Ministry of Crab — Restaurant in Colombo

Come and dine here if you don’t mind being taken for a ride! 6 of us dined here on 16 August 2025 and it was an evening we had all been looking forward to with a couple of crab afficianados in our party. Our server, Tab, was friendly and he took us through the constitution and the menu, making some popular recommendations. We enjoyed the butter soy prawn and claypot prawn curry and this built our anticipation for their famed crabs. The MOC original chilli crab was served first and one bite, a few of us realised that the crab was not fresh at all, the flesh was mushy. We had immediately stopped eating and highlighted this to Tab. He alerted his manager and much to our horror, instead of listening to us, the manager had a very condescending attitude and said that nothing was wrong with the crab but perhaps, we were expecting it to taste like Singapore Chilli crab. I had emphasized that it is not the cooking style but the quality of the crab (for crab meat to be this mushy, it isn’t fresh). After a good 5 minutes of arguing, he initially agreed to cancel this from our order but given that we had two orders of it, he changed his mind and said he will replace the crabs and asked if we wanted to change the cooking style. We were actually fine with the MOC Original Chilli crab flavour but Tab suggested we change one of them to Garlic Chilli and we went with his suggestion. When the second batch of chilli crabs were served, they were fresh but we can’t help but notice how much smaller they were in size and we snapped some photographs of them side by side with our black pepper crabs. The manager noticed this and immediately walked over to say that these new chilli crabs were complimentary. We did not ask for complimentary crabs and we were going to highlight this when the bill came after our meal. Much to our amusement, when the first bill came, we were charged for the bad (dead, mushy) chilli crabs which were 800g each (costing USD90 per crab - yes, they have the audacity to charge in USD) and the actual smaller crabs we ate (which they claimed were 500-600g and priced at USD70) were noted down as Comp. After another round of unpleasant exchanges with the manager (who was not only condescending but clearly doesn’t care about customer service/hospitality), he agreed to charge us for what we had consumed which were the smaller crabs and not the bad crabs which we were originally served. Truly, one of the most horrible dining experiences I have ever had and it is shocking on how they ever got on the Asia Top 50 list. We should have seen the alarm bells ringing when we walked in. The whole place was just filled with foreign tourists. I guess, it is nothing more than just a tourist trap under the banner of Asia Top 50 etc. Thankfully, this was not our last crab meal in Colombo or else, we would have left thinking what’s the hype here as one can get way better quality crabs...

My 2nd time visiting this place and I went there with my partner super excited and end up leaving disappointed.

The reservation booking went smoothly so we were really looking forward to it. So we got there, got to our table, ordered our food. It was all fine until the server keeps on interfering with us while we are having our time. Like when I was taking a video of the oyster shots, he would come and would ask us to get our spoon and fork. Like dude cant you wait and see what we are doing? Then we were talking and about to eat he would come and say that the shell were already cracked like WTF!? We have eyes and dont tell us how to eat our food. Let us have our time. The experience didnt feel personal because the server were always there and didnt leave us alone.

But that is not the worst part, he got my order incorrectly. Not once but twice. I ordered the garlic bread and decided to get 2 rice instead so I cancelled the bread. He said that 1 rice is good for two so I opted to get just one rice. Order came and rhe bread was still there and when I told him that I didnt order it he said he didnt hear me when I said cancel it. So i let it go, it was 2doars only anyway.

But here goes the 2nd pne and ruin the mood for me, i ordered the liter water. So he served the water and I didnt notice the first time. We were talking an he kept on coming to refill our glasses so our conversation and moment keeps getting cut off. Thats when i notice that the water didnt look like a 1liter water so i checked and saw that its like 600ml in a fancy glass bottle and so I asked the server why he didnt bring the 1liter. He said that its not available so he brought another. I told hin that its not nice and that he should tell the customer if something is not available instead of him making the decision for the guest. I wouldve ordered a different drink had I known. It was really irritating.

We finished our food, got the check, paid and left disappointed. The server didnt even send us off which I understand because i was already pissed off.

I always try to eat at this restaurant whenever im in colombo or at least recommend it to a friend who will visit, but I think this will be the last time.

By the way, the crab which we ordered is medium sized for $80 which is OVERPRIZEDDDDD for a very salty cooking. 🤦🏼‍♀️ the oyster shots were good thought. The service wouldve made up for the overpricing or the food but it was sooooo terrible. I feel like ive been ripped off!

Damn, what...

I am honestly shocked that I wasn't able to find a single bad review online for this place.

We were a party of 3 in the Melbourne pop up store in Crown Casino, I've eaten all around the world and quite often eat fine dining and I can confidently say that this is the worst and most underwhelming experience i've ever had.

At $185AUD per person, we were served a 5 course meal, the first course of crab pate and crackers was probably worth $5 worth of raw ingredients, the two serves came out looking completely different due to one being stored at a different temp (according to the waiter) which looking like growing mould on a petri dish (absolutelu failed in presentation and 2 dishes not consistent with each other).

The second dish was literally a small (tablespoon size) of premium tinned crab mince meat in half an avacado, this would have cost the restaurant ~$3 in raw ingredients.

The third course was a prawn, not like the one at the original restaurants, but an Australian Banana Prawn which is about 1/4 the size of what is shown in the original website, understand that our country may not have the same size prawns, but at $185, at least serve two, one banana prawn this size in Australia would cost around $3.

The main (4th course) was the pepper crab, our crab had so little meat that the restaurant actually decided to guve us a second serving of it because just serving one would have been robbery, the pepper taste was way too overpowering and strong and was balance with white rice which was steamed with too much water (it was mushy), I've eaten singapore/malaysian pepper crab dozens of times and this was not it.

The dessert was literally just a creme brulee in half a coconut, I can make this at home, in fact, I'm quite certain I can replicate every single dish that was served and i'm not a culinary master by any means, the best dish was the XO prawns, which was literally just a pan fried prawn laid on a bed of XO chilli sauce which tastes exactly like the jar one you can buy from your local asian grocer.

We spent $600AUD for 3 people and all 3 of us were extremely disappointed and felt completely ripped off. Maybe its a different experience at the original store but the owner and chefs should honestly be ashamed for what we were served vs what they are charging.any fine dining restaurant (or even normal restaurant) in Melbourne is MUCH better than this, and i eat out a lot.

If I could rate this place a...