Nan Yang Dao @ Heartland Mall Kovan — Restaurant in Singapore

Response to your reply:-

Don't gaslight your customer & brand a bad reviews as being "self-entitled" instead of saying you will improve & do better. Nobody is so free to offer a review unless their previous dining experience irks them. Customers pay for your food & service & are free to leave a review of their experience & opinion, be it good or bad, otherwise, you can omit the review option.

Is your food & service completely faultless & impeccable that no one is supposed to say otherwise? Should take unfavorable feedback as free customer survey to enhance your food & service!

Don't gaslight your customer to discredit their dining experience & review when they highlight their dissatisfaction as scope for your improvement. I only give credit when credit is due. And don't regard bad reviews as spam. I certainly do not spam but I don't know about you for you to even suggest that of your customer. At least thank your customer for their patronage even when the food & service rendered didn't warrant a 5-star rating.

Review & Feedback:-

Totally overated when it's serving Malaysian street food which I feel any zhi char stall in a coffeeshop can offer better at any time.

Tried their XO fried carrot cake & felt totally ripped off with a portion-sized of deep fried carrot cake way less than the standard size from any fried snack stall like OCK or Dough Culture. That miserable portion of mash-up deep fried carrot cake was simply fried with black sauce, egg & a sad ration of bean sprout.

For goodness sake, they could have easily offered at least a piece of prawn or 1 or 2 slice of their miserable paper-thin, see-through fish cake for the price they charged.

Their signature trio came in 3 sad & sorry portions size like $1 thai boat noodles with extremely salty soups base.

Tried their various dish selection including their signature trio, fried kway teow, gravy hor fun, dark sauce hokkien thick noodle, fried rice, nasi lemak etc, but not 1 item, not 1, impress me to say the least. Totally not value for money & food is either salty, oily or tastless!

In my opinion, nothing there is worth recommending, miserable food portion size & not even tasty in my opinion except their big porcelain & melamine plates which they used to serve their food.

And come to think of it, the whole menu revolves around zhi-char noodles, fried rice or nasi-lemak;- for instances, their fried pale kway-teow with prawns, is called Penang Fried Kway Teow, if it's fried with black sauce is named JB fried kway-teow & if the fried black kway-teow is served with a partially cooked sunny-side up egg, they conveniently called it KL fried Hor-fun.

Totally dumbfounded by such flowery words & Linguistic Innovation!!!😵😵‍💫

On another occasion when dining at their PLQ outlet, 1 of their elder female staff just couldn't stopped soliciting good feedback from diners by thrusting to us the feedback QR code & repeating her name as Hiong.

When basic cutlery was not even placed on our table for our use after several reminders & we had to help ourselves to soy sauce & chilli like in a fast-food chain, I felt terribly coerced against my wish by this mdm Hiong pestering me to give her a good feedback on the spot.

Service attitude is in my opinion even sub-par to a fast food chain store. Honestly, for them to shamelessly levied 10% service charge when not only food but service attitude is totally deplorable. 👎👎👎👎

I'm well aware that F&B is hard work;- toil & sweat & I usually provide every good feedbacks to any deserving food business & operators in the hope that they can thrive.

But this case irks me to the bones that I even felt socially irresponsible to not give their deservedly-bad feedback.

When searching NYD under google web, their PLQ branch indicated permanent closure, so it's not possible to write a review. But with the food quality & the service standard been offered, I'm not surprised if the closure is imminent...

We visited them on new year's day. They were slightly short staffed, but service was good, hence the 5 stars. The uncle is the boss I think and he was very courteous with every customer even if it was a busy morning. Customers would have to rush in but he and another lady staff would maintain order at the restaurant.

The atmosphere was also nice, with no rushing of customers and clean tables.

Aside from the service and atmosphere, things were not that good tho. Their online system had items and promos which were manually removed after ordered. We ordered the food + drinks promo and was told to reorder separately as it's a public holiday. Was surprised cause:

1. they should have allocated their system properly so I could decide when ordering.
2. couldn't they have helped to cancel and replace the order, instead of us having to reorder after they cancel?

Food was served slow and we realized they missed out our order. I believed its an isolated incident and it didn't affect our mood.

Food was to be truthful not the best. We had the nasi Lemak Ayam berempah, Penang prawn noodles, and penang char kuey teow. The Ayam berempah was not bad, which would get 4/5, they gave too little sambal, and wanted to charge 50cents for more sambal.

The prawn noodles were more like Singapore prawn noodles than penang prawn noodles, and even so it was definitely below average Singapore prawn noodles. Also, the fact that they don't allow mixing of noodles + beehoon just emphasizes even more than it is not authentic penang prawn noodles. Also, there was no chilli paste that usually comes with the prawn noodles. Overall, if I could rate 0 for this, I would.

Their char kuey teow had the wok hei, and barely passes off as penang char kuey teow. I hail from penang and am qualified to claim that it's a below average plate of penang ckt. There were no cockles, and flavor wise was less flavorful even as compared to your typical Malaysia Boleh or Penang culture found in Singapore. For this plate of ckt, I would rate it 1.5/5.

Their drinks on the other hand are well done. I tried the kopi c less sweet and yuan yang C less sweet, both were very very good. Gao, with just the right amount of sweetness. The foam from the drinks just made it so much better. Their prices for the drinks are fully justified.

Overall, food wise is below average and if I come back, it won't be for the "penang food". I wouldn't mind trying out their mee Siam curry chicken which I saw many people order.

Another small issue was the fact that we ordered chendol but due to shortage of manpower they were not able to churn it out. He forgot to remove it from the bill and I also forgot to point it out until after I had paid. The item was 3.50 but he returned me 4 dollars. By right he was supposed to return me 4.20 due to service charge and gst, but I did not sound it out as I was busy with my kid. I don't think he meant to shortchange me just that maybe he could be more mindful about these...

We decided to give Nan Yang Dao a try after seeing the long queues at the restaurant. With most main dishes priced below $10, it's incredibly affordable. We'll definitely be back to explore more of their menu.

While there, a staff member overheard me cautioning my kids not to touch their drinks before I could snap a picture, and kindly offered us a free drink or egg tarts in exchange for a Google review. I made it clear that my review would be honest, focusing on the dishes themselves. Surprisingly, she agreed without hesitation, showing confidence in their food. Long story short, I didn’t get the free food because if I do a review, I want to do it properly, listing out dishes one by one rather than doing a quick review just to get free food. So…. Here's my honest take on what we tried:

3 Layer Coffee Grass Jelly (4/5) Hub enjoyed it, but I found it a bit too sweet. Still, the caffeine kick earns it 4 ⭐️. Special Milo Dinosaur (3/5) Milo with too much ice, making it bland. The novelty factor pleased the kids though. XO Sauce Fried Carrot Cake (5/5) 👑 Absolutely outstanding. The wok hei flavor is unparalleled, making it the best I've had in Singapore. Worth every penny. Signature Trio Mini Noodles (3.5/5) Consists of 3 mini bowls. The meatball noodles were average, the curry noodles flavorful but could use more spice, and the prawn noodles received praise from my husband. NanYang Signature Fried Chicken (1/5) Dry and unappealing, even the kids weren't impressed. A dish to skip. Shrimp Paste Chicken Wing Fried Rice (4/5) The chicken wings were a hit with the kids, while the fried rice was well fried rice. The standout was the delicious achar.

In conclusion, stick to the items featured on the restaurant's posters for a safe bet. Despite wanting to try more, we were too full this time around. Maybe next visit for the chendol...