Chile crab and pepper crab at Long Beach in Singapore

While filming MasterChef Vietnam season 3, I met some folks from the Singapore Tourism Board; their job was to help the producers obtain permits for on-site shoots and make sure things ran smoothly during filming.As we were wrapping our first day’s shoot, Glenn and Junnie invited me to dinner to try some traditional Singaporean dishes. Of course, I said yes. How could I resist? On my travels, I love discovering new foods through the tastebuds of locals.Everyone talks about chile crab or chicken with rice when they talk about Singaporean cuisine. Junnie, Glenn, and his wife Shermaine took me to Long Beach, a restaurant serving fresh crab, saying despite Jumbo being more well-known, Long Beach had the superior crab. And to make things more esoteric, it wasn’t the chile crab that was the best dish—it was the white pepper crab.These are things one would only learn from locals or, in my fortunate case, the Singapore Tourism Board.We arrived at the bustling restaurant to be ushered past noisy tables, across an outdoor deck, and into another dining area tucked away in a back room.“You order,” I said, putting full trust in my dining companions.What ensued was a feast: razor clams, tofu, the famous chile crab, the less famous white pepper crab, and mantou, a sweet, soft bread similar to Chinese bao, which we used to mop up sauce. It reminded me of how, in Vietnam, we tore chunks off the communal baguette and ran them through the tamarind crab sauce.For dessert, we had durian pudding and mango sago, which came shrouded in a haze of liquid nitrogen. A bit hoaky, if you ask me, but durian is the king of southeast Asian fruits, and mango sago is a common Singaporean dessert. Sago is starch made from the palm, and it doesn’t have much taste but rather incorporated into food mostly for texture.Not to the surprise of my new Singaporean friends, I favored the white pepper crab over the chile version. There was something utterly unctuous yet nuanced about the white pepper gravy, whereas I found the chile sauce a tad overbearing with heat. And to extend the gastronomical pleasure, I grabbed some manta and soak up all the gravy goodness.Long Beach’s white pepper crab was fantastic, and though I have no other places to which I could compare, Glenn and Shermaine, who was a food writer, claimed Long Beach is where the locals go for the dish.There is so much more to explore regarding Singaporean food. I will have to return and eat my way across the 720 square kilometers. Lucky for me, I’ll have four friends moving there in the next year. “I’m coming to visit you,” I’ll say, but really what I’ll mean is, “I’m coming to eat. Show me where.”Singapore is a melting pot of Chinese, Malaysian, and Indian cultures, which explains why their foods are so varied in flavor and style. Which is your favorite Singaporean dish?Long Beach Seafood Restaurant1018 East Coast Pkwy.Singapore 449877Phone: +65 6445 8833