Traditional Haig Road Putu Piring – Putu Piring (Kueh Tutu) Something New and Delicious For Me

When I was planning where to eat in Asia, I intentionally looked for a few rare dishes that I wanted to try because 1) I can’t get them in the US and 2) they were the types of old school stuff that is likely to disappear one day or at least be difficult to find made properly.

In Hong Kong, I ate at dai pai dongs and in Singapore I decided to try some interesting desserts.  The three I came up with were mi chiam kueh, muah chee and putu piring.  I didn’t end up having enough time to try all of them and only got to try the mi chiam kueh at Tanglin Halt Original Peanut Pancake and putu piring at Traditional Haig Road Putu Piring.  I’ll save muay chee at Hougang 6 Miles Famous Muah Chee for next time.

So what is putu piring?  Putu piring is a steamed cake made out of rice flour dough filled with gula melaka (carmelized palm sugar) and topped with freshly grated coconut.  It’s also called kueh tutu in Singapore, but I believe that’s basically the Chinese version where they mix the coconut with the gula melaka inside of grating it on top.

According to various blog posts I read many people consider Traditional Haig Road Putu Piring the best in Singapore and a couple of posts said the best ever.  So I decided that I needed to try this place as I’ve only had kueh tutu once when I lived in Singapore a long time ago.

The stall is located in a mainly Malaysian part of Geylang.  As with much of Geylang, the area feels much different than most of Singapore as it’s chaotic, dirty and there are tons of street stalls set up.  It actually feels much more like Malaysia than Singapore.  Also, it’s located inside the Mr. Teh Tarik; I got kind of lost and had to ask some people where it is, so hopefully this saves you some time finding the place (there is a picture of it below).

Putu Piring:

The outside cake is soft and has a very similar texture to an Indian idli if you’ve ever had that.  The inside is sweet and tastes similar to brown sugar.  The grated coconut is very fresh and I was slightly surprised because they lightly salted the coconut so it was very slightly salty, which I was not expecting.  Overall, I thought these were really tasty; they are the type of thing that I would get all the time if this place was close to where I lived.  8.75/10

Overall, I enjoyed this and I’d recommend checking it out if you’re in the area.

Address:
#01-02 Mr. Teh Tarik Coffee Stall
970 Geylang Road
Phone: 94229017