had a family communion at this joint for the 1st time, despite having passed it many times. today was opportune, since we played host to some relatives who're in town for some catching up.

due to the overwhelming crowd, we has to be seated out in the open, bt thanks to the punishing weather, we had to sweat it out while we wrestled the crab to its bits. not exactly the best i've ever tasted, but given its immense size, it made every cent count.

p.s.: not for the faint-hearted, cos the pincers matched the size of my fist.

After so much publicity thru press, magazine and food blogs (not forgetting rumours abt 2 chefs prev fr Eng Seng), decided to try it to "taste" the truth...So we made reservation at 7pm (Sun nite). Place was alrdy packed when we reached. Dishes ordered (all sml serving except for crab): prawn roll, deep fried you tiao w filling, chilli kang kong, mee goreng and 1 lrg size black pepper crab (sup to be their signature dish ?). Food were served quite fast (within 15mins). Prawn roll was ok (most impt no fatty meat), nothing special abt the you tiao, kang kong though slightly over-cooked , was quite tasty with their special chilli sauce. For a generous portion of mee goreng at $5 a plate I can't be too demanding coz though the dish is quite yummy but not much ingredients.
After savouring the first few dishes, my most anticipated dish was finally served but was disappointed coz the poor crab seemed to be deprived of feeding and was a BIG BUT NOT fleshy crab. And guess what, for this quality it cost $72 ?! Indeed, I've read abt crab here costing more but not paying more for less meat ? Though rest of the dishes are very reasonably priced ($6-$8 a plate), the crab is definitely not worth it.

I went at 5.45pm on saturday and crowds were already flocking in at such early time. I saw lots of artistes signatures on the crab shells hung above my head.

I ordered 1 black pepper crab & 1 chilli crab. The crabs are so huge & enormous, the meat are also thick & tender. At least before & after cooking the size is still the same(Another restaurant "Crab party" crabs shrinked alot after cooking). House of Seafood have fantastic cooking styles too. Although 2 chefs at House of Seafood are from the famous Joo Chiat coffeeshop tat also sells black pepper crab, but The black pepper gravy at Hse of Seafood has improved and is better than what i have from Joo chiat. As for the chilli crab that i ordered, the gravy was hot & spicy, not too sweet.. Thumbs up! The chefs are also generous enough to put lots of eggs in the chilli crab making the gravy even more thick & nice.

Business was so good, and the over-whelming crowds did not affect the cooking at all, Crabs are still very good. Bigger crowds that came in after 7pm have to wait at least 1 hour for their food to be served i guess.. Tables at the restaurant are 100% filled up, more tables are even laid on the grass porches & even pathway of next door premises. House of Seafood is famous for Crabs only so don't expect too much from other dishes tat they serve..

The GIGANTIC Crab signboard is too hard to miss along Yio Chu Kang road and the long queues of cars and people were the tell-tale signs that this place might be selling pretty good stuff. Hence, we decided to give it a try.

Heng we were early (ard 6pm)so we need not queue too long for a seat for 6. Not bad leh, they still got valet parking somemore. Upon looking at the menu, I was a lil disappointed that they only serve 4 different flavours of crab as I thought it would be as exciting as the next door Crab Party, the place I always go.

Anyway, for the night, we all had
1) Chilli Crab
2) Black pepper crab
3) Hotplate Venison
4) Stir fried doumiao with fish slices
5) Fu Yong Omelette
6) Prawn rolls
7) Special Tofu

I would say the speed of which the food was served was amazing fast. Our table was too small to accomodate everything at a shot so all of us was like gobbling up the food so that the plates could be cleared for the upcoming ones... Almost choked siah...

What I like there were the venison and the prawn rolls. The crabs were a lil disapoointing as both pepper and chilli were too sweet for our liking and the crabs were not so succulent and meaty that day.

The black pepper was overly drenched in dark sweet sauce that for once i thought it was dark sweet sauce crab with pepper flavourings.

In short, I still prefer my Crab Party over House of Seafood for the crab quality and the variety of ways the crab are prepared.

I called to make a reservation for sunday and was informed by the staff that they were pretty full but 745pm is fine. It was really crowded when i arrived and we had no place to park our car. There is a valet parking service. However, the valet guy was too busy and was unable to handle the crowd. He wasn't at the counter so we had to drive across the road to park at the small lanes and walk over.

We got a table pretty quickly. However the table is just outside the open concept kitchen. The drinks were served promptly. BUT the food takes forever. We waited for an hour before the food arrive! It is terrible. The staffs are sooooooo busy. They were running around taking orders and all. I think that they are under staff.

After 45mins of wait, we decided to ask if our food is going to be ready since my impatient father insist that we should go elsewhere for food.

They simply couldn't give us an answer on the estimated time that the food can be served. We were about to leave in a second when the food FINALLY arrive.

The "brocolli and scallop" and sambal sweet potato leaves tasted like it should be. The hokkien noodle is quite nice although a little too soggy for my liking.

Of course the highlight of the day is their famous Black pepper crab!! This dish is yummy! The black pepper sauce is nice and the crab is very fresh and juicy. The black pepper sauce blands well with the crab. It is spicy enough and the sauce is not too sweet. The black pepper does not have grainy black pepper seed and there are a lot of sauce on the crab.

Most of the food are very reasonably priced. The crab is pretty big and cost $57 for 1 crab. The noodle cost like 6 bucks and the vege is about there as well. The drinks are about 1.50 for a canned drink.

The 2 problem with this place is parking and the wait.

We had a scolding from the owner of the houses where we parked our car. They were complaining that there are too many cars parked on that stretch and that they shouldn't park there. Oh well. We know that it is really too many cars there and had to apologise to them.