a fan's notebook, Sunshine Plaza, 2009 to 2022
Oven Marvel, remembered
A sourced archive of the flat, all-butter puff chicken pie from Bencoolen Street, and my attempts to bake it again.
Psst.
Tap a grease spot on the bag. Some hide a sourced fact, one hides a memory.
Memory
You smelled it before you saw it: butter, drifting down the ground-floor corridor. A 2016 reviewer noticed the same thing.
Sourced
The puff pastry was made in the shop, with butter, by a former Hilton pastry chef, Johnny Ngiam.
Sourced
Bags like this went translucent with butter on the walk back to the office. More than one reviewer said so.
Sourced
About S$2.80 a pie around 2009, S$4 by 2018. Cash only, small batches, often sold out early.
Sourced
Closed for good in early 2022, reported mid-March. The owners reportedly retired.
What was Oven Marvel?
Oven Marvel was a tiny takeaway bakery on the ground floor of Sunshine Plaza, 91 Bencoolen Street, Singapore. It was run by pastry chef Johnny Ngiam, who had worked as a Hilton pastry chef (ieatishootipost, 2013). It began as Delicious Muffins, was blogged under that name in January 2009 (ieatishootipost, 2009), and closed in early 2022 (Great Deals Singapore, 2022).
It sold three things: a flat, round chicken pie in house-made all-butter puff pastry, a curry puff in the same pastry, and muffins. The pie is the reason people still search for the name. This site gathers everything that was written about it at the time, keeps my own memories in clearly marked boxes, and tries, in a home kitchen, to bake it back.
Three things on the menu. Only three.
Thirteen years of price tags
Drag the string, or use the arrow keys. Prices are what reviewers reported paying, not an official list.
Jan 2009: chicken pie S$2.80, curry puff S$2.00
The earliest dated post. The shop still traded as Delicious Muffins. The page was revised in 2015, so treat the price as "reported around 2009".
Reported by: ieatishootipost (2009)
Aug 2013: chicken pie S$3.50, curry puff S$2.50
Renamed Oven Marvel some time before this post. Leslie Tay's second visit put the chicken pie at S$3.50.
Reported by: ieatishootipost (2013)
2014: chicken pie S$3.80 or S$4.30, curry puff S$2.80
The sources disagree: a Burpple review in April 2014 says S$4.30, springtomorrow in June 2014 says S$3.80. A May 2014 Burpple review gives the curry puff at S$2.80.
Reported by: Burpple reviews, springtomorrow (2014)
2015 to 2017: chicken pie S$3.80, curry puff S$2.80
Three years of reviews agree on S$3.80 for the pie and S$2.80 for the curry puff.
Reported by: slowchomp (2015), umakemehungry (2016), Burpple reviews
2018 to 2020: chicken pie S$4.00, curry puff S$2.80
From April 2018 the pie is reported at S$4. Miss Tam Chiak paid S$4 in its June 2019 blind test, and SETHLUI.com listed S$4 in April 2020. Muffins ran about S$2.20 to S$2.80.
Reported by: Burpple reviews, Miss Tam Chiak (2019), SETHLUI.com (2020)
Mar 2022: the shutter came down
The closure was reported on 17 March 2022. The owners reportedly retired. No final price is recorded in our sources.
Reported by: Great Deals Singapore (2022), ieatishootipost (2013)
The full price history, including the 2014 puzzle: the price of a pie, 2009 to 2022.
Sourced, or remembered?
Two piles, never mixed. Anything that sounds like a fact on this site links to the dated review or report it came from. Anything that sounds like a feeling is mine, and sits in a box that says so.
Sourced
- Chicken thigh, cooked slowly until the fibres just separate, in a homemade bechamel (ieatishootipost, 2013)
- A medium-thick sauce that flowed slowly when cut (springtomorrow, 2014)
- A filling described as white peppery, and a little sweet (Burpple)
- Staff advice: let a chilled pie stand 10 to 15 minutes before reheating (umakemehungry, 2016)
Memory
- Timing the walk to pass the counter just as a tray came out.
- Eating half the pie standing up, because the bag was too hot to hold.
- The first bite at the sealed edge: crackle, then soft butter.
The recreation kitchen
Oven Marvel never published its recipe, so I have been baking my way back to it since 2022: 8 logged attempts so far. The latest, attempt 8, "Poach, do not fry", poaches the chicken and uses its liquid in the sauce.
The flagship recipe Read every attempt
Seven recipes in all, every one labelled a home recreation: rough puff, the filling, a weeknight shortcut, curry puffs and two muffins.
Is Oven Marvel open today?
In its earlier years the shop kept an unusual rest pattern: it closed on the 8th, 18th and 28th of every month. The shop details in reviews from about 2009 to 2015 record it, and regulars learned to plan around those dates (see the evidence page).
On an 8th, 18th or 28th the old answer was no. On any other day, the old answer was yes, until the pies sold out.
Closed since 2022 Today the answer is no on every date. The closure was reported in March 2022, and the owners reportedly retired (Great Deals Singapore, 2022). What happened to Oven Marvel.
Kitchen notes
The four things that decide whether a butter puff chicken pie works in a Singapore kitchen.
Hungry right now? Nobody sells this pie any more, but some good chicken pies are still baking. Where to get a chicken pie like that today.
Remember the shop? The archive has gaps only you can fill. Share a memory.
Got a question? The Oven Marvel FAQ answers two dozen of them from the record.