Eng Seng Black Pepper Crab

We wanted to eat the famous Crab Bee Hoon at Sin Huat Coffee Shop (Geylang Lor 35) but at 4.30 pm in the afternoon, the owner and chef Danny was still fast asleep at home! So it was a short detour down to the trusty Eng Seng (junction of Joo Chiat Place and Still Road) for the black pepper crabs. This is seriously good stuff - the black pepper sauce is thick, redolent with fragrant butter and crushed black peppercorns. We mopped up every single last drop of it. Go very early if you want to eat - we placed our orders at 5 pm and all the crabs were sold out by 6.15 pm. On weekends a long snaking queue outside the coffeeshop starts forming at 5 pm and there are no crabs left by 6.30 pm (they sell these crabs by the cartons).

You can also order these for takeaway (dabao) and shortcircuit the queue, just head to the front of the queue, place your order for takeaway, and the aunties will give you a timing to come back and collect your crabs (usually about 1.5 hours later).