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# Thai Desserts Are Mostly Things You Have Never Eaten
- URL: https://easythailandvisa.com/thai-desserts-roti-banana-pandaan-khanom/
- Published: 2026-08-08T00:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-19T12:27:03.000Z
- Description: Nine of the ten best Thai desserts have no English name at all, which is why nobody outside the country orders them.
- Author: Somchai Jaidee
- Tags: Street Food

I handed a woman a photograph of a Thai dessert at a market in Chiang Mai and she looked at it, looked at me, and made me something completely different that was better.

That is the entire problem with Thai desserts and the entire opportunity. Almost none of them have an English name, which means they are invisible in English-language food writing, which means almost nobody seeks them out, which means the people selling them are quietly delighted to see a foreigner try them.

Last verified 19 August 2026.

## First, the word that unlocks the whole category

***Khanom* means sweet, as a noun it means a sweet thing, and it sits in front of the name of almost every Thai dessert.** Once you know that one word, half the menu is navigable, and you can point at something and say khanom and be understood.

**And the counterpart matters too: *khiam* is savoury.** Many words that look similar are not desserts at all, and getting that wrong in front of a vendor is funny rather than offensive.

## The ones worth learning by name

**Khanom krok.** A coconut and rice-flour batter cooked in a special dimpled griddle with a hemispherical mould, so each one is a small half-sphere with a crisp top and a soft, almost custardy centre. Traditionally egg and coconut milk, traditionally sweetened with condensed milk, traditionally eaten straight off the griddle. This is the most photographed Thai dessert in the world and the most consistently good.

**Roti banana.** A thin, chewy, slightly sweet pancake wrapped around a whole banana, with condensed milk poured over it. It is not a dessert in the western sense at all, it is closer to a hot flatbread, and it is the best thing at any Thai street breakfast.

**Bua loi.** Small bright balls of tapioca or glutinous rice floating in chilled coconut cream, with banana and sometimes tapioca pearls. Cold, sweet, very refreshing, and the one to order when it is thirty-five degrees.

**Thong ek.** Thin discs of rice batter fried until they are crisp and lace-like, then eaten as a snack rather than a dessert, traditionally with pandan. They are structurally similar to lace and there is no equivalent.

**Khanom chan.** A soft, dense, slightly translucent layer cake, coconut-flavoured, not very sweet, and usually cut into squares. It is everywhere in Thai households and it is the Thai answer to a plain tea cake.

**Khanom kluai.** Banana steamed in a banana-leaf wrap, sometimes with coconut cream poured over. Extremely simple, and a genuinely good use of a banana.

**Khanom thui.** An airy nest of golden fried batter strands drenched in condensed milk syrup. This one is remarkable and almost unknown outside the country.

**And ja mo,** the Thai interpretation of crème caramel, which is wobblier, eggier, less sweet, and sold at temple festivals and markets all over the country. Nobody agrees on its origin and the disagreement is part of its appeal.

## Where to find them

**A morning market,** which is when khanom krok and the breakfast items are being made fresh and are still hot.

**A night market,** for the fried and the cold items.

**A** [**soi**](https://easythailandvisa.com/thai-addresses-soi-thanon-directions/) **in the afternoon,** where a woman with a griddle and a gas bottle has set up outside her house, which is still the most common way they are sold in a smaller city.

**A temple fair,** particularly for ja mo, which is a genuinely traditional festival food rather than a [street food](https://easythailandvisa.com/street-food-safety-in-thailand/).

**And every** [**7-Eleven**](https://easythailandvisa.com/thailand-7-eleven-convenience-store/)**,** which sells an entirely credible processed version of several of these and is a perfectly good introduction to what they are supposed to taste like before you have the real thing.

## How to order without any English

**Point and say khanom.** That is sufficient at any stall. Add *mai phai*, not sweet, which is understood everywhere and which matters, because Thai desserts are frequently much less sweet than a foreigner's expectation and the vendors are not going to guess.

**Or buy a mixed plate,** which is the correct strategy if you have never had any of them, and which most vendors will assemble for you if you ask. This is how I ended up with something completely different from the photograph, and it was the best plate I ate that week.

**Carry small denominations.** Dessert stalls are small operations and change is a real problem at a fifty baht purchase.

## The vegetarian question

**Thailand is a country with a large** [**vegetarian**](https://easythailandvisa.com/vegetarian-vegan-food-thailand/) **population for religious reasons, and a great many Thai desserts are not vegetarian.** Khanom krok traditionally contains egg, condensed milk contains dairy, and some of the syrups are made with shrimp paste, which is a genuinely common savoury-sweet Thai technique and catches people out constantly.

**If you are vegetarian, ask specifically rather than assuming,** and expect the answer to be honest rather than accommodating. The word is *gin jay*, vegetarian, and *gin* for the food itself.

## The only rule about when to eat them

**Buy them fresh and eat them immediately.** Almost every one of these is at its best within an hour of being made and genuinely deteriorates quickly, because they are made with fresh coconut cream, fresh batter, and condensed milk rather than anything that keeps.

**Which means the dessert you are going to have is the one you are standing in front of**, and the khanom krok that is still crisp in the paper bag in your hand is a different food from the one in a photograph on a menu.

**So the honest advice is: do not plan which Thai dessert you want in advance.** Find the griddle with the most people at it, point, say khanom, and eat whatever comes out while it is still warm.

**More on this**

- [The Floating Market Runs on Weekends Only and Nobody Tells](https://easythailandvisa.com/amphawa-floating-market-weekend-only/)
- [Chatuchak Is Not a Market, It Is 15,000 Shops and a](https://easythailandvisa.com/chatuchak-weekend-market-guide/)
- [Get to Damnoen Sadeu by Six and Eat Breakfast Among the](https://easythailandvisa.com/damnoen-sadeu-morning-market-bangkok/)