Every chilli crab roundup writes "market price" and stops there. We read the menus instead. JUMBO and Long Beach both publish per-100g rates, Keng Eng Kee sells a whole crab at one flat price on its own ordering site, and Roland is running two crabs for $88++. The cheapest place to eat JUMBO's award-winning chilli crab turns out not to be a JUMBO Seafood restaurant at all. Our 6 picks: JUMBO (the East Coast flagship closes 30 September 2026), Roland, Long Beach, No Signboard, Keng Eng Kee, and the budget play at JUMBOREE. Plus what a crab really costs once service charge and GST land, and where black pepper crab is cheapest.
Sweet, savoury, faintly fiery and made for mantou-dipping, chilli crab is Singapore's unofficial national dish. Here are 6 of the best, priced off the restaurants' own menus rather than guessed at.
> Quick view: cheapest famous-name crab is JUMBO 1987 at JUMBOREE, $10.80/100g nett (about 16% under the restaurants). Sit-down cheapest is Roland, 2 crabs for $88++. The catch: "++" adds about 19%, and at JUMBO and Long Beach the per-kg rate *rises* on bigger crabs.
The name most synonymous with chilli crab, serving its sweet-savoury, gravy-rich classic by the sea at East Coast since 1987. The gravy here is the mild, balanced, faintly sweet benchmark, the one to start with if you have never had chilli crab. THE PRICE, from JUMBO's own a la carte menu: mud crab $10.80++ per 100g below 1kg and $11.80++ above, Dungeness $10.80++, Alaskan $29.80++. A 900g crab is $97.20++, which is roughly $117 once the 10% service charge and 9% GST land. The same list runs at Dempsey. THE TIMELY PART: the original East Coast Seafood Centre flagship closes for good on 30 September 2026, when its lease expires and NParks redevelops the site. That is a permanent closure of the founding outlet, not a relocation, and the outlet accounted for roughly 14% of Jumbo Group's revenue in FY2025. WHAT IS LIVE, off JUMBO's own farewell poster as reread on 21 September 2026: a $39 half Australian lobster, 1 to 29 September, new this month and standing in for the 39% off Dungeness crab that ended on 31 August; a weekly giveaway of a 1kg Dungeness crab, plus bonus entries towards $300 in JUMBO Group dining vouchers, for sharing a favourite East Coast memory; $39 e-vouchers with unlimited redemptions on a minimum $200 spend, now to 29 September; a free fresh coconut (worth $6.80) for photographing founding member Senior Ang and posting it tagging @JUMBOGroup.Singapore; and a complimentary Dessert of the Day for anyone born in 1987 who shows photo ID, both running 1 July to 29 September. All East Coast only, dine-in only, not combinable with other discounts. NEW, AND NOT JUST AT EAST COAST: JUMBO has put up a 50% off Alaskan crab poster valid at every JUMBO Seafood restaurant, dine-in and takeaway, until 31 October 2026 while stocks last. That halves the $29.80++ per 100g list rate, but note Alaskan crab is cooked in black pepper, salted egg, Chinese wine and egg white or kum hiong at JUMBO, not in the chilli gravy, and the offer does not stack with vouchers or JUMBO Rewards privileges. ALSO WORTH KNOWING: the Weekday Lunch Special gives JUMBO Rewards members 20% off the food bill and non-members 15%, valid at East Coast and Dempsey, on dine-in and takeaway, excluding beverages, nuts and retail packs. The headline $39++ farewell mud crab has ENDED, it ran 11 June to 31 July. Other outlets (Riverside Point, Dempsey, ION Orchard, Jewel, The Riverwalk and JUMBO Premium at RWS) are unaffected.
