Every summer London plays host to a Singapore Chilli Crab Festival. I’ve always had the greatest intentions of checking it out but to be honest the thought of fighting through the crowds is a serious turn off. Plus, the chill crab tends to be a tad messy to eat and enjoy properly so I’d much rather sit down and enjoy the crab in more civilised surroundings. The chilli crab is cooked in a yummy gravy of tomato and chilli sauce and apparently unofficially the national dish of Singapore though there is historical dispute about whether it originated in Malaysia or Singapore. Whatever. I’m just grateful that we can find a restaurant in London that serves it and the fact that its local to me is even more of a bonus.

I’ve been to Kiasu once before don’t remember being that thrilled by it though that’s not to say it was horrible – simply not memorable. Serving a range of East Asian dishes (Singaporean, Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Filipino) you’ll never want for options if you want to take a tour of Asia. Kiasu relies on a quick turnover of diners so its not the kind of place where you are going to camp out for the night and the cosy seating arrangement in a way discourages that.

Although we knew we wanted the Chilli Crab dish (I’d even rung up the day before just to make sure it was available) that didn’t stop us also picking up a beef satay starter, a noodle dish and some veges. In hindsight we should have asked them to bring the noodle dish and veges after our crab as it took our full concentration to eat the giant dish! The tiny table couldn’t cope with all our dishes so the waiter efficiently joined our table up with another!

There’s also fresh, crusty bread to mop up all the sauce so not one bit is left.

Quickly on the other dishes – the beef satay was pretty tasty if a bit over-cooked, the char kwey teoh was delciously smoky and the veges in garlic were tasty though Pat thought it was too salty – all reasonbly priced for the portions we received. At £15.80 the crab, our headline act, seemed to be great value. It was superb. The sauce was to die for and seriously tasty. The crab was also served with two fried breads (the sweet Asian variety) which went well with the sauce. Could have done with more to sop it all up. The only thing I would say about the dish is that its not a dating dish. I don’t know how Pat managed to keep his hands fairly clean but I certainly wasn’t a lady when I was eating it and managed to get it dripping all over my hands and nearly halfway down my arms. Animal but it was too delicious to eat politely. 😉

Overall I would say I was happy with my Kiasu experience. Service-wise it was only slightly disappointing when we first arrived – we were left to stand around for about 5-10 minutes in a clearly empty restaurant whilst the waiters seemingly ignored us. The other disappointment was only being able to pay in cash despite maestro etc. signs posted on the door. The could have told us this at the beginning of the meal – luckily we had cash to cover.