Black Pepper @ Eng Seng Restaurant

I was excited to have my brother James come to visit. He was only here for a couple of days, a local told me there are two things I needed to do with him if he was only visiting for a short period of time. Take him to Sentosa Island and out to eat some crab.

Well, we never made it to Sentosa but we did have the best black pepper crab in Singapore.

Eng Seng on Joo Chiat Place is a well known place to go for this dish. I was advised to go early as there is usually a long queue.

We arrived at about 6:45pm on a Sat night and took one of the few remaining seats without much drama. There were three of us at the table and we ordered three crabs ($75) smothered in the dark rich and subtly sweet sauce.
It was like nothing I had ever tasted before. The crab had a slight smokey taste from the wok, the warmth of the black pepper was matched with the right balance sweetness.

My curiousity to know what could be in this dish lead me to google a version of the recipe.

I could not see any visual signs of ginger, garlic or other aromatics in this dish but definite that ketchap manis, sugar and butter was used. The rest remains a mystery......I sat and enjoyed a whole crab to myself trying hard in my head to figure out the ingredients.

The boys just sat there, ate and both said that this is the best meal they have had in Singpaore so far.

P.S The deep fried tofu/fish cake things served with a weird lemon mayo sauce were also nice.