Roland's family story is Singapore food history. They trace their recipe to the 1950s creator of the dish, and "The Year 1956, Founder of Chilli Crab" is printed right on the menu. Roland Lim's own site names his mother, Cher Yam Tian, as the cook who first married fresh crab to local flavours, and says his parents' roadside stall on Upper East Coast Road was called Palm Beach Seafood, which is why two restaurants both claim the invention. Their rendition stays deliberately old-school: an eggless gravy with no added sambal, letting tomato, chilli and crab do the talking. It is thinner and tangier than JUMBO's, and noticeably less sweet. THE DEAL, and it is the best sit-down crab price on this page: Roland's own site carries a "Crabs Promotion" showing 2 crabs for $88++ in one cooking style while stocks last, choosing from Roland Chili, black pepper, spicy fragrant, white pepper, salted egg with yam, spring onion and ginger, braised with bee hoon, or crab in superior stock with coarse bee hoon. That works out to roughly $53 a crab once service charge and GST land. On the regular menu, Yellow Roe Crab is $68++ per crab on advance order and "Big Crab" is a seasonal price per 100g. Chili Crab Sauce with 6 fried buns is $16.80 if you want the gravy without the crab, and mini buns are $0.60 each with a minimum of six. Roland also states on its own site that it accepts CDC vouchers, which almost no other name here does. WHERE: Blk 89 Marine Parade Central, #06-750, a 1,000-seat banquet hall on the sixth floor of a multi-storey car park. HOURS: lunch 11.30am to 2.30pm (Mon to Sat), 11am to 2.30pm (Sun and public holidays); dinner 6pm to 10.30pm daily. Michelin-recommended, still family-run, and worth booking because the hall fills with weekend banquets.
If you like your chilli crab with a proper kick, Long Beach's stronger, spicier rendition is the pick: bolder and saltier than JUMBO's, with a real chilli bite rather than a sweet lean. The house is equally famous as the home of black pepper crab, wok-tossed, buttery and intensely peppery, so a two-crab order here (one chilli, one black pepper) is the classic power move for groups. THE PRICE, from Long Beach's own menu and identical at all three outlets: XL Mud Crab $11.80++ per 100g for an 800g to 1,199g crab, then $14.80++ per 100g from 1,200g. Dungeness is $11.80++, Princess Crab $16.80++, Alaskan King a seasonal price. Two styles carry a surcharge on top of the per-100g rate: White Jade adds $5 a crab and Fragrant Golden adds $8. Chilli and black pepper cost the same, so the choice is purely taste. Watch that weight band: a 1.2kg crab is $177.60++, or about $213, while a 1.1kg one is $129.80++, or about $156. Adding 100g of crab there costs you nearly $57. WHERE: three outlets, Long Beach @ Dempsey, Long Beach @ Robertson Quay, and Long Beach UDMC at East Coast Seafood Centre. The IMM outlet is now marked permanently closed on Long Beach's own site. IF YOU ARE HEADING TO EAST COAST: the UDMC outlet sits in the same NParks redevelopment as JUMBO's flagship and must vacate when its lease expires on 30 September 2026. Unlike JUMBO, Long Beach is relocating rather than closing, to Coastal PlayGrove in East Coast Park, roughly an eight-minute drive away. The new outlet was reported as opening in the first week of September 2026, but as of 21 September Long Beach's own site still lists only Dempsey, Robertson Quay and UDMC, still carries UDMC's full opening hours, and has no Coastal PlayGrove page at all, so confirm which address your booking is at before you drive out. ON PROMOTIONS: the only offer on Long Beach's promotions page is an Executive Set Lunch, $68++ per pax for Set A and $128++ for Set B, minimum two people, with Premier members paying $61.20++ and $115.20++. Neither set contains crab.
A long-standing local favourite whose chilli crab gravy runs rich, eggy and packed with umami. The mantou-to-gravy ratio here demands a second basket. No Signboard is also the name that popularised white pepper crab, the aromatic middle path between sweet chilli and fierce black pepper, and the reason to come if you have already done chilli and black pepper elsewhere. The story is genuine hawker-to-restaurant: it began as an unnamed stall in Geylang, which is how it ended up with the name. ON PRICE, be prepared: alone among the big names here, No Signboard still lists Alaskan King, Sri Lanka and Dungeness crab at "seasonal price" on its own menu, with no figure attached, so ask before they cook. The menu also carries the honest line "no guarantee of 100% solid crab". Eleven preparations are offered, including signature white pepper, signature chilli, black pepper, butter, steamed, ginger and spring onion, cheese, salted egg, baked and curry powder, with stewed mee hoon or vermicelli adding $8, $12 or $16. Fried buns are $3 for 4 pieces, and Crab Meat with Chilli Sauce is $18.80 a portion if you want the flavour without a whole crab. Chargeable extras are itemised: wet tissue $0.30 each, bib $0.60 each, appetiser $3 a plate, all before 10% service charge and GST. WHERE: the Geylang flagship at 414 Geylang Road, running 11am to 12.15am daily per No Signboard's own restaurant locator, which makes it one of the few places on this list you can order crab near midnight. One caution: that locator is visibly out of date, still carrying Chinese New Year notices from 2021 and 2022 and showing Esplanade as temporarily closed and Clarke Quay as closed until further notice. Call 6842 3415 before you travel to anything other than Geylang.
