8 Crabs Review : Sri Lanka Crabs and Zhi Char at afforable Price

Staying home for dinner need not be a boring affair.



Since most are staying home for dinner, home-cook meals and the occasional delivery would be our daily menu. After 20 days of the similar dishes over this circuit breaker period, it is good to get a treat to pamper oneself.

So when 8Crabs.com  offered to let us savour their AAA premium Sri Lankan Sourced Wild Crabs in return for an honest review, we could not say no. From the website, we saw a whole host of Zi Char delights from prawn paste chicken to coffee ribs and decided to order a feast to enjoy. We would rarely order crabs specifically in restaurants, so to have it at home is going to be a treat!

Sri Lanka Crab - Large $68

We learn a time or two from the correspondence we had with Natalie of 8Crabs.com. Apparently, the crabs sourced are wild and not farmed. Farm crabs are usually bred in a confined space, leading to stress and produce ammonia.

"They are caught, flown, prepared in deliver within 12 hours." was the claim made on their website on their process of bringing Wild Sri Lankan Crabs from sea to the table. That would have been an impressive feat.

While we cannot say for sure that they are meatier or tastier than their counterparts, the chilli crab that we had for the evening was an absolute delight. The gravy was not too overwhelming with the right familiar flavour mix of chilli, ketchup and a whole host of ingredients. Each bite was filled with chunky meat from our Large Size  700-800g Chilli crab ($68).

Price-wise, it is comparable to the other online delivery. Having compared prices to 3 other online orders, the price is at the lower range. Add free delivery to orders above $120, it may be worthwhile to check them on base on price alone. There are 3 ways for the crabs to be cooked. You can have the familiar chilli crab, black pepper crab it salted egg crab if you are more adventurous.

Speaking of Delivery, if you absolutely crave for it within an hour, they can fulfil too (subject to time and availability). The express 1-hour delivery is chargeable at $18 vs standard delivery of $8.
The time slots available from their website is 1230-230 and 4pm-11pm in the one-hour timeslot.

Fried Man Tou ( Set of 5) $6

To complement the Chilli crab, you have to order the Fried Man Tou. These upsize Man Tou are biggest than the usual ones we had in restaurants.

Signature Coffee Pork Ribs  Small $15

To complete our meals, we added a few side dishes. One of them is the signature Coffee Pork Ribs. The coffee flavour was well marinated into the meat. We have no problems wiping out the dishes in minutes

Prawn Paste Chicken Medium $18

Adding to the sides, we had the prawn paste chicken. This one is Cooked Zhi Char style. We ordered the medium size option and the portion was true to size.  It was listed as suitable for 3 to 5 pax and it is about right as our family of four could not finish it. (Maybe it's because we had too much food😂)

Signature Prawn Roll Small $10

The Ngog Heong did not disappoint either. It was not too oily and the prawn filling was a delight.

Yang Zhou Fried Rice Small $6

The boys wanted some rice to go with the food. So we ordered a small packet of Fried Rice. It was enough to fill both of them up.

The food was delivered in boxes similar to Zhi Char style. We would suggest plating it rather than it out of the box. Not only would it look better but psychologically, it will taste better too. Even for the Zhi Char dishes, it is price comparatively to what you can get in coffee shops.

Who is 8Crabs?

Given that it was a hearty meal, we were curious about 8 Crabs as we honestly had not heard about them since they approached us. Interestingly, they had reviews on the website since 2017, which indicated that they might have been in this business for a while.

Curiosity got the better of us as we tried to figure out who 8Crabs is. If they have a physical store, we would love to visit the location once CB is lifted. From what we gathered, 8Crabs is relatively new online. With their FB page is created on Apr 11, 2020, it is probably why we have not heard of them before.

Another peculiar thing we discovered when we paid our orders via Paypal was that payment was made to Mason Home Decor (Disclosure: we did pay for the food, albeit not the full amount). For full disclosure, we had worked with them before on a review of their awesome Christmas Tree that we still use during Christmas. In fact, from what we know, the company specialised in several business lines online. They are not new to the online delivery concept and are experienced in this expertise.

Interestingly, on the 8Crabs website, 8 Crabs had indicated that they will help those in need with free cook food. They will be providing up to 100 meals a day to those in need.

Here is from their website

We don’t care who you are, or where you come from. We are not going to check if you are truly ‘needy’. Please apply only if you really need help. We will send food to anyone that applies, but limited to our daily maximum capacity. There is no gimmick. Yes, we are definitely making more during these times, but we are also doing everything we can to help and give back. Regardless of how rich you are, what country you come from, or what you believe in, we are all human at the end of the day. And humans should help humans

This would be a really noble cause during this period. You can apply through this link if you need.
https://8crabs.com/feed-singapore-campaign-by-8-crabs/


One more thing, this was shared by Mdm Ho Ching.

Ordering

With all things considered, what matters most is the experience.

Our orders were made 2 days in advance. On the day of delivery, there was a call to confirm the order and the delivery was prompt and within our time stipulated. There were no hiccups and the food delivered were according to order.

Overall, it was a pleasant experience in terms of food and delivery process. We might even have another go at it to celebrate the end of Circuit Breaker when the date approaches!

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Disclosure
The meal was partially sponsored by 8Crabs for the purpose of this review. The review was based on our own personal experience only. All opinions are of our own. We are not liable for your personal experience with 8crabs