Ohhhh I love the crabs at Mellben! Once again, it's another place that is too expensive for students like me and I am lucky because my parents love crabs!

All I have to do is to remind them of how tasty Mellben's crabs are and I am already halfway there! Hehe.

The crabs are big and to die for. When my family goes there, the sure orders are the Crab Bee Hoon Soup, Butter Crabs and the Man Tous (Fried buns).

I am actually salivating just by writing this review!

The Crab Bee Hoon is fantastic and pretty special but my favourite has to be the Butter Crabs! The sauce is so rich and creamy that I found myself licking off my fingers each time, making sure that nothing is left.

Not very glam for a girl but it's that good!

Heard a lot about this place ( word of mouth recommendation ) and decided to check out last weekend.

Being kiasu, we went there at 5pm and were at the car park cruising for a lot when we realized that there was already a short queue at the side of the coffee shop.

When we started to queue, we saw that almost all tables were taken up. Some of the diners were staring at us with mouthful of bee hoon and every table has ordered at least one version of cooking the crabs.

We waited about half hour before we were handed the menu and advised to order while waiting for a table. We chose the highly recommended claypot crab with bee hoon , butter crabs, tapioca leaves fried in sambal and chicken meat wrapped in otah.

The butter crabs were first to be served and at one glance, we wondered whether we made the right choice instead of the usual black pepper or chillie crabs. The crabs were covered with this yellowish cream and decorated with two small corianders. But dipping one small man tou ( deep fried bun ) into the sauce and hmm…the strong butter gravy fried with curry leaves was fantastically sinful but delicious. A class of its own..

The fried tapioca leaves were superb spicy and goes well with the rice. Next, fried chicken meat thinly sliced with otah stuffed in the middle. It was crispy and the combination blended well too.

The main star attraction - claypot bee hoon was finally served. The buttery taste of the soup was unique and flooded with sweetness from the crabs. We totally enjoyed the crabs as they were meaty and surprisingly very fresh and juicy.

All in all, this place is worth the wait…

Its been quite a while since I had dinner at Melben, with the last being about a year ago. So I was itching to find out if the crabs were still as good as I remembered them to be. With the opening of a new branch in Toa Payoh, I had hoped that the crowd at Ang Mo Kio would be thinner, but how wrong I proved to be. When we (my family and I) got there at about 7pm, a mad queue had already formed in front of the make shift counter to take their orders and get their tables. Luckily, the wait took all but 20 minutes and we got a nice seat at the fringe of the coffeeshop. Now on to the food.

Crispy Skin Tofu - From the name, I had imagined this dish to be mouthwatering, but it didn't quite make the mark. First of all, the texture of the tofu was too rough and the skin had too much flour coating, resulting in a rather thick and coagulated layer when cold. Taste wise was still quite acceptable.

Vegetable with 3 types of Mushroom - This dish came recommended by our server and on hindsight, we probably shouldn't have agreed. Overall, it tasted very ordinary. Nothing stood out, not the 3 types of mushrooms, not the vegetables, not the gravy. Nothing. Which makes me wonder the basis for the recommendation.

Hotplate Venison Meat - Sometimes you wonder how real is the piece of venison meat that lies in front of you. After all, venison meat is rather rare in Singapore and certainly doesn't come cheap. That thought raced through my mind when I first chewed on the meat. Very crunchy and chewy (lots of tenderiser added), soaked in a pepper tinted thick and salty gravy. Not too shabby, but doubts of authenticity surfaces because it really tastes like pork.

The famous Claypot Beehoon with Crab - Now this was what everyone was there for - Melben's famous claypot beehoon with crab. The crab weighed about 1.3kg ($30/kg) and was a huge monster (we only ordered medium). Without a doubt, it was very fresh and the flesh was sweet and firm. The soup, with lots of coconut milk, tasted very similar to Laksa's soup, minus the curry. Thick beehoon was used in place of the normal thin ones, which absorbed the essence of the soup and complemented the whole dish very well. This dish was so big that the 4 of us almost couldn't finish it.

Dinner for 4 pax cost about $70, which isn't too expensive, but not exactly cheap either. If you ever decide to patronise Melben, do make a reservation first because there's a seperate queue which is a lot shorter. Also, just go for the wonderful crabs as the other dishes are merely average.

See all my pictures here

Oh MR Crabs..............

I am coming to eat you up.................................

Its another Gathering of the GAGA GIRLs..... and this time we've decided to visit Mr Crabs from Spongbob and friends......

The place was pretty out of the way, far from everywhere, situated in a funny set up of 3 coffee shops within 2 blocks of flats. However, the crowd was AMAZING... I've really never seen such a HUGE crowd in a Tiny coffeeshop... and the noise... Cracking of the crab shells, squirting of the crab juice, slurping the soup, licking the pot clean.... tells you everything you need to know about HOW GOOD THE CRABS REALLY ARE.......

My favourite is but of course the Mr Crabs...... The crab beehoon was very tasty. Its not the ajinamoto tasty kind but of the rich stock tasty taste.... Beehoon was soft n QQ and the crab was so MEATY.... I can sink my whole 2 front teeth i got last christmas into the fleshy meat..... Can you imagine that.... so juicy, soft and yummy. The soup was creamy and emits a sweet crab roe taste.

Thats not the best yet.. THE BUTTER CRABS was just like the ones i had in KL..... So CREAMY, So fleshy, So Delectable. *SLURP* Huge chunky crabs and creamy sauce.. can you imagine that.... HARD RIGHT.... But it sure is a POTENT COMBINATION.... It tasted so nice I almost wanted to lick up the plate... Order nice mini deep fried buns to pick up the sauce if you want to avoid spooning down the sauce. You simply cannot resist that.....

We had also the seafood tofu, It was soft and crispy on the outside. Very appetizing and kids surely loves it. It has got bits of everything in the tofu and very SHIOK if you eat it while its still Piping Hot.... The paper chicken was ok... Veg was ok.....

So if you are a crab lover... you must come and try this place out.. Can you imagine, I am still salivating? I must relocate to Ang Mo Kio.......

Don't EVER TRY IT..... If you are not planning to get HOOKED.........