The heartland answer, and the one that removes the guesswork from the bill. KEK does not price crab by weight at all: its own ordering site lists a whole crab of about 900g at a flat $93, and the same $93 buys it as Signature Chilli, Black Pepper, White Pepper, Salted Egg, Stir Fried Ginger Onion, Tomato, Steamed, Claypot Bee Hoon in soup, or Stir Fried Thin Bee Hoon in gravy. That is the clearest crab price in Singapore, and it comes with third-generation zi char soul, wok hei and a fraction of the tourist traffic. THE DISCOUNTS, both on its own ordering site: 10% off self-pickup orders with no minimum spend, online orders only and not stackable, which brings the same crab to $83.70; and code FIRSTORDER6 for $6 off a first order above $60, which is the weaker of the two. Delivery is a flat $5 islandwide. Come for the crab, stay for the Moonlight Horfun and Coffee Pork Ribs. This is the most local-feeling crab feast on this list, and the one where the rest of the order is as good as the crab. WHERE: three outlets, the original at Alexandra Village (124 Bukit Merah Lane 1, #01-136, tel 6272 1038), SAFRA Tampines (1A Tampines St 92, #01-K2, tel 6979 3668) and SAFRA Punggol (9 Sentul Crescent, #02-01, tel 9691 0616). The SAFRA outlets are open to the public, not just members, and are the easier ones to get a table at; Alexandra Village is the one with the coffeeshop atmosphere people mean when they recommend KEK. KEK has held Michelin Select from 2016 to 2025. Popular, so book ahead, and note the crab is cooked to order.
Crab night does not have to cost $150, and the best trick is not a hawker substitute. It is the same JUMBO crab, sold cheaper by JUMBO itself. JUMBO 1987 is the group's stall inside the JUMBOREE food hall at 26 Tai Seng Street, #01-02, a three to five minute walk from Tai Seng MRT. Its menu lists the identical Signature Award-winning Chilli Crab and Signature Black Pepper Crab at $10.80 per 100g for a mud crab below 1kg and $11.80 above, exactly the same numbers as the JUMBO Seafood restaurants, with one difference printed at the foot of every page: "No service charge; No GST". On a 900g crab that is $97.20 nett against roughly $117 at a restaurant, about 16% off the same dish. Dungeness is also $10.80 per 100g and Alaskan $29.80, and the cooking styles (chilli, black pepper, kum hiong, golden salted egg, Chinese wine and egg white, golden creamy butter) all cost the same. On top of that it takes 20% off the JUMBO 1987 a la carte menu on weekdays from 11am to 2.30pm, excluding public holidays, and that is where the real saving sits: the same 900g crab drops to $77.76 nett against about $117 at a JUMBO Seafood restaurant. The discount does not cover the 1 Pax Lunch or dessert menus and does not stack with vouchers. The $38.80 promotional mud crab we listed in August is gone, absent from the menu JUMBOREE reissued on 7 September 2026, from its What's On page and from the group promotions page. What is new is 50% off Alaskan crab at JUMBO 1987, daily, dine-in only, until 31 October 2026 while stocks last, not valid with other discounts or vouchers. What the food hall also carries is a ready-to-cook counter: raw live mud crab below 1kg and Dungeness both at $8.80 per 100g, cleaned, gutted and vacuum-packed to cook at home, the cheapest crab on this page if you are willing to work the wok yourself. Hours are 11am to 2.30pm and 5pm to 11.15pm Monday to Saturday, closing 10.30pm on Sunday. TWO MORE WAYS TO KEEP IT DOWN. Order a smaller crab: because the per-kg rate rises with size at both JUMBO and Long Beach, a 900g crab costs less per kilo as well as less in total, and with fried mantou and a vegetable it still feeds two. And book weekday lunch: JUMBO's Weekday Lunch Special takes 20% off the food bill for JUMBO Rewards members and 15% for everyone else at East Coast and Dempsey, on dine-in and takeaway. It does not stack with the $39 voucher, and it wins on any bill above about $195, so use the discount at lunch and the voucher at dinner.
