After a brief rest at our room we went to the Esplanade, right across the Bay, for the seafood dinner we reserved a few days ago on the web: prior reservation was a must as we learnt from our prior experience with No Signboard Seafood. We could just walk straight in this time and there were people queuing up for a table!

No Signboard Seafood just had its debuk in Hong Kong and reviews on its services and food were generally negative, but NSS in Singapore is still as popular as it has always been. And the food is great too. We ordered the Chili Crab (small) with mantou, the Coffee ribs(s), Cornflakes prawns(s),stir-fried vegetables(s) and a Tofu pot(s), and stir-fried noodles (we cancelled our order once we realized we would never be able to finish it).

The option of ordering the dish at a smaller portion was the second thing I love most about NSS – it allows smaller groups like ours to try more without having to waste a lot of food.

The first dish that came was the coffee ribs. The cubes of meat were coated in a dark, sticky sauce and drizzled with sesame. They were piping hot, and smelt of coffee but the meat tasted sweet, juicy and tender. It was great and definitely worth trying!

Then the much anticipated chili crab came in a large pot with the mantou. The sauce looked intimatingly pepper red-hot but it was not as spicy as it appeared to be. There were traces of cooked egg in it which gave the sauce a sweet aftertaste. It was so yummy that you could not help dipping the mantou into the sauce to eat the sauce! As for the crabs they were a little less impression-leaving, but the shell, well-cooked in the sauce, was soft enough to eat too. Still I thought the sauce was so outstanding that you could basically cook anything with it to make a great dish, and that need not to be a crab. It could be prawns and it might taste even better!

As for the veggies, the stir-fried one was quite spicy while the tofu pot was really boring to eat.

The last dish to be ready was the cereal prawns. The portion was generous as there were, like, ten smaller prawns hidden in the impressive heap of crunchy cornflakes!(that was the point when we decided to cancel our noodles). The prawns were terrific as even the shells were cooked until absolutely crispy, and the flesh was really fresh and juicy. Even the cornflakes, being a little sweet, tasted terrifically great. It was an amazingly clever invention of the Singaporeans indeed!

Our meal was slightly cheaper than what we had expected – the crab was pretty small and so cost not very expensive, and it was definitely worth the money. Too bad the Hong Kong branch had not succeeded in recipicating the taste of the dish!

After dinner we walked back to our hotel via the bridge connecting the Esplanade and the place. The view was great and the sea breeze was pretty cool, and a lot of people were shooting photos of the promenade as we strode. It was a nice night indeed.