One of the highlights of eating back home was Mr Tan’s Kelong, a wooden house on stilts at sea off the coast of Changi and not far from Pulau Ubin island. Thanks to food friend and cook extraordinaire S, we ate our heart out on the freshing seafood and catches of the day. I don’t have any food photos apart from the first as our hands were dirty shelling prawns and crabs.
Space is limited, we saw about 5 to 6 tables that seat up to 10-12 pax. Get the boat from Changi Ferry at 6pm and be in time for sunset. It’s a bring your own booze policy, no corkage.
Mrs Tan showed us her little order list – when you call to book in advance, you also make your orders and when you arrive, they’ll let you know what’s the specials for the day.
The crab fried rice, crab omelette, steam fish, crab legs and lemon chicken are the usual orders. The squid was really good too. I think we ordered everything on the menu. I don’t speak teochew, so our friend who did ordered. Mrs Tan is also illiterate so this cute little order list is how she takes reservation and orders.
My grandmother is also illiterate and till today she still uses an old mobile phone and dial numbers manually from her pocket address book, she can’t write so she draws faces to associate phone numbers with people.
Dinners here typically average $40-$50 per person no matter how large your party (and that’s if you order like a beast like we did). This excludes the boat ride which is $88.
Mr Tan’s Kelong: +65 8142 2223 Does someone have the updated number? +65 8356 9547