| Where | Published crab price | Basis | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| JUMBO Seafood (all outlets) | Mud crab $10.80++/100g below 1kg, $11.80++/100g above; Dungeness $10.80++/100g; Alaskan $29.80++/100g, 50% off to 31 Oct 2026 | Per 100g, plus service charge and GST | The benchmark chilli crab, and the East Coast farewell |
| JUMBO 1987 at JUMBOREE | Same $10.80/100g below 1kg and $11.80 above, but nett; 20% off weekday lunch; raw ready-to-cook mud crab $8.80/100g to take home; 50% off Alaskan crab to 31 Oct | Per 100g, no service charge, no GST | The same JUMBO recipe for roughly 16% less |
| Roland Restaurant | 2 crabs for $88++ in one cooking style, while stocks last; Yellow Roe Crab $68++ per crab on advance order | Per crab, plus service charge and GST | Two crabs for a table of four, and it takes CDC vouchers |
| Long Beach Seafood | XL mud crab $11.80++/100g (800g to 1,199g), $14.80++/100g (1,200g and above); Dungeness $11.80++/100g | Per 100g, plus service charge and GST | Spicier chilli crab, and the original black pepper crab |
| Keng Eng Kee | $93 for a whole crab of about 900g, in any of nine styles | Flat per crab on its own ordering site | Zi char prices, and 10% off self-pickup online |
| No Signboard (Geylang) | Seasonal price, not published; fried buns $3 for 4 | Weighed on the day, plus service charge and GST | Rich eggy gravy, white pepper crab, open till 12.15am |
| Palm Beach (One Fullerton) | Market price, not published | Weighed on the day, plus service charge and GST | Marina Bay views, if the bill is not the point |
Almost every chilli crab guide stops at "market price". Four of the seven names here do publish a rate, so on 8 September 2026 we reread each brand's own live menu and promotions page and put the numbers in the table above. Four things are worth understanding before you book.
"++" is about 19%, not a rounding error. A price written as $10.80++ per 100g becomes roughly $12.86 once the 10% service charge and 9% GST are applied. A crab that looks like $97 on the menu leaves the table at about $117. Only JUMBO 1987 at JUMBOREE and Keng Eng Kee quote prices you actually pay.
The per-kg rate goes up, not down, with size. JUMBO charges $10.80++ per 100g below 1kg and $11.80++ above it. Long Beach charges $11.80++ per 100g from 800g to 1,199g and $14.80++ from 1,200g. So the bigger crab the server suggests costs more per kilo as well as more in total. At Long Beach, moving from a 1.1kg crab to a 1.2kg one adds about $57 to the bill for 100g of extra crab.
Two brands still publish nothing. No Signboard lists Alaskan King, Sri Lanka and Dungeness crab at "seasonal price" with no figure, and Palm Beach lists every crab at "market price". Both are fine restaurants; just ask for the per-kg rate and have the crab weighed in front of you before it goes in the wok.
At JUMBO, chilli is a mud crab style only. Read the Choice of Live Crab page and the Award-Winning Chilli preparation is listed under Mud Crab and nowhere else. Alaskan Crab at $29.80++ per 100g and Dungeness at $10.80++ are offered in Signature Black Pepper, Golden Salted Egg, Chinese Wine and Egg White, or Kum Hiong. So if someone at the table wants the famous chilli version, the crab has to be a mud crab, and the cheaper Dungeness is not a way around it.
