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Popeyes S’pore New Crab Mantou Burger Review: Authentic Whole Crab in a Burger

2018-07-30 , 3:26 pm

The headline would have said something, doesn’t it? If not, here, take a look at this:

I kid you not. It’s one whole small soft-shell crab tucked between two mantous, filled with “special sauce” that isn’t chilli crab sauce.

If you don’t know what I’m blabbering about, here’s something new for you:

Popeyes Singapore Just Released a Chic & Crab Mantou Set

Given that we’ve so familiar with the 1 burger + 1 side + 1 drink set, introducing this dish is a little tricky, so let me draw it out for you.

Yeah, that’s better. So the meal comprises two burgers instead of just one, and only one of them is crab, while the other is crap – I mean, chicken.

The burgers aren’t your typical Popeyes burgers, as the buns are swapped with fried mantous, as mantous and crabs go well together like Jack Neo and Mark Lee.

The meal itself is at $9.90, and you can’t get it à la carte, so forget about having it for your afternoon snack instead.

After discovering this yesterday, we came out with an elaborate plan to steal our boss’s credit card and succeeded like a boss, so here’s the review.

First Look: Pass + Fail

Have you ever come across a meal that makes everyone in the office go, ‘WOW’? Yeah, this meal does just that.

The presentation isn’t as IG-worthy as the one you see online: for a start, it’s messy AF. The upper mantou can’t seem to stay atop its patty, and the sauce is everywhere.

We’re going to go out on a limb and say that the delivery personnel must have done some Initial D shit while on his way here, so that explains why our photographer felt like he had to fix a jigsaw puzzle before taking his images.

Now, the size: that is the aspect that triggers the “wow” in us. We were expecting mini-burgers, kind of like half the size of a credit card; but no, it’s relatively big, at about the size of, say, a credit card.

And there’s a full soft-shell crab in it – our “wows” become “so cute” upon seeing it, except for one fat bastard who hates seafood so much, he ran off to Tampines after seeing the crab.

So, the looks have (kind of) won us over: how about the taste?

Chicken Mantou Burger

Of course we have to start with the highly anticipated chicken mantou burger, because that’s what you’re here for, right?

It’s crap.

Okay, kidding, it’s not crap, but there’s really nothing special: it’s just a crispy chicken patty getting married with two mantous.

I was expecting chilli crab sauce for this, but the red fiery sauce, which smells good though, tastes like those Thai chilli sauce you can get from NTUC FairPrice. To be fair, that’s one heck of sauce but still, calling it special just doesn’t make sense.

I’ll say that this is just here to cover the cost of the main star, which is…

The Mashed Potato

It’s a mashed potato. Cool. Next…

Soft Shell Crab Mantou Burger

Now, this is legit.

Unless you’re like my colleague who’s still vomiting in Tampines, any seafood lover would love this. The whole crab is crispy – every bite comes with a flavourful crunch, and every bite is sinful yet fulfilling. Even from afar, you can still smell the distinct soft-shell crab aroma.

The sauce, once again, doesn’t do justice to the burger – however, if you disregard that, the crab goes well with mantou. After all, they’re BFF, remember?

If I could turn back the time, I would have asked for less sauce: the crab can stand by its own, and with less sauce, I would have them separate (the mantous from the crab), using a fork and knife for that atas feel.

Overall: Worth it?

The soft-shell crab mantou is worth quite a bit, but given that it’s just a rather small part of the entire meal, I just don’t feel that the price of $9.90 is worth it.

However, if we’re talking merely about the taste, I’ll give the crab mantou a resounding 4.5 out of 5. Remove the sauce and I might just bump it to 4.8.

Make it cheaper (or make it two crab mantous instead of one chicken one crab), I’ll give it a 6 out of 5.