Chilli Crab

Right off the bat, I will pronounce that I am not a fan of Keng Eng Kee Seafood (KEK Seafood) at Bukit Merah / Alexandra Village and I’m not sure why so many food bloggers laud it highly. But if you do want to order, the islandwide delivery is at $5 with minimum order of $50.

If you want to visit their outlet once CB is over, you may make a reservation and they do have an aircon section. So request for it.

Choy Hiang Beancurd 菜香豆腐

Their signatures include coffee pork ribs and moonlight horfun 月光盒 which is stir-fried flat rice noodles in dark soy sauce topped with an egg yolk. They do it seafood style here (some places use beef).

We didn’t order their signatures because we didn’t know what they were; we just ordered what we like, although the server did recommend some.

tri-egg spinach

The food is generally not bad and passes muster. Nothing is terrible. The Choy Hiang Beancurd 菜香豆腐 was already slightly cooled when it got to us and it lost any sense of crispiness but the tofu is smooth.

The spinach with salted egg, egg, and preserved egg in superior stock is not bad but the spinach is slightly limp and overcooked and has lost its crunch.

Chicken

The chicken, recommended by the server, is nice. The skin is papery crispy and the meat is tender and moist. Not a drop of oil.

The grouper (their usual size is 600-700g but we requested for a bigger one) is steamed with soy sauce, topped with green onion, coriander, garlic bits. It is fresh and steamed just right, not too long.

Steamed grouper

The yam basket is a dish that can only be finished by a large group. The important thing about yam basket is that it shouldn’t have an old oil taste, that the oil for deepfrying the yam should be changed regularly. And this yam basket doesn’t have the old oil taste.

They add seafood in the center of the basket. It is ok, not the best I have eaten. But it’s not the worst.

Yam ring

We ordered two big crabs (about 1kg each) which the server recommended them to be done in chilli and salted egg styles. Their sauces run a little sweet so the chilli crab is sweeter than spicy, and the salted egg crab is sweeter than salty.

The crabs themselves are fresh and sweet.

Salted egg crab

They have gotten a good supplier for their seafood, which is fresh. But generally, I don’t find this place so very special to warrant the attention they got from other bloggers.

Including rice and drinks, we paid about $405 for 6 adults and 1 child.

Food: 6/10
Price / value: 6.5/10
Service: 6.5/10

You may be interested in…
–Quan Ji 權記, Amoy Street Food Centre: Decent Cze Char Best Known for their “Yellow Cloth” Noodles
–Uncle Leong Seafood, Punggol: Unexpected Great Service and Extremely Fresh Crabs
–D’Grill, Punggol: Whole Fish & Chips and Sambal Hotplate Seafood
–Scaled by Ah Hua Kelong, Haji Lane: Fish Farm Opens a Seafood Restaurant at Bar Stories

Written by Dr. A. Nathanael Ho.