These two account for most of the "where should I go" arguments, and they are aiming at different palates and, it turns out, different bills.
| JUMBO Seafood | Long Beach Seafood | |
|---|---|---|
| The gravy | Milder, rounder, faintly sweet; egg-thickened | Bolder, saltier, a real chilli kick |
| Also known for | Watching chefs crack crabs live | Black pepper crab, which they made famous |
| Best for | Your first chilli crab; groups with kids | Anyone who found JUMBO too sweet |
| Mud crab price | $10.80++/100g below 1kg, $11.80++ above | $11.80++/100g (800g to 1,199g), $14.80++ from 1,200g |
| A 900g crab | $97.20++, about $117 | $106.20++, about $127 |
| A 1.2kg crab | $141.60++, about $170 | $177.60++, about $213 |
| East Coast status | Flagship closes for good 30 Sep 2026 | UDMC outlet relocating to Coastal PlayGrove |
Can't decide? Order one chilli crab and one black pepper crab and share, which is what most local tables do. At Long Beach the two styles cost exactly the same per 100g.
If chilli crab's sweetness isn't your thing, black pepper crab is the other half of Singapore's crab canon: drier, buttery, aggressively peppery, and eaten with your hands. Four honest answers, cheapest first:
And then there is Eng Seng, the Joo Chiat institution locals name first, which does not publish a price at all. The original shophouse at 247/249 Joo Chiat Place closed on 31 August 2025 after the corner unit sold for $8.55 million, and review sites still show that dead address. Same owners, same head chef, new home: 9007 Tampines Street 93 (S528841), an industrial-estate canteen about a 15-minute walk from Tampines West MRT, roughly 11am to 10pm, closed Mondays, and crabs are dinner service only. They run out; WhatsApp 8611 2247 to pre-order rather than turning up and hoping.
Two restaurants claim the invention, and both are right, because it is one family. Roland Restaurant prints "The Year 1956, Founder of Chilli Crab" on its menu, and Roland Lim's site says his mother Cher Yam Tian first cooked fresh crab with local flavours in the 1950s, after which his parents opened a roadside stall on Upper East Coast Road called Palm Beach Seafood. Palm Beach's own menu says that in 1950 "Chef Cher" created Singapore's original chilli crab at its Upper East Coast Road restaurant, prompted by Peranakan guests. Same cook, two descendants. The stall became today's Palm Beach at One Fullerton; Roland took the family recipe to Marine Parade.
Not in our top six, but you will hear them, and all three are open:
*Updated 21 September 2026. Promotions reread on 21 September 2026: JUMBO's East Coast farewell poster is unchanged, a new 50% off Alaskan crab poster covers every JUMBO Seafood restaurant and JUMBO 1987 to 31 October 2026, Roland's crab promotion and Keng Eng Kee's ordering-site discounts are unchanged, and Long Beach's site still shows no Coastal PlayGrove outlet. All crab prices reread on 8 September 2026 off each brand's own live menu: JUMBO Seafood's East Coast and Dempsey a la carte PDFs, Long Beach's UDMC, Dempsey and Robertson Quay menu pages, the JUMBO 1987 a la carte PDF on jumboree.com.sg, Roland Restaurant's 2026 a la carte PDF and online shop, No Signboard's Geylang menu PDF, Palm Beach's menu PDF, and Keng Eng Kee's own ordering site. JUMBO's farewell offers and the Weekday Lunch Special are from the promotion PDFs on jumbogroup.sg/promotions, where the East Coast poster now carries a $39 half Australian lobster for 1 to 29 September and no longer carries the 39% off Dungeness crab that ran through August; the $38.80 JUMBOREE promotional mud crab was dropped and is absent from the JUMBO 1987 menu PDF reissued 7 September 2026, from jumboree.com.sg/en/whats-on and from the group promotions page; Roland's 2-for-$88++ and CDC voucher notices are the "Crabs Promotion" and "Accept CDC Voucher" items in its own site navigation. Closure and relocation details verified against Jumbo Group's company announcement and reporting by Time Out, AsiaOne, Yahoo/CNA and VnExpress. Long Beach's IMM outlet is marked permanently closed on Long Beach's own outlet page. Eng Seng's Joo Chiat closure (31 Aug 2025), the $8.55m shophouse sale and the move to 9007 Tampines Street 93 are per EdgeProp and a March 2026 on-site review; Eng Seng does not publish prices. Prices are approximate, market-dependent and change, so always confirm at the restaurant. Cover image: JUMBO Seafood's signature chilli crab (official photo).*
More restaurants publish a rate than the phrase "market price" suggests. JUMBO Seafood's own a la carte menu prices a mud crab at $10.80++ per 100g below 1kg and $11.80++ per 100g above 1kg, with Dungeness at $10.80++ and Alaskan at $29.80++; the same list runs at East Coast and Dempsey. Long Beach prices its XL mud crab at $11.80++ per 100g for an 800g to 1,199g crab and $14.80++ from 1,200g, identical at Dempsey, Robertson Quay and UDMC. Keng Eng Kee skips per-weight pricing altogether and sells a whole crab of about 900g at a flat $93 on its own ordering site. What that means in real money: a 900g crab at JUMBO is $97.20++, which is roughly $117 once the 10% service charge and 9% GST are added, and a 1kg crab is $108++, or about $129. Two things catch people out. First, "++" adds about 19%, so a $100 crab is a $119 crab. Second, the per-kg rate goes UP at both JUMBO and Long Beach once the crab crosses a weight line, so the bigger crab costs more per kilo as well as more in total. Only No Signboard and Palm Beach still keep crab at an unpublished seasonal price.
