Nasi lemak with chicken cutlet ($10.80) @ Chin Mee Chin, NEX!
Nasi lemak with fried and grilled chicken cutlet, $10.80 each, plus a hot yuan yang at Chin Mee Chin NEX, the century-old Katong bakery's first outlet outside Katong.
Two plates of nasi lemak at Chin Mee Chin, NEX, one with each cutlet, and a hot yuan yang to go with. 🍛😋
What we had ($22.80 total):
- Nasi lemak with fried chicken cutlet, $10.80
- Nasi lemak with grilled chicken cutlet, $10.80
- Yuan yang (hot), $1.20
Chin Mee Chin is the Katong bakery that started in 1925 as a bread delivery business run by a Hainanese immigrant, Tan Hui Dong, and had become a confectionery by the 1940s. Ebb & Flow Group took the brand over in 2021, and in August 2026 they opened this outlet at B2-60/61, NEX, 23 Serangoon Central, above Serangoon MRT. It is the first Chin Mee Chin outside Katong in a century, and the original East Coast Road shop carries on as before.
The nasi lemak is one of the dishes they added for NEX rather than one carried over from Katong, so this is the outlet to come to for it.
Both plates are built the same way: a dome of fragrant coconut rice, a fried egg with a bright orange yolk on top, crispy ikan bilis, peanuts, sliced cucumber, and a parcel of otah grilled in leaf until charred at the edges. Two sambals went on the side, one smooth and glossy red, the other chunkier.
The fried chicken cutlet came sliced, with a craggy, golden crust and juicy meat underneath. The grilled chicken cutlet was the other way round: no batter, just a dark caramelised glaze with crisp edges. If you are sharing, getting one of each is the move, so you get the crunch of one and the smoky sweetness of the other.
The yuan yang, coffee and tea mixed together, came hot in an old-school blue enamel mug.
Overall: 4.2 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Fragrant coconut rice, two good cutlets and an old-school yuan yang. Next time I want to try their kaya toast.
