4 shops along Balestier Road that sells tau sar piah 豆 沙 饼
BALESTIER TAU SAR PIAH DELI @ 631 BALESTIER ROAD
I went to my aunt’s house few days ago and she offered me some ‘tau sar piah’. One of her friend was at Balestier Road in the morning and had bought an extra box for my aunt. I was hungry and I gladly accepted the offer to have some.
There are around 4 or 5 shops along Balestier Road that sells ‘tau sar piah’. Everyone has their favourite shop and I guess this must be aunt’s friend’s favourite. I shall not label it the ‘best tau sar piah’ as some are in the habit of labeling everything the best. LOL… But the ones here sure is very nice!
There were two different kinds of tau sar piah in the box. Pardon me as I was enjoying it so much, I can’t remember which is salty and which is sweet. I think this is the salty / savoury filling version. The one with the sesame seeds (I think) is the sweet filling version. The fillings looked the same for both flavours. Let your tongue tell you the difference. The pastry was light and fluffy. The filling was also not too overwhelmingly sweet or salty. After eating one, you would like having another. Looking at these photos now, I feel like having some!
House of Tau Sar Piah
Right just beside the Kuan Im Tng Temple is a one of the popular pastries shop along Balestier Road. Located at 529 Balestier Road, #01-02 Singapore 329856 and with over 27 years of history, we serve up vegetarian 素, vegan tau sar piah, handmade, freshly baked everyday.
House of Tau Sar Piah has been making their pastries for many years, and there’s lots of flavours to choose from. Each pieces only cost $0.90 and I’m very sure you couldn’t decide which flavours to get. There’s salted, sweet, black sesame, coffee, durian, green tea, red bean, peanut and more.
In that case, why not grab all the flavours in a box? Although it is best eaten on the day of purchase, but they can be kept for a week without the need to put in fridge.
603 Tau Sar Piah
603 Balestier Road
W sprung a surprise visit with 2 big boxes of TAU SAR PIAH. Me: Why buy so many? There’s only two of us. W: All different flavours from 2 places so you can compare & blog about it. How thoughtful.
And it’s perfect because I don’t remember having tried the tau sar piah from these 2 places before as I normally get mine from my all-time favourite Loong Fatt (639 Balestier Road) which is several units down away from 603 Tau Sar Piah. So how did these fare?
603’s tau sar piah was really thick and puffy looking. The skin was really thin so I couldn’t really enjoy the layers of flakiness as I bit into it. But I did like that the crust was a little hard and crispy like a biscuit. The generous filling was packed to the max with no sign of a cavity within and it didn’t crumble with every bite as it was quite moist. Besides the traditional salty and sweet flavours, there were also others like durian, yam, black sesame, coffee and more. What really impressed me was that these tau sar piah weren’t overly greasy to the touch. In fact, I placed them on a paper towel and I didn’t even see much oil traces. Taste wise, they were good but not spectacular because there wasn’t a lot of shallot or lard fragrance in the filling. Though Loong Fatt’s ones are really oily, theirs have this distinctive aroma that’s still unparalleled.
603 Tau Sar Piah – Traditional Bakery in Balestier
Balestier was a sugarcane plantation developed by Joseph Balestier. He was an American who arrived in Singapore in 1834 and initially served as the United States consul. In the early 1900s, Dr Sun Yat Sen stayed in a villa in Balestier (now the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall) several times. The bungalow in Balestier was used as the regional headquarters for the revolutionary activities of Tongmenghui and Kuomintang. Today Balestier is associated with lighting shops and Tau Siah Piah, a traditional Chinese pastry stuffed with bean paste. 603 Tau Sar Piah is one of the many tau sar piah shops in Balestier. This small family owned traditional bakery has brought us much delight and many many calories.