The cheapest way to eat a famous-name crab right now is not at a seafood restaurant. JUMBO 1987, the JUMBO Group stall inside the JUMBOREE food hall at 26 Tai Seng Street, serves the same Signature Award-winning Chilli Crab and the same Signature Black Pepper Crab off the same $10.80 per 100g rate as the restaurants, except that its menu states "No service charge; No GST". On a 900g crab that is $97.20 nett against roughly $117 at a JUMBO Seafood restaurant, a saving of about 16% on an identical crab. It also takes 20% off its a la carte menu on weekdays from 11am to 2.30pm, public holidays excluded, which brings that same 900g crab to $77.76 nett and makes it the cheapest cooked crab from a famous name in Singapore. For a sit-down restaurant, Roland is the answer: 2 crabs for $88++ in one cooking style, which is roughly $53 a crab once tax lands, and black pepper is one of the styles included. Keng Eng Kee's flat $93 buys the same crab in black pepper, chilli, white pepper, salted egg, ginger and onion, tomato, steamed or with bee hoon, and its own ordering site takes 10% off self-pickup orders with no minimum. Two things changed in September: JUMBO's 39% off Dungeness crab ended on 31 August and is off the poster, and East Coast is running a $39 half Australian lobster from 1 to 29 September 2026 in its place. And if Alaskan crab is the splurge, JUMBO has halved it at every JUMBO Seafood restaurant and at JUMBO 1987 until 31 October 2026, while stocks last.
It comes down to how sweet you like the gravy, and now also to price, because both publish their rates. JUMBO's sauce is the milder, rounder, faintly sweet benchmark, thickened with egg and built for mantou-dipping. It is the safer first chilli crab, and you can watch the chefs crack crabs live. Long Beach goes bolder: saltier, spicier, with a real chilli bite instead of a sweet lean, and it is the house that made black pepper crab famous, so it is the better call if you found JUMBO's version too sweet or you want the pepper crab as your second dish. On price, JUMBO is cheaper on paper for a mid-sized crab: $10.80++ per 100g below 1kg against Long Beach's $11.80++ per 100g from 800g. Long Beach's rate then jumps to $14.80++ per 100g at 1,200g, so a 1.2kg crab there is $177.60++, or about $213, while the same weight at JUMBO is $141.60++, or about $170. Two practical differences right now: JUMBO's original East Coast flagship closes permanently on 30 September 2026, while Long Beach's East Coast (UDMC) outlet must vacate by the same date and is relocating to Coastal PlayGrove. If you cannot choose, the standard local move is to order one chilli crab and one black pepper crab and share.
