Mellben seafood (Ang Mo Kio)

4 June 2014

Mellben seafood (Ang Mo Kio)

Pic from Mellben Seafood website

When I told mama I was going to bring her to Mellben for Mothers' Day, she thought I meant Melbourne. Oops.

Anyway Mellben also very good what.

One of the ways you can tell if it is a family is if they love the same food. For mine, our love is seafood. Hence, no need DNA test. Hence, family dinners are easy to plan- everybody happy with seafood.

I have a social responsibility to warn you before visiting Mellben.

Warning #1 - Queuing is unavoidable. Unless you go on weekdays which they accept reservations.

Don't want to queue? Can.. come at 10.45pm lor (time for last order)

Warning #2 - Waiting is unavoidable. unless you are some king. Or unless you saved the world. Then maybe. Otherwise...

After we got our seats, we waited for like 45 minutes for our food!

Warning #3 - No guarantee on the quality... Mellben will thank you for understanding.

Although the menu boasts of a wide variety of seafood, the main star of Mellben Seafood is the claypot crab bee hoon.

But first, coconut juice ($4+ each) is always a must when we eat seafood. While it was refreshing, the inner flesh was a bit hard to scrap though. 3.5/5

Crab #1 - Claypot Bee Hoon crab

It was a unanimous thumbs-up for this. The buttermilk broth was robust and slightly peppery. I think there was also coconut milk but it was not very overwhelming or too much. The overall combination was savory and tasty.

And the Bee Hoon - so silky and smooth that I had a problem holding them with my chopsticks. Awesome. 4.5/5

And not to mention the main star - the crab- very fresh and fleshy. Sweet and succulent. I only have one more word for the meat quality - solid!

As I am the princess, I have my crabs cracked and presented to me. I just eat.

Crab #2 - Chilli crab

Mellben's chilli crab is seriously not for the wimps. The sauce is super duper spicy that it puts other chilli crabs in shame. My tongue was on flames. And soaking up the fried piping-hot mantou ($4+ for 10) in the sweet eggy spicy sauce? Shiok! But too spicy lah. Can only eat a few. 4.5/5

And guess what? I made a new discovery..

Some of the chilli crab sauce accidentally dropped into my bowl of Bee Hoon soup.. The outcome --> butter milk chilli crab sauce that's spicy and milky! And not overly spicy as compared to chilli crab only. It's like the combination of two power essences. Divine! Don't say I never share...

While the price depends on the daily market rate, the two crabs (1 kg each) cost $110+ that day.

We loved the cereal prawns ($20+, below) too. Crispy and coated with fragrant cereals, the king prawns were huge, succulent and sweet, and full of wok-hei. The problem was there were too little prawns. We finished the whole thing including the cereals. 4.5/5

For a non-seafood change, we ordered the venison meat ($15+, below). The venison meat was gamey, yet tender and savory with the sweet soya black sauce. 4/5

Please don't misunderstand that we are a carnivorous family. We also ordered some vegetables such as bamboo shoots. Which was good too. Which I forgot to take photo..

Ok that's all we ate at Mellben. Looks little but actually it was a lot for 4 pax. We were damn full.. I guess the tummies in my family are all small and not very stretchable.