BLUE LOTUS CHINESE EATING HOUSE

01-13 Quayside Isle, 31 Ocean Way, S(098375) TEL: 6339 0880

Blue Lotus serves up good restaurant-standard Hong Kongstyle and local Chinese dishes as well as a few Southeast Asian dishes such as chicken satay and lemongrass prawn sticks. There are few restaurants where one can enjoy good Cantonese-style fish maw soup with bamboo pith and Iberico ham alongside hickory smoked honey-glazed “char siew meets American-style BBQ” kurobuta pork ribs. But the reason why people make the trek is the restaurant’s seaside feel as well as its famed chilli crab dish, which is spicier and more fragrant than the usual version with the addition of fresh pomelo sacs to balance its fieriness (the pronounced fragrance and flavour from the ginger flowers and tamarind in the sauce makes it a real standout). Another highlight is the Hong Kong-style “bei fung tung” crab, which comprises succulent pieces of deep-fried mud crab tossed in a huge mound of crunchy deepfried chopped garlic and dried chilli pieces, making the signature dish especially aromatic.