It is conveniently located along MacPherson road. Ample parking can be found at the HDB carpark behind the restaurant.
Singapore's Prime Minister Lee and wife Ho Ching have also ate at Ming Kee (or that Ming Kee catered food for them) in both 2008 and 2009. Looks like a grassroot event at Teck Ghee or at the Prime Minister's private residence. Not sure if it happened again in 2010 or not.
This is their VIP table as only diners who book in advance and order their set menu for 10 will be able to sit at this table. Otherwise, you will be seated at the normal table and chairs.
Our must order - the crispy fish skin. The accompanying soya sauce dip helps to ease the oiliness of the crispy fish skin. Very addictive.
Preserved Beancurd (Nam Yu) roast chicken. We were lucky that they had extras on a weekday. The meat is very tender and juicy, even at the breast area. Skin was crispy and thin. The best part was this Nam Yu sauce at the bottom. It went well with the juicy roast chicken.
Steam Mussels with crispy fried minced garlic. Their shellfish are very fresh. As they were out of Flower Clams (Hua La), we had the mussels instead. They were very fresh and sweet. The minced garlic was not too overpowering, yet enhanced the flavours of the fresh mussels.
Many people will not understand why I ordered freshly sliced fish with sweet and sour sauce. Well, the reason is that this version beats all others hands down. I love sweet and sour things. And most restaurants use frozen overnight fish to make sweet and sour fish. Not here at Ming Kee. Only fresh love fish slices are used. You will understand it when you bite into the crispy slices of fish with the tangy sauce.
We were in the mood of Chilli crab. Had this 1.2kg Sri Lanka male crab meant for 4 people. The chilli sauce was good in that it wasn't too spicy, and had a tangy tomato paste to it. So far, I like this version of their sauce together with No Signboard at Geylang and Mattar Road No Signboard at Old Airport. Equally good is the chilli crab at Melben.
Service was very good, especially the very friendly 老板娘. Reservations are highly recommended if you want to dine in their air-con part of the restaurant, especially during weekends.
Ming Kee Live Seafood
556 Macpherson Road
Ming Kee has moved to a spanking new premise at 520 Macpherson Road. The owner Ivan will be doing the cooking himself for now. Don’t miss his marvellous cooking! Call 67445520 for reservations today.
ReplyDeleteDo not ask me why there are two restaurants on the same street - it baffles me totally.
ReplyDeleteIt was painful finding parking here during dinner time. At least the 556 one was near to the HDB open-air carpark.
I dined here with my family last December 2013 and it has taken me sometime to decide to write a review because I felt that this has really wrong.
This restaurant has a window at the front of the kitchen where diners could look into. Was utterly disgusted when I witnessed the chef cooking and smoking at the same time in the kitchen. Is this allowed? How clean will the food be? The chef was also drinking whisky at the same time.
Food was over-rated, especially the signature crab bee-hoon which tasted like it had been cooked with seawater. The Guinness Stout pork ribs were chunky and difficult to bite, especially for older folks.
Service was horrible...there was only one waitress to service 4 tables who was also the order taker and cashier. We had to DIY to get our own tea pot refilled at a pantry at the back of the restaurant and our bill took the waitress close to 20mins to process??? My final bill for 4 persons was $363 which included a service charge of 10%???!!!!
I suspect that I have been ripped off here. This is because like most Singaporeans, my family enjoys eating crabs and we have cooked our own Sri Lankan crabs at home before. We buy the big ones from the Tekka market for $37/kg and Ming Kee serves at $50/kg which is considered value as most major restaurants charge more than $60/kg. The supplier had told us that normally the big Sri Lankan crabs are available in 1kg/1.2kg sizes only. What really bewildered me was that the crab that was served to us was the most 1.2kg however my receipt showed that I was billed for 1.7kg which was like 500g heavier or rather $25 more, not to forget the 10% service charge that was imposed on the total bill?????
We had ordered a plain steamed Soon Hock in Hong Kong style which was fresh and easily the best dish of the night but the final bill really made me uncomfortable. We can buy fresh Soon Hock from the market at $25/kg but I was charged $88/kg here. The one we had looked like it was the most 800g but we were billed for 1.1kg...
We did have a word with the chef Ivan (the one whom I witnessed smoking) who gave excuses and said that he was not the boss and couldn't make decisions.
We were sick at the attitude shown to us and just wanted to get out ASAP.
To sum up, as food-loving Singaporeans sometimes we can overlook being "carrot-heads" when we eat out if it has been a fair dining experience, especially if the food and service is good, but this????? I think this has gone really overboard. These people should be put out of business.