Long Beach Seafood (Dempsey)

No sweet gravy, no buns needed: just a coarse pepper crust and an argument about who invented it.

Long Beach at Dempsey is the crab dinner for a big group that wants to settle the chilli-versus-pepper argument properly, among the trees rather than in a mall. Order black pepper and chilli crab side by side, add the deshelled prawns, and book ahead at weekends. The compromise is the bill: crab is priced by weight and season, so ask before you point at the tank.

Ask a table of Singaporeans whether chilli or black pepper crab is better and you will not get a quiet dinner. Long Beach is firmly on one side. Its website calls it the "Creator of the Original and Best Black Pepper Crab", and the company's own timeline pins the dish's invention to 1982.

The brand is older than the dish. It goes back to the 1940s on Upper East Coast Road, at the former Bedok Rest House, with open-air seating by the beach. Outlets came and went over the decades, and the Dempsey branch arrived in 2007, when the company moved its Marina South restaurant to the former CMPB site on Dempsey Road.

The black pepper style is drier and punchier than chilli crab: no sweet, eggy gravy, just a coarse, peppery coating that clings to the shell. It is messy in a different way and doesn't need buns, though nobody will stop you ordering them. The chilli crab comes with a thick sauce for mopping up with steamed or fried mantou, which is the case for ordering both.

Of the brand's outlets, at Dempsey, Robertson Quay and UDMC on the East Coast, Dempsey is the one with the setting. The restaurant describes it as a contemporary oriental restaurant in a quiet, green enclave outside the city, with a pet-friendly alfresco area (expanded in a 2020 renovation) and a large selection of live seafood. Inside is a pillarless dining hall that seats 400, which explains why it hosts weddings as readily as Tuesday dinners. There are vegetarian and vegan options for the one friend who came for the company.

Beyond crab, the deshelled prawns, a cereal-prawn cousin, are the house speciality and the second thing to order. After that, steamed bamboo clams with vermicelli, Sultan fish in superior soy sauce, Peking duck skin in egg crepes or an old-school crispy spring chicken, depending on how many of you there are.

How to do it well: book through the restaurant's reservation page, especially at weekends, and bring enough people to order both crabs without anyone having to compromise. Dempsey is easiest by taxi, or by bus to Holland Road and a short walk up the hill. Ask the price of the crab before it goes in the wok, not after.

Good to know Book a table through the restaurant's reservation page, and check opening hours before you go. Dempsey is easiest by taxi or bus from Holland Road.

Long Beach Seafood (Dempsey) | 25 Dempsey Road, Singapore 249670