balestier road's tau sar piah




i only learnt about the famous loong fatt's tau sar piah many years after i had left balestier hill secondary school, the school where i taught for 11 years. i was in monk's hill secondary then. it was my colleague soo chin who told me about this place along balestier road which sold very nice bean paste biscuits.

when i went to the shop, i realised that i had patronised the place many times before when i was teaching at balestier hill secondary. i recognised the manly woman who was packing the tau sar piah and two other workers, a man and another woman, in the shop.

those days, the tau sar piah were so popular that they were sold out by 3 0'clock. one day. i made the mistake of appearing at the shop at around 5 p.m. the manly woman laughed at me, and haughtily said- "you expect to get tau sar piah at this time!".

at that time they even imposed a limit on the number of packets you could buy as take-away. once i went with my colleague and his nephew to the shop. as there were 3 of us, i placed an order for 15 boxes; she would not let me have so many, saying that there were only two (adults) of us, so we were entitled to 10 boxes only.

she even boasted that there were people who bought the tau sar piah to take them to australia and other faraway countries.

but now with competition from two other shops - 116 & house of tau sar piah - selling the same stuff along balestier road, the queues at loong fatt are not so long.