Chen Fu Ji, a restaurant best known for its lavishly priced $25 plate of crab fried rice, is now looking for a fresh pair of meaty claws to take over the business.
Though he is willing to stay on in a consultancy role to facilitate the handover of his restaurant’s operations and fried rice cooking know-how, he hopes to eventually “let go” of Chen Fu Ji and devote his time instead to his longtime passion: singing and occasionally, performing oldies with his friends.
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Chen Fu Ji has been around since the 1950s
Chen Fu Ji first gained prominence as a single, well-patronised restaurant in Chinatown back in the 1950s, when it was managed by a mother and her two daughters. As the story goes, its luxurious fried rice — cooked with the deshelled meat of an entire crab — was so popular that even rich businessmen from a nearby millionaires’ club would visit the restaurant.
One of these patrons, a Japanese businessman, ended up buying the business in the ’90s, though he only lasted a few months before passing it along to its current owner Roger, an accountant by training.
Though the plan was originally to keep the core team of Chen Fu Ji lady bosses as chefs and culinary consultants, their increasing ill health made the situation untenable.
The matriarchs passed their culinary skills – and prized crab fried rice recipe – along to the silver’s chefs, fuelling what he would later call Chen Fu Ji Version 2.0 — an era of “horizontal expansion” both within and outside of Singapore.
At its peak, he operated more than 10 restaurants with outlets in shopping malls, Changi Airport and even international outposts in Hong Kong, Beijing and China.
At the time, long before the rise of fried rice-focused chains like King of Fried Rice and Taiwan-import Din Tai Fung, Chen Fu Ji offered a unique (if pricy) proposition with its premium crab fried rice.
"Then we chill it for at least eight hours before frying. The idea is to accentuate the original aroma of egg and rice with soya sauce, white pepper, a bit of chicken powder, and the juices from the steamed crab."
However, the rising costs of labour, rent and especially crab — a key ingredient of Chen Fu Ji’s premium fried rice — led to growing business difficulties as the restaurant chain’s footprint grew.
According to Roger, his inability to secure a consistent supply of fresh, high-quality crab led to a decline in quality that customers couldn’t stomach, even with a price reduction of their signature dish to $18.
The outlets shuttered one after another. In 2016, he closed his last restaurant in Clarke Quay, along with that chapter of Chen Fu Ji’s history.
A fresh start
But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Before Chen Fu Ji opened its current, solo outfit in Jalan Besar, Roger took a hiatus from F&B to go “soul-searching” overseas.
During his travels, he found himself inexplicably drawn once again to crab.
"They owned every step of production from the farms, to the transport, and then to the distribution back in China."
Succession plans of Chen Fu Ji
The silver kickstarted Chen Fu Ji’s third chapter at a short-lived Toa Payoh shophouse in 2019, before moving to his current premises in 2020. The crab fried rice has “been reinstated to its former glory” with one full crab worth of meat at $25.
The restaurant is a cosy 80-seater with a private event space on the second level handily equipped with a karaoke system. Plastered on the walls are posters of what the silver calls “giants of the era” – Tom Jones, Steve Tyler, and Elvis Presley among them.
It’s a reflection of what Roger himself hopes to do in retirement – focus on singing and playing the guitar with his friends, and occasionally performing for charity events or partaking in competitions (he participated in, and won, the 2022 edition of Golden Age Talentime).
But first, he has to enact his succession plan, stepping down after 30 years at the helm of the Chen Fu Ji brand as of 1 March 2025.
Handing the business to his sons wasn’t an option, as they already had “successful careers” in their chosen fields of study.
For now, Chen Fu Ji has ceased operations completely. Roger plans to split his time between searching for the next investor to bring things forward and conducting cooking lessons to “help spread the legacy of Chen Fu Ji Fried Rice”.
The courses will start on 15 March — check out his restaurant’s social pages for details to come.
As proof of the restaurant’s prominence, he shows us a guestbook filled with signatures from foreign celebrities, businessmen and even some local statesmen (though he requested that no exact names be shared).
Chen Fu Ji Fried Rice
Location: 279 Jalan Besar, Singapore 208943
Opening Hours: Wed to Mon, 11am – 9pm (open half an hour later on Fri and Sat)
Tel: +65 6908 4293
Website: https://www.facebook.com/@CFJSG/
