8 Crabs is an award-winning crab and seafood delivery service that caters to Singaporeans island-wide and they pride themselves in the quality of the crabs they serve to their customers.

They use Grade AAA Premium Sri Lankan Wild Crab

According to Natalie from the 8 Crabs Marketing Team, they are the only company in Singapore using Grade AAA Premium Sri Lankan Sourced Wild Crabs, which are graded by the most experienced crab graders in the trade. 

So this therefore means that the quality of crabs from 8 Crabs are meatier, tastier, bigger and less watery.

Crabs produce ammonia when stressed

Explained Natalie, “Crabs naturally travel about 500m every night and prefer to live alone. However crab farmers breed many crabs in a confined space to be profitable. This causes the crabs to get stressed very easily in captivity as many farms cannot replicate their natural habitat.”

“When stressed, crabs produce ammonia, which is a sign of decomposition of seafood,” Natalie continued.

And so in order to cover up the ammonia smell emitted by these farmed crabs, most restaurants would use highly fragrant gravies.

8 Crabs’ crabs are caught, flown, prepared and delivered within 12 hours

But to ensure the freshness of the crabs, Natalie stresses that at 8 Crabs, crabs are caught, flown, prepared and delivered within 12 hours.

She added, “Our award-winning chefs prepare and cook these fresh crabs daily to guarantee the best flavour and taste.”

Ordering on the 8 Crabs website

Natalie reached out to me recently to try some of the offerings at 8 Crabs.

During the Circuit Breaker and Phase 1 period, we have been mostly ordering take-out from around my neighbourhood for our meals, so I had figured that this was a good chance for my family to enjoy a seafood treat, for a change.

Heading to the 8 Crabs website to place an order, it was a rather fuss-free and simple process. I only needed to select the items that I wanted and add each one to the cart in turn. 

Once my selection was finalised, I would then review and check-out. Finally I would nominate the date and time slot of delivery i.e. when I had wanted to eat the food.

It was easy to navigate and anyone who has some basic Internet knowledge would know how to order food with the 8 Crabs website.

And for those who are thinking of getting an 8 Crabs feast as a celebration, I noted that orders can actually be placed well in advance – meaning that you would not forget about it at the last minute.

My family and I placed our order one day in advance, booking the 7pm – 8pm dinnertime slot last night, for our delivery. 

8 Crabs’ payment portal (using credit card) was also fuss-free and simple to use.

Food arrives

The food arrived at 7:15pm and the dishes still felt warm on arrival. So far, so good.

This was because of 8 Crabs’ policy of one driver to an order policy across their 12 kitchens islandwide, so that the company can uphold their promise of One Hour Crab Delivery.

Tucking into the food

As 8 Crabs is famous for their crabs, naturally we had to select a crab dish. We went for the Award-Winning Chilli Crab – Large; 750 grams ($68).

It has been a while since I have last tucked into a crab meal, so I admit that this was a dinner that I had been looking rather forward to.

Besides chilli crab, the other sauce options offered by 8 Crab are the salted egg yolk crab and the black pepper crab, for those who are feeling more adventurous with their food choices.

The crab meat was firm and tender, with the pincers indeed being meaty, too. And the meat also peeled off easily in pieces rather than being clumped together – definitely a sign of freshness in a crab.

As well, the chilli sauce, which had a spicy note together with a hint of sweetness and some tanginess, complemented the crab well with its melody of flavours. The combination was rather yummy indeed.

I also noted that there was plenty of sauce in the dish; in fact, the crab had been literally swimming in it.

However, I felt that the fresh flavours of the crab, had been partially drowned out by the rich sauce. There was indeed no smell of ammonia present, but the natural freshness and original flavours of the crab did not shine so well, due to the heaviness of the sauce.

To accompany the crab dish, we got a Fried Man Tou ($6). This is always a must-order whenever you are having crabs.

I found 8 Crabs version of Man Tou to be dense and a tad firm in texture, and it had a slight sweet note to it. When dipped into the chilli crab sauce, the Man Tou is not able to absorb the gravy very well.

To complete our meal, we also enjoyed a Prawn Paste Chicken ($12), the Premium Salted Egg Prawn (Deshelled) ($25) as well as a Stir Fried Kai Lan ($10).

Besides crabs, 8 Crabs also offers a wide range of Zi-Char favourites, so those who may not really be into seafood can also have their preferences fulfilled.

I quite enjoyed the Prawn Paste Chicken. It was very tasty with a distinctive prawn flavour, as expected. The chicken meat was also good and quite moist inside.

However, I felt that the batter was a tad on the soft side when I ate it. It would have been nice if it were more crispy.

For the Premium Salted Egg Prawn, the salted egg flavour was rich, satisfying and very distinctive, and it also had a hint of curry note for completeness too. This was another rather enjoyable dish.

Alas, again though, the batter had been a tad soft.

Perhaps 8 Crabs could improve on the composition and ingredients of their batter so that it will remain crunchy through the delivery process, as the food is not consumed immediately upon cooking.

As for the Fried Kai Lan, this was fresh, but the flavour was not as fragrant as I had hoped for. Texture-wise, it was a tad chewy.

It is decent enough if you want to get a vegetable side dish to accompany your meal, but perhaps not the best version of Kai Lan that I have tried.

 Conclusion 

If you enjoy eating crab, I have to say that you would definitely want to check out 8 Crabs. Having tucked into their food, I can now say their crabs are indeed fresh, meaty and delicious as they advertise. You can take a peep at their website and/or place an order at https://8crabs.com.