AromaCookery – A scent-suous Singapore food blog

Happy Fathers’ Day to all fathers! How did you celebrate this day? Today, sister-in-law suggested treating my father-in-law to dinner at Palm Beach Seafood Restaurant.

Achar and fried anchovies

At Palm Beach, there’s no view of palms or the beach. In fact, if dining indoors, there’s not even the view of the marina because of renovation works going on. But if you dine al fresco, you can still enjoy watching the Merlion spew water into the bay.

Crispy fried anchovies with sweet chilli sauce

As soon as we were seated, the wait staff plonked dishes of achar and fried anchovies on the lazy susan. Mind you, these pickles aren’t a gesture of goodwill. Unlike the complimentary bread basket, Chinese restaurants here in Singapore have this arbitrary practice of charging you for pickles and wet towels that you didn’t ask for! I’m sure these added at least S$10 to the bill!

Crispy crullers

Unluckily for me, I was nursing a bad throat infection, and so couldn’t eat much.

But I couldn’t resist eating just one Crispy Cruller (deep-fried food is a no-no for sore throat)! It was fabulous! Popularly known as sotong you tiao, the fat doughstick was stuffed with lots of minced squid. The you tiao was soft and chewy (in a nice way) and the squid was juicy and bouncy.

Yums! Pity I had to stop at one.

Golden Almond Prawns

I also had just one prawn, which looked more spectacular than it tasted. Those crispy, golden bits were quite fragrant, but I thought using larger prawns would have worked better here.

Chicken Wafer

This dish imitates the concept of Peking duck slices in crepes, but using thin, crispy pieces of chicken instead.

Chicken in crepe

Honestly, I couldn’t taste anything much. Quite disappointing.

Golden Tofu

This is a healthy steamed dish. The “golden” part comes from the salted egg yolk that’s stuffed in the centre of each tofu round, which is then topped with a single prawn. Mom-in-law gave me triple helpings, cos up till this point, I hadn’t eaten much.

Would have enjoyed this more if only the prawns weren’t slightly overcooked. Overall, just so-so.

Asparagus with Japanese Mushrooms

Ooh, one of my favs — asparagus! They did a superb job here. The asparagus was sweet, crunchy but tender to the bite. The shimeiji mushrooms were good too. But too bad for me they were rather spicy (another no-no), so I had to limit myself.

Seafood Fried Rice

Fried rice! Another fav of mine! I had a spoonful of this. Very good wok hei (wok breath), and moist but separate rice grains. Also very fragrant due to the fried shallots and garlic bits.

I wish I could have had the whole bowl, but I didn’t cos it’s quite heaty. Oh, of all days, why did this darn sore throat have to come?

Chilli Crab

Ta-dah! Here’s the world-famous Singapore Chilli Crab! You didn’t think we’d come to a seafood restaurant and not order crabs, did you?

This Sri Lankan crab was HUGE! The shell was bigger than my face!

JUMBO crab claw!

And the crab claw was double the size of my fist!

Sorry, can’t comment on the chilli gravy, but I did sample a little crab meat, and it was thick, succulent, firm, and sweet. Well, Palm Beach has built a reputation on its signature dish, so of course the crab had to be of top quality!

Deep-fried mantou

These soft, little sweet buns are perfect for mopping up the crab gravy, but they were lovely for snacking on their own, too.

Teochew Sweet Yam

Ricky’s warm dessert of mashed yam (taro) was topped with syrup, gingko nuts, and pumpkin. It was surprising very light, smooth, and not too sweet.

Longan Almond Jelly Sea Coconut

I hijacked the brother-in-law’s dessert just when he was about to attack it. He mustn’t have been too happy about that! Heh! This was nothing special, just your usual longan almond jelly plus some sea coconut. Looks refreshing, though.

Pomelo Fruit Drops

This was mine! Sounded so poetic but nothing special, really. Basically pomelo bits, some canned fruit dices, and colored sago pearls topped with shaved ice and syrup.

Lush fake foliage on the walls.

We enjoyed dinner very much. But the food here doesn’t come cheap. The brother-in-law insisted that this meal be on him, and refused to tell us the exact amount, but I’m estimating it’s around S$300 (there were 6 of us). The crab alone would have easily cost at least one hundred bucks.

Palm Beach is apparently quite popular with the business types on weekdays as Raffles Place is just across the road. The decor and crockery are definitely more posh than the East Coast seafood joints, and the wait staff more well-trained and polite too; my only complaint is that they neglected to top up our water glasses during the meal.

Palm Beach Seafood Restaurant
1 Fullerton Road
#01-08 One Fullerton
Singapore 049213
Tel: (65) 6423 0040
URL: http://www.palmbeachseafood.com

Tags: crab