if you're piping the output of tar, instead of using "tar f -", you can leave off the f argument (since you don't want to specify a file anyway) and tar will default to stdin/stdout:
$ tar cz foo | ssh remote "cd /where/to/unpack && tar xz"
For GNU tar these days that's true, unless you can be sure $TAPE is in its environment. Historically, tar defaulted to a tape device, e.g. /dev/mt0, and you still find vestiges of that, e.g. OpenBSD defaults to /dev/rst0.