Yes. JUMBO Seafood's flagship at East Coast Seafood Centre, the outlet where the brand started in 1987, closes permanently on 30 September 2026, when its lease expires and landlord NParks redevelops the site. Jumbo Group disclosed the closure in a company announcement, and the outlet made up roughly 14% of group revenue in the financial year ended September 2025. This is a closure of that specific outlet, not the brand: East Coast is one of seven JUMBO Seafood locations in Singapore, alongside Riverside Point, Dempsey Hill, ION Orchard, Jewel Changi Airport, The Riverwalk and JUMBO Premium at Resorts World Sentosa. What is still running, per JUMBO's own farewell poster: $39 e-vouchers with unlimited redemptions on a minimum $200 spend, now to 29 September 2026; a $39 half Australian lobster, 1 to 29 September 2026; a weekly giveaway of a 1kg Dungeness crab, with bonus entries towards $300 in JUMBO Group dining vouchers, for sharing a favourite East Coast memory; a free fresh coconut worth $6.80 if you photograph founding member Senior Ang at the outlet and post it tagging @JUMBOGroup.Singapore, 1 July to 29 September; and a complimentary Dessert of the Day for anyone born in 1987 who shows photo ID, over the same dates. All of it is East Coast only, dine-in only, and not combinable with other discounts. Separately, a 50% off Alaskan crab offer runs at every JUMBO Seafood restaurant until 31 October 2026, so it outlives the East Coast doors. Two earlier offers are done: the headline $39++ farewell mud crab ran 11 June to 31 July 2026, and the 39% off Dungeness crab ran through August and came off the poster on 1 September. Long Beach's UDMC outlet at the same seafood centre must also vacate by 30 September 2026, but it is relocating to Coastal PlayGrove rather than closing.
The Seafood Centre stretch empties out at the end of September, but East Coast does not lose crab altogether. Three things are true from 1 October. JUMBO Seafood closes East Coast for good, so the nearest JUMBO chilli crab moves to Dempsey Hill, which runs the identical a la carte list at $10.80++ per 100g for a mud crab below 1kg. Long Beach does not close: its UDMC outlet must vacate by the same date and is relocating to Coastal PlayGrove in East Coast Park, about an eight-minute drive along the coast, reported as opening in the first week of September 2026 though as of 21 September Long Beach's own site still lists only Dempsey, Robertson Quay and UDMC with no Coastal PlayGrove page. And Hua Yu Wee at 462 Upper East Coast Road stays where it is, a 1950s seafood house in a bungalow, dinner only from 5pm, and once the Seafood Centre goes it is the closest thing left to an old East Coast crab night. If you are set on the Seafood Centre itself, you have until 30 September, and JUMBO's East Coast offers all stop on 29 September, a day before the doors do.
Both, and they are the same family story rather than two rival claims. Roland Restaurant's menu prints "The Year 1956, Founder of Chilli Crab", and Roland Lim's own site says his mother Cher Yam Tian worked out how to cook fresh crab with local flavours in the 1950s, and that his parents then started a roadside stall along Upper East Coast Road called Palm Beach Seafood. Palm Beach's own menu, in turn, says that in 1950 "Chef Cher" at its Upper East Coast Road restaurant created Singapore's original chilli crab, inspired by suggestions from Peranakan guests. That is the same cook. The stall grew into today's Palm Beach at One Fullerton, while Roland carried the family recipe to Marine Parade. So if you want the dish's roots, both addresses are legitimate, and they taste different: Roland's version is deliberately old-school with an eggless gravy and no added sambal, thinner, tangier and noticeably less sweet than JUMBO's.
Eng Seng, the Joo Chiat institution most people name first for black pepper crab, did not close. It moved, and a lot of listings have not caught up. The original shophouse at 247/249 Joo Chiat Place ceased operations on 31 August 2025 after the freehold corner unit sold for $8.55 million, and review sites still show that address. The same owners and the same head chef reopened at 9007 Tampines Street 93 (S528841), inside an industrial-estate canteen about a 15-minute walk from Tampines West MRT: roughly 11am to 10pm, closed on Mondays, and crabs are served at dinner only. They sell out most nights, so WhatsApp 8611 2247 to pre-order before you make the trip, and note they do not publish a price. If you want black pepper crab without the pilgrimage, Long Beach is the house that made the dish famous and charges the same $11.80++ per 100g for pepper as for chilli, with Dempsey and Robertson Quay unaffected by the East Coast relocation. Keng Eng Kee does it at a flat $93 for a 900g crab. And the cheapest of the lot is JUMBO 1987 at JUMBOREE, whose Signature Black Pepper Crab runs off the same $10.80 per 100g as its chilli crab, with no service charge and no GST on top.
