Loong Fatt Tau Sar Piah

Several thousand tau sar piah a day, and the shopfront still looks like it sells nothing in particular.

Of all the tau sar piah shops on Balestier Road, this is the one to stop at, for the pastry and for the room: a butter-rich crust around the bean paste, eaten in a wooden booth at a marble table under tiles that have barely changed since the 1960s. Buy a mixed box to take home, eat one salty piah on the spot, and go early in the day. It is closed on Sundays.

It is also the one with the longest memory. Loong Fatt goes back to 1948, when Hainanese founder Lee Wang Long, who had learned to bake Western-style pastries while working as a housekeeper, opened a bakery-kopitiam on the spot where the shop still stands. The National Heritage Board's Balestier food trail credits its success with inspiring the similar shops along the road.

Tau sar piah came later, in the 1970s, when Lee began making the Teochew bean-paste biscuits with extra butter for a crisper crust. That butter-rich recipe made the shop's name: the thin crust keeps the filling moist and richer than the mass-produced versions.

There are two flavours, and people take sides. The sweet is topped with sesame seeds and filled with mung bean paste; the salty is plain on top, with fried shallots and oil worked into the filling. Our vote goes to the salty, eaten warm. Boxes of six or ten can be split, so nobody at home has to lose the argument.

The cake counter deserves a look too: around 16 cakes and pastries, some baked only on certain days. The light pandan cake and a peanut buttercream cake with toasted crushed peanuts are the ones to look for, but don't build the trip around the pandan cake unless you've checked it is a baking day.

The room is half the pleasure. Original tiles cover the walls and floor, and the wooden booths and marble tables have barely changed since the 1960s. The heritage board's trail adds that the shop was the only Singapore entry in an April 2012 round-up of the world's best desserts, which you would never guess from the plain shopfront. Madam Loo Suan Mui, known as Ah Mei, oversees the team of bakers, who turn out several thousand tau sar piah a day.

How to do it well: it is about an 11-minute walk from Novena MRT along Balestier Road, which is just about long enough to justify a second piah. Go in the morning, as the bakers do, and take a booth for the one you eat straight away.

Good to know Closed on Sundays, and some cakes are only baked on certain days. It is at 639 Balestier Road, about an 11-minute walk from Novena MRT.

Loong Fatt Tau Sar Piah | 639 Balestier Road, Singapore 329922