The Toa Payoh years

Is there a Don pie outlet in Toa Payoh today?

No. There is no Don pie outlet in Toa Payoh today, and there has not been one since the business moved to Jalan Besar in 2021. We say this first because people still search for “Don pie Toa Payoh”, and some online listings still file our restaurant under Toa Payoh. They are out of date.

If you live in or near Toa Payoh, your nearest outlet is our AMK Hub kiosk at Ang Mo Kio, three stops north of Toa Payoh on the North-South Line and linked to Ang Mo Kio MRT by underpass. Our flagship restaurant is at 39 Tyrwhitt Road in Jalan Besar. Details for both are on where to get the original Don pie.

Why does Toa Payoh matter to the Don pie story?

Toa Payoh matters because it is where Chef Don Lim rebuilt. After selling the Don Pie brand around 2014-2015, he had a recipe, a reputation and no pie shop. He started again in an HDB coffee shop, cooking crab bee hoon, and it was in Toa Payoh North that his pies eventually came back.

This chapter runs roughly from 2015 to 2021. It is the hinge between the old Don Pie years in the CBD, told in the Original Don story, and the Jalan Besar kitchen he co-founded, which bakes as DonChef today. An outside account of the same years, stall by stall, is Don Pie in Toa Payoh: the full story.

What was Don Signature Crab at Blk 206 Toa Payoh North?

Don Signature Crab was Chef Don’s crab bee hoon stall in a coffee shop at Blk 206 Toa Payoh North, #01-1197. Our own timeline dates it from 2014. Food bloggers who visited give the opening as March 2015, so we describe it as “from about 2015”.

The stall was small and the cooking was personal. Several food writers described it as a one-man operation. Reviewers in 2017 recorded crab dishes at around $25, $30 and $40, with larger crabs costing more, and a walk of about six minutes from Braddell MRT through the HDB estate. Those prices are history, recorded here to show what the stall was, not what anything costs now.

The crab bee hoon soup came from family cooking. Our menu still calls the Crab Bee Hoon Soup “the signature dish which started it all”, and it is still made with a herbal, umami stock that includes dang gui. There is more on the crab bee hoon side of the Don Pie story if the crab is what brought you here.

What did the food writers say about the crab?

Food writers in 2017 and 2019 were generally warm about the stall and honest about its limits. Miss Tam Chiak titled her 2017 visit “Delicious Crab Beehoon in Toa Payoh for $25”. Some of the same reviewers felt the soup was a little less intense than at the best-known crab bee hoon places of the time, and one 2019 writer found the claypot crab laksa decent rather than outstanding.

We include the less glowing notes on purpose. A heritage page that only quotes praise is an advert. The full list of coverage, good and mixed, is on our press and mentions page.

When did the Don pies return in Toa Payoh?

The pies returned in 2019. Chef Don began selling his original chicken pies again under the name Don’s Pie & Cake, alongside his crab, at Toa Payoh Food Centre II, 1008A Toa Payoh North. A food blogger who visited in September 2020 reviewed both, and recorded a personal pie at $5 at the time.

This was the first time since the brand sale that Chef Don’s own pies were on sale under his own hand. It was a modest stall in a food centre near Braddell MRT, not a shop in the CBD, but the recipe was the same one he had been baking since 1983, the one we describe in the Original Chicken Pie.

Why did the business leave Toa Payoh?

The business left Toa Payoh in 2021 because it was ready for a home of its own. During the pandemic, Chef Don asked his nephew Kelvin Leong to help him revive the business, and they opened Chicken Pie Kitchen & Don Signature Crab at 39 Tyrwhitt Road. The Toa Payoh arrangement was wound down as the new restaurant opened.

Tyrwhitt Road gave the kitchen what a food centre stall could not: deck ovens, room to make pastry dough in-house, and space to bake in small batches through the day.

A short history of Toa Payoh itself

Toa Payoh is one of Singapore’s best-known HDB towns. According to the National Heritage Board, it was developed by HDB in the 1960s as Singapore’s second new town after Queenstown, replacing a kampong and vegetable farms. It was the first new town built entirely by HDB and the first with its own town garden, community plaza, library and sports stadium. Queen Elizabeth II toured it in 1972, and HDB moved its headquarters there in 2002.

The name is usually explained as Hokkien for “big swamp”, from toa (big) and payoh (swamp). Today the town is served by Toa Payoh and Braddell MRT stations on the North-South Line, and by Singapore’s first air-conditioned bus interchange, opened at HDB Hub in 2002.

We include the town’s history because Toa Payoh is part of the setting of our story, and because it is still the place many people associate with Chef Don’s crab bee hoon and pies. We do not trade there today.

Toa Payoh then and now

Where should Toa Payoh residents go for the original Don pie now?

Toa Payoh residents have two good options for DonChef’s pies today. The quickest is usually our AMK Hub kiosk at 53 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3, Basement 2, which sells both pies and crab dishes for takeaway. The other is our flagship at 39 Tyrwhitt Road, for a sit-down meal with the full crab menu. Opening hours change from time to time, so check our where to get it page before you travel. The dated version of this chapter is on our timeline of the original Don.