House of Seafood @ 180 (Yio Chu Kang)

Was surprised by e sudden bloom of seafood (or crabs) restaurants along yio chu kang road.. 1st there's crab party n now house of seafood @ 180 (wat a name..) n crab delicacy (erm wat a name as well)...all within less than 5 mins of each other!.. my dad tot that perhaps someone had realised there's not much crab places in e sgoon area n decided to spice up e area with chili n pepper while my mum tot tat with sky high petrol prices.. ppl decided that driving to sgoon to attack crabs r cheaper than driving to east coast! either way gd for us!

Okie enuff of these crabs i mean crap n let's go straight to e pt.. Located along e road.. parking is a headache (they provide helpful tips on e table n there's valet parking on e weekends!) but once u r done u r greeted by e friendly boss n kopitiam style setting.. (tink pink plastic table covers bright lights no air con etc lined with photos of celebs like jack neo moses lim mark lee etc).. it's a no fuss place so forget abt ambience but e savings from e simple layout do get passed on to e customers in terms of pricing..(unlike melben's)
vegs starts from $6 meat dishes $8 prawns $15 fish head $18 n crabs $38/kg..

There's 4 of us so we had the signature black pepper crabs! it was a hugh crab so it's worth e $58 price tag but it's weird tat we got us such a hugh crab when we ordered quite a lot of dishes.. it's cooked like e black pepper crabs at joo chiat eng seng's ie wet version (intro on e menu said this place was from @joo chiat but i dun tink it's e same one).. it's pretty tasty so worth a try if u dread e drive to joo chiat (rem sky high petro pxs? haha) n e long Q but of coz eng seng's one rocks!

we also had e cereal prawns ($15) which is juz avg.. sld have juz ordered e butter prawns instead but nvm...e steamed fish head ($18)was not nice.. e meat was too tough.. my mum complained tat this kinda fish is not suitable to steam n is better for curry/asam type n got them to add some chai po.. e san bei ji or claypot chicken is not bad although i prefer crystal jade's n e signature tofu with pork floss ($8) is pretty good n i would order this again.. 5 dishes for 4 pax n e damage is $120 or $30/pax.. not too bad..

Overall it's pretty good food with a pretty decent price tag.. will most probably be back so do give it a try!

*** was back for dinner n i gotta say e food is really not bad! whether izzit e stir-fried kailan to e claypot chicken.. it's cheap n yum! e crabs r delish as well although e joo chiat's one is still e best! e crabs here r not as infused with e black pepper sauce as joo chiat's (or to say not as "ru wei") n joo chiat's more generous with e black pepper sauce which greatly improves e yum factor! but it still makes a great place to eat!***

some of the new dishes i've tried: e salted egg crabs u could give me a miss.. i liked e idea of frying e crabs 1st (reminds me of e curry crabs in bangkok's somboon!!!) but e batter of salted egg is very diff from e usual wet ones i prefer.. dun like this version..

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.

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.