Eng Seng Famous Joo Chiat Still Road Black Pepper Crab now at 9007 Tampines 永成餐室 ☎️ 8611 2247

Eng_Seng_Black_Pepper_Crab_9007_Tampines_永成餐室

Yeah..., when it comes to black pepper crab, the first that come to my mind is "the one at Still Road there".

Decades ago, we used to queue at least an hour for a table for "Still Road pepper crab".

Then, life separated us and all I had left were beautiful memories of the tastiest black pepper crab.

Obviously, during the past decades, I tasted many other black pepper crabs in Singapore and Malaysia but none gave me the same feeling as "Still Road pepper crab".

Maybe as they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Then, I read that the famous pepper crab shop sold its premises for a princely SG$8.5 million and closed its operations in Aug 2025.

I felt a tinge of heartache on hearing the news. Thought I will never taste my favourite black pepper crab again 😥

Then, I heard they resurfaced at 9007 Tampines, an industrial canteen.

So, I jio-ed kaki kaki to check out my favourite black pepper crab.

And here, I finally realised that what I called "Still Road pepper crab" is actually Eng Seng Restaurant 永成餐室.

Eng Seng have been here at this industrial canteen only a week.

The whole crew from Still Road including head chef Uncle Tan is here at 9007 Tampines. Uncle Tan is the man behind Eng Seng's legendary black pepper crab.

Besides their signature crab dishes, and zhi char fare, Eng Seng now offers convenient one dish rice / noodle meals for workers at the industrial park (especially for lunch).

Crabs are only for dinner.

Eng Seng uses live Sri Lankan mud crabs.

I called ahead WhatsApp 8611 2247 and reserved a crab, so we didn't have to wait long.

Let's get straight into the reason why we were here.

The crab came smothered with a cloak of fragrant black peppery sauce.

The pepperiness was quite sharp and pronounced yet balanced with a mild sweetness and buttery smoothness. We can taste and smell traces of blended spices which is a house secret ㊙ There was also a subtle bit of toasty smokey wok hey type of flavour and aroma in the black pepper sauce.

The crab itself was meaty, tenderly moist and tasted sweet.

Super umami crab roe.

We had har cheong gai 虾酱鸡 or fried chicken marinated with fermented prawn sauce.

Nicely done, crisp golden brown outside and moist tender inside. The umami savoury flavours outside were relatively mild, so it is nice if you like it that way. One of my pet peeves about har cheong gai is they are often very salty. No such problem at Eng Seng.

四季豆 French bean stir fried with fermented olive leaves 橄榄菜.

Crunchy juicy sweet with slight savoury flavours from the fermented olive leaves.

海鲜炒面 Seafood mee goreng.

Consistent with the other dishes (except the black pepper crab), this was delicious but flavours were not as robust and overall not as greasy as the old benchmarks in my mind.