The next time you find yourself in the East queueing for Beach Road Prawn Mee, do yourself a favour and visit Tiaptiap next door as well – the new snack store that has just opened along the same stretch.
If the name sounds familiar, it’s because Tiaptiap has been around for six years, starting in 2020 as a home-based online business, selling snacks like pandan chiffon cake and radish yam kueh. This new unit at Joo Chiat will mark its first brick-and-mortar store, which functions more like a takeaway kiosk, with just a few indoor and outdoor seats.
The homegrown brand is run by mother-and-daughter duo Sophia Yeow and Nicole Lian. Some might recognise Sophia as one of the contestants on Season 2 of MasterChef Singapore, but the 55-year-old also runs her own private dining concept, Butterfly Table, where she prepares Peranakan tok panjang-style feasts for guests out of her spacious home in the East. She is joined by her daughter Sophia, 29, a former engineer, who left her corporate job in 2024 to help her run Tiaptiap.
The Joo Chiat store is warm and welcoming, the space anchored by display cabinets lined with rows of vintage English fine bone china from Sophia’s personal collection, which she’s moved over from her own home. But the real feast for the eyes is at the counter, stocked with fresh cakes and confectioneries, from pandan chiffon cakes and ondeh ondeh cakes, to orange chiffon cakes and banoffee pies.
We finally get a taste of the pandan chiffon cake (from $20.80), and we understand the fanfare. It’s made with pandan juice that’s painstakingly hand-squeezed, Japanese cake flour and fresh coconut milk. Each slice is delicate and airy, with a distinct but light pandan scent, and it’s best enjoyed with a drizzle of gula melaka provided on the side, though there’s the camp that prefers it au naturale.
But we are more taken by the ondeh ondeh cake (from $68), which has a generous coat of freshly grated coconut, a fragrant pandan sponge cake centre, a balanced gula melaka filling and layers of fresh whipped cream in between – a truly indulgent treat.
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