Jumbo Seafood @ NSRCC (NSRCC)

Mention the name Jumbo Seafood and the first image that pops to mind is the gigantic boat against a backdrop of neon glowing lights as you are taking a motorboat to the floating palace-like restaurant in Hong Kong. In Singapore, however, its a restaurant with the sign of a boat and the attitude of Hong Kong in that, everything needs to be done fast. Order fast, reach on time and serve fast. The restaurant started back in 1987, this home grown business has since opened 9 outlets with 2 in Japan over the last 22 years. I'm not able to determine if there is any connection between this and the Hong Kong restaurant but i guess in the end, its the food that counts. So without further ado, lets dive in.

Personally, i've never been to the Safra Resort and i must say, i was quite impressed. It looked just like a country club, at discount prices for our guys serving the nation. Its a shame if they didn't make good use of the place. The restaurant, on the other hand, was packed with people and as you can see from the shots, quite huge. Simple carpetted floors with multiple big round tables spread evenly throughout the floor. I like the fact that the layout was simple and no nonsense. The following will be the food we had. We ordered 2 set meals to feed 20 people at $437.80 per set.

Jumbo Appetiser Platter - Surprisingly, the appetiser platter contains rather heavy food items like deep fried dough with squid paste and mayonnaise, braised duck, donut with seafood paste and jellyfish. Everything on this was hot apart from the jellyfish. Everything is a little oily but otherwise good. The appetising items were the duck and and jellyfish which were predominantly sour and appetite rousing.

Steamed Live Prawns - Big, scrumptious and crunchy fresh prawns always get me in a good mood. This really isn't about cooking, simply boil fresh and huge prawns for a good time. And i have to say, their prawns were sweet and huge. Good stuff.

Shark's Fin with Seafood Soup - Do not let the name fool you. I'm suspecting this is seafood soup with some shark's fin thrown in. Why so? There's so much seafood in the soup, its difficult to ignore. Shrimp, mushrooms, fish, shark's fin and even beancurd. Add the fact that its less starchy and the shark's fin is rather difficult you can see why i suspect the above. However, i'm not saying its bad by any means, its just not shark's fin soup per se.

Scallops and Asparagus - Scallops were rather plump and springy but otherwise a very standard dish.

Jumbo Chilli Crab - Jumbo Pepper Crab - Finally, something done right. Huge Sri Lankan crabs, about 4 crabs prepared in different styles per set. Out of this, the favored style will be the chili crab which went well with the fried buns as usual. The crabs were definitely fresh and wasn't overcooked since the meat does not stick to the shell and were sweet. The chili style however, felt more like tomato since it wasn't spicy in the least bit. The black pepper version had the same trademark freshness and was more spicy and fragrant then the chili version. Of the 2 i'd say the black pepper version was done better.

Groupa done HK Style - Once again ,this was fresh, sweet and cooked just right. The meat literally melts in your mouth. Consistency is suspect though since the other table had a fish that was overcooked.

Longevity Noodles - After having all the items above, the noodles arrived to finish everyone off. Having had bad noodles before, i had a phobia for these things. The upside is, this is actually done well. The noodles were chewy yet soft. The flavor is apparent and fragrant. I managed to finish this bowl but couldn't stuff anymore even though i wanted to.

Honey sea coconut with longan.....i guess this says it all doesn't it?

The bill knocked my socks off at a whooping $1009.09 for 20 people.

Ambiance: 6/10 Service: 7/10 Food: 6.5/10 Value for money: 6/10 Final score: 6/10

Last word: I find the bill to be a little too much for the quality of food we had. Is the food bad? Definitely not! The ingredients were fresh and the cook had a good grasp of the timing for the dishes. The only problem is, i could find this at a coffee shop for less then 1/4 of the price minus air conditioning and service. Still, i had a good time meeting most of my family again during this occasion so it wasn't all bad. Could be better though.

Was having a set meal abt three days ago at this outlet of JUMBO. Perhaps due to its inaccessibility, the place was not very crowded even during lunch time as compared to its other outlets perhaps.

As there were ten of us, we orderd a set meal, that set us back about 388 . The dishes served included a cold dish appetizer (jellyfsh, prawns, springrools and fried squid), tofu, fish,chilli crabs,etc and dessert.

Overall, the food was okie, but the service of the staff was slightly below average. I was responsible for footing the bill but had to wait for a good whole 15minutes for the bill to be presented even though there were only a couple of tables filled when we left.