Great Nanyang Heritage Cafe @ 111 Somerset

Great Nanyang Heritage Cafe (大南洋) at 111 Somerset is the cafe’s second outlet. The new cafe in Orchard Road, Singapore has been drawing in the crowds with its retro 1970s coffeeshop decor and reasonably priced local cuisine.

Which Nanyang Cafe in Singapore?

The 111 Somerset cafe is the second outlet of Great Nanyang Heritage Cafe. Their first is in Craig Road. We searched for Nanyang Cafe in Singapore and there appears to be quite a few with similar names. For example there is a Good Morning Nanyang Cafe in Far East Plaza, A Taste of Nanyang in Stamford Road and Nanyang Old Coffee in South Bridge Road and at few other locations.

Great Nanyang Heritage Cafe 111 Somerset has an interesting shop frontage that looks like a mix of an old coffee shop and provision shop from the 70s. Note the hanging cash Milo tin, old F&N soft drink bottles and Kickapoo joy juice.

Great Nanyang Heritage Cafe Menu and Prices

The new cafe serves a variety of local cuisine such as the signature chicken chop, mee siam, nasi lemak. Here are pictures of some pages from the Great Nanyang cafe menu. We like the big clear pictures that let us know exactly what we were ordering. With many dishes priced below $10, it makes it less painful on the wallet. Even though the restaurant decor is not luxurious and tables are close together, these are quite reasonable prices considering that it is an air-conditioned restaurant in a nice building in the heart of Orchard Road.

Tze Char Meets Cha Chaan Teng

To us, the food available at Great Nanyang seems to me a hybrid of tze char food (such as prawn paste chicken wings and fried hor fun) and Hong Kong cha chan teng favourites such as sugar butter toast and luncheon meat toast.

What We Ate At Great Nanyang Heritage Cafe 111 Somerset

The ice tea was thick and foamy, like an iced tea tarek on steroids.

We liked the kaya butter French toast ($4.50) very much. Thickly buttered cubes of bread served as an appetiser, but can equally serve as breakfast with a cup of strong black coffee. Something we will try on another visit.

The main dishes that we tried were the claypot mee tai mai ($9.90 picture above) and moonlight hor fun ($8.90, picture below). Both were strongly flavoured dishes. Similar to that served at famous tze char restaurant Keng Eng Kee, ‘moonlight’ refers to the raw egg yolk placed on top of the hor fun. In this case we had mixed it into the noodles before we remembered to take the photo, so it is quite a messed up picture. Wok hei was adequate and as were ingredients such as prawns. We only wished that they were not so salty. We would request for less salt on a future visit.

Service at the restaurant was fast and efficient. Overall, this was an interesting lunch which we will be happy to do again.

Ratings:
Food: 3
Service: 4
Value: 5
Atmosphere: 3
Overall Rating: 4 TOPs 

Great Nanyang Heritage Cafe
111 Somerset Rd, #01-09, Singapore 238164

Opening Hours: 7.30 am to 8.30 pm

Nearby MRT Station: Somerset (NS23)

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