Great Nanyang Heritage Cafe 大南洋 — Restaurant in Singapore

// 17 April 2025 Visited the place for dinner and noticed that the receipt now includes a 2% service charge, which is lower than the usual 10%. I checked back on my previous reviews and noted that during my last visit on 4 July 2025, they only charged GST — so the service charge is a recent addition.

That said, the place remains a great choice for dinner if you’re looking for a quiet spot to catch up with friends.

// 4 July 2024 This spot is always bustling during lunch hours, but surprisingly, it's more relaxed at dinner time. On weekdays, there's no need to queue, and we easily found a table without any wait. There were still empty tables around 6 PM. Note that this place doesn’t take reservations.

The local dishes here are comforting, and the beverages are quite good. Unlike the similar toast found in Penang, where the eggs are less runny, the soft-boiled eggs on this toast are incredibly runny and sit perfectly on the crispy toast! It's a bit messy to eat because the yolk runs and drips.

On the other hand, the curry fishball was just okay. The curry is thin, and the fishball is pretty standard.

Prices are subject to GST only.

// 25 September 2023 I ordered the Luncheon Meat Wholemeal set (午餐肉面包全麦) and opted for an iced Yuan Yang siew dai at additional of $1.50. When the iced drink arrived, I was surprised to find it overflowing on intent! The blend of tea and coffee in the Yuan Yang siew dai was perfectly balanced. It seems I may have discovered a new place to savor spam and egg sandwiches! The Luncheon Meat Wholemeal bread featured scrambled eggs, a generous slice of luncheon meat, cheese, and a touch of mayo, and it tasted amazing, especially the fluffy...

Pictures are:

Signature Hainanese Chicken Cutlet ($15.90+) - 3 stars Portion is way too small for the price, doesn't look like the menu photo at all. Doesn't taste great, even the wedges were dry and burnt. (How does one even screw up wedges so bad?!)

Shredded Chicken Hor Fun ($8.90+) - 0 stars Would give zero stars for this dish if possible. Soup is tasteless and plain, and does not have any sweetness or aroma of chicken stock at all. Hor Fun is too thick and the wrong type (more suited for stir fry than soup dishes). If you have a chicken hor fun craving, it would be better to eat at Old Town White Coffee probably (which is not very good to begin with).

Moonlight Hor Fun ($7.90+) - 4 stars Decent wok hei, but way too salty.

Hot coffee ($1.90+) / Iced coffee ($3.80+) - 5 stars Pretty decent and was the highlight of the meal.

Penang Prawn Noodle ($8.90+) - 4 stars Pretty decent, worth trying. Slightly too little noodle vs the bee hoon ratio.

Kaya Butter Toast ($2.50+) - 4 stars Ok, butter is thick, but not particularly special.

Curry Chicken Nasi Lemak ($8.90+) - 3 stars Good curry chicken. But doesn't really pair well with the nasi lemak. Nasi lemak is not quite fragnant, and uses the long-grained basmati rice. It will cost another 50 cents if you ask for additional sambal.

Thankfully there was no queue when I was there, but otherwise I would consider this place to be not worth queueing for and would be rather disappointed if I had to queue 30 min for this.

No service charge, price...

Tldr: nanyang coffee is good. Toast is sinfully decent but might not be worth its price. Mutton rendang dry mee siam is average.

Place is popular and gets crowded quickly during meal times. Seating is quite packed and leaves only enough space for 1 person to move. Service is good and food items came quite quickly after ordering.

Coffee was a fairly small cup, those you would see at really old coffeeshops. The aroma of the coffee was great and the taste was extremely flavourful as you'd expect from a good nanyang coffee. The coffee taste is strong but not bitter and you can feel the kick.

The toast is very thin, cut from 1 slice of bread and then cut vertically. Visuals definitely make an impact of "what?". Once you get past that, you'd notice the thick slabs of butter nestled between the toasted planks of bread that you don't get elsewhere. Points for ensuring every bite gets you a sinful rush of buttery goodness, but I would say that the kaya butter toast just tastes like butter and nothing else. Price point for 1 slice of toast is pretty steep here.

Got a mutton rendang dry mee siam and the only decent part was the mutton rendang. The rendang is very oily and amount of sauce given is just barely enough. It is flavourful with the taste of mutton but not gamey and not too spicy. The mutton itself is ok, some dryer some softer and fatty. The mee siam was quite bland and really nothing much to say about it. The lime saved it a little.

Overall, would come here...