Loong Fatt Tau Sar Piah

I think I'm an oldie at heart.. I love all things nostalgic. To date, I'm still looking for a childhood favourite of mine.. The Hiro Cake.

Anyone remember this? I always remember the school canteen selling this, a sweet yellow crumbly cake coated in a light layer of chocolate. It's not a very yummy cake and I'm sure Apollo cakes would be a slightly better rendition of this kind of cakes. But.. its just so nostalgic and nowhere to be found, that it's always on my mind.

And... remember the Doraemon chocolate balls that comes with a little toy? That was waaaaay before the days of Kinder Surprise! A little rectangular box with some 8-10 little choc balls but every kid wants it just for the toy!



Ha! There's really no link between a Hiro Cake, a Doreamon chocolate and Tau Sar Piah. These little bits of nostalgia was brought to mind only because Mr and Mrs Tan (that's me!) visited a really old-school shop on a hot Sunday afternoon - Loong Fatt Eating House & Confectionery!

oh man, the queue was long. Since I'm a big fan of tau sar piah, with a particular fondness for the salty ones from Malaysia and if a long queue usually means a good piah, there's really nothing much else to think about but just join in the queue.  This is indeed one traditional piah shop.

There's only 2 flavors for the tau sar piah, sweet or salty, unlike the plentiful other such shops in the same street with a myriad of flavors. I supposed it's good to focus as indeed their piah was as good as piah can be. There need not be many flavors as you can easily devour 2-3 of the these at 1 go.

The pastry was buttery and crispy; combined with the slight saltiness of the filling, there's a very satisfying sweet saltiness to the biscuit. It's kind of like the asian version of a salted caramel pastry. Go for the salty ones, which has more dimensions to the taste than the sweet ones. By the way, the filling is not the sand-like granules type of filling, it's a paste form, even for the salty ones. I was a little surprised at first but guess this is considered a point of differentiation from others!

At only 60cents per piece, everyone in the queue was ordering 30 or 50 pieces at one go. We bought 32 pieces and easily finished them amongst the family in 2 days. They also sell banana cake, butter cake, egg tarts etc..

Check out their boxes. Love the traditional yet elegant look!

PS: I had the tau sar piah hot from the oven on day 1 and microwaved slightly on day 2. Oooh la la, day 1 was uber I-wanna-lick-up all the bits and day 2 was just as good, around 90%, though I think toasting in the oven would achieve just the same yum factor as day 1.

Loong Fatt Eating House and Confectionery

639 Balestier Road

(It's very near Singapore Pools, turn in right when coming from Novena. There's a public car park just behind this stretch of shops)

Closed on Sundays

6253 4584

Tip: You can call ahead to order and skip the queue!