Jumbo (Clarke Quay)

The boss was out of the country, and J had a $100 voucher at Jumbo's. So we thought it'll be fun for some of us to go for a long seafood lunch. I mean, there was a minimum spend of $200 in order to use the voucher. $200 sounded like a lot of food, but easily achieved by the 10 or so of us. Since Clarke Quay is the nearest branch, that's where we made the reservations. Over the phone, the lady told J that he could have additional 10% off because he's a Jumbo card member. Yay for us!

Cute Crab!

Now, 2 months later, I'm finally getting around to posting this. Photos taken with my phone tend to be forgotten and hence, joins the queue for blogging turn some what belatedly. Thank goodness for V's recommendation of the Evernote Food app, which I used to take down the names of the dishes! Looking at the number of photos I uploaded, I think back then we over-ordered quite a bit. But then again, there was what, 9 of us? And some of them boys have really good appetite.

After much browsing and discussion, we finally confirmed our choices. We ordered two appetizers. Roast Duck Mango Salad, and jellyfish. The jellyfish was pretty normal - just right amount of 'crunch' vs softness (how do one describe jelly fish??!!). The salad was something we all liked. The mango was juicy and sweet, and the small pieces of roast duck added an extra oomph. The duck was very nicely roasted, and a few of us were fighting over the skin, because of the nice charred flavor it had.

Jelly Fish

Roast Duck Mango Salad

In the meat department, we had Golden Phoenix Chicken, and Mocha Pork Ribs. I was thoroughly deceived by the chicken. The picture (both on the menu and mine) makes one imagine beautifully roasted chicken presented in an artful manner. It turned out to be fish paste (!!!!) under that chicken skin. So it was pretty much eating a piece of fish cake with a chicken skin on it. It was nice actually, but I felt so cheated. The pork ribs had a good balance of bitterness and sweet from the coffee, yet it was still savory. Yum.

Golden Phoenix Chicken

Mocha Pork Ribs

What's Jumbo without seafood? We had Cereal Prawns, Scallops in Yam Basket and Chilli Crab. Prawns were covered in a generous mountain of sweet and crunchy cereal. The prawns were fresh, and overall delicious. The scallops were ordered because I though they looked interesting. They were fresh and sweet, and the yam baskets were nicely mashed, not gooey at all. The presentation made them look like fried abalones. Cute!

Cereal Prawns

Scallops in Yam Basket (don't they look like abalones?)

Chilli crab was of course the star of the show. We were given disposable aprons to protect our clothes. I didn't use mine, because I thought that I wouldn't quite be so rough. But there were flying crab shells from around me because of random people trying to crack the hard pincers using the nut cracker (me included). Thankfully none of them hit me, so I was still chilli gravy free at the end of the meal. I liked their crab. Right balance of sweetness and spiciness. The crabs were quite meaty, not shrunken like some you get occasionally. They didn't ask if we wanted male or female crabs, so I think we were given males. I poked around and couldn't find any roe. :(

Chilli Crab

Disposable apron

To even out that carnivorous meal, we have to have something in the vegetable section. Spinach Tofu with Mushroom and Sambal Kang Kong came into the picture. The tofu was topped with mashed spinach and fried, then smothered in a gravy with a mushroom mixture. Already had tried this at many different big chain seafood restaurants. They usually taste roughly the same. Sambal Kang Kong was ok - the sambal was fragrant, and the dish not disgustingly oily. (Sambal Kang Kong is always oily, so I can only say it's not extremely oily... Haha...)

Spinach Tofu with Mushroom

Sambal Kang Kong

We also ordered a Seafood Fried Rice, mainly because a Chinese meal don't seem complete without rice. Haha... Theirs had a good portion of diced prawns in it. Would have liked the rice to be more evenly coated with eggs though. Haha... High standard...

Seafood Fried Rice

The bill did come up to more than we bargained for, because the staff said that the 10% discount cannot be used concurrently with the voucher. Although J was sure he was told differently, we didn't argue for it. After the voucher, we paid $30 or so each. J felt bad that he caused us to spend more than he expected. But hey, for such a sumptuous seafood lunch, none of us were complaining!