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Desserts are big business in Bangkok. Aside from delicious traditional Thai desserts that can be found everywhere from high-end restaurants to local fresh markets all over the city, there’s a seemingly never-ending choice of dedicated dessert cafés – and east-west-fusion trends that come and go so quickly it can be hard to keep up.
If you’re looking to satisfy your sweet tooth during a visit to Bangkok, here’s where to head.
After You
Back in 2007, After You pretty much spearheaded Bangkok’s obsession with dedicated, all-day dessert cafés. The chain now has 24 branches across the Thai capital (and the first upcountry location, in Korat, is on the way), along with a cult following – meaning almost constant queues to even get inside.
After