming minutes before being served. To this day, Alex still brings up the fact that this is the best steamed fish that he compares other restaurants with. |
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| We also ordered a few vegetable dishes and tofu dishes to round out our meal. |
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| The tofu was stuffed with fish paste and shrimp, and was quite tasty. |
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| When we have another opportunity to come back to No Signboard Seafood, I think we might try ordering a set dinner. |
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| This is a traditional soup dish, called 'Buddha jumps the wall', that is served at many restaurants. According to legends, the soup is so good that even the buddha could not resist it. The version at No Signboard Seafood is too fishy for our taste, of course, they probably adjust the recipe as it is a seafood restaurant. |
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| We only ordered one serving of braised sharp fin as it was expensive. Alex pretty much finished the entire order, and we told him that he is not going to order another serving. |
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| The total bill seem to come to about US$150-$200, considering the quality of the food (the lobster platter aside), it is a pretty good value for the three of us. |
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User comments: | | 2014-02-16 23:26:29 (GMT-6) | 92767: | USA |
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