There will always be a debate about where to find the best tau sar piah in Singapore. The battle in Balestier seem to be between 2 popular shops – Loong Fatt Tau Sar Piah at 639 Balestier Road and 603 Tau Sar Piah at, well, 603 Balestier Road. As in most food wars, there probably can be no clear winner in this battle of Balestier – each shop will have its own loyal followers and supporters.
603 Tau Sar Piah is located in a row of shophouses which is near the junction of Balestier Road and Thomson Road. It looks like it has tried to update the appearance of its shop front but it still has a very neighbourhood bakery feel.
Right at the front of the shop, there is a display cabinet for Western cakes, pies and tarts. In another display cabinet are tau sar piahs with all sorts of filling – from bean paste to yam and durian.
Famous Tau Sar Piah along Balestier Road
If you are planning a visit to the Singapore Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall and/or Singapore’s one and only Burmese Buddhist Temple, then why not drop by this nostalgic coffee shop for their famous Tau Sar Piah.
Tau Sar Piah is a very popular local pastry in Singapore. Tasty green bean paste wrapped in thin and flaky crust that is baked to a pretty golden hue. The pastry usually comes in three different flavours – sweet, saltish or sweet saltish. Personally, I prefer the saltish version while hubby goes for the sweet version.
This pastry can be easily found around Singapore but the ones sold here is one of the best that we had tasted. There is good balance in taste and texture was perfect. Best of all, it is still made by hand in the traditional way. Their popularity means having queues snaking all the way out of the shop and an hours’ wait is not unusual. We were lucky that the queue wasn’t long when we visited.
Traditional Local Teochew Bean Paste Pastry Worth Queuing Up For
Loong Fatt Tau Sar Piah At 639 Balestier Road
An institution of Tau Sar Piah in Singapore, with the OGs including the likes of Poh Guan at Hong Lim Complex, Tan Hock Seng at Telok Ayer, Thye Moh Chan (a brand now under Breadtalk Group), and the other 3 cake houses at Balestier, including 603 Tau Sar Piah, House of Tau Sar Piah and the now-defunct 611 Tau Sar Piah. A little bit of history, Loong Fatt is the original shop that started baking the Teochew-style Tau Sar Piah in Singapore, though it added more butter to the traditional pastry making it gained popularity back in the late 1960s.
The Food At Loong Fatt, they have kept it to the 2 original flavours – Salty and Sweet Tau Sar Piah. You will notice that the pastry here is thinner when compared to the version by other cake houses, though do not underestimate how much oomph it packs. With a thinner crust, the bean paste here has a stronger buttery taste and retains the moisture well – as opposed to the dry and flaky Tau Sar Piah usually done by mass commercial baking houses.
Loong Fatt Tau Sar Piah @ 639 Balestier Road – Possibly The Best Tau Sar Piah in Singapore
Their one and only outlet is located at 639 Balestier Road
I had tried the tau sar piah from several bakeries in the same neighbourhood. [Read my earlier blog post -> 603 Tau Sar Piah vs Royal River Bakery (aka Whampoa Tau Sar Piah).] But it’s still the tau sar piah from Loong Fatt that keeps me coming back for the last 8 years which imo, is the best tau sar piah in Singapore.
Unlike the current Thye Moh Chan that offers an array of different tau sar piah that includes traditional ones as well as modern and innnovative flavours, Loong Fatt only specialises in the traditional sweet and salty tau sar piah. The one without sesame seeds on top is salty and the one with sesame seeds is sweet.
When I brought home my box of 5 sweet and 5 salty tau sar piah, they were still so fresh and warm. The skin of the tau sar piah was so crispy, it was almost like biting into a flaky biscuit. Even when it was left out for several hours and I took a piece again for a later tea break, the skin was still very crispy. The texture of the filling was similar to that of a mooncake’s lotus seed paste filling. Thick but not over the top. The sweet one wasn’t saccharine sweeet and the salty one was just perfectly seasoned. Every bite of the tau sar piah was just flavoursome. These traditional snacks can be really addictive and I just love pairing them with a cuppa. Can easily finish half a dozen in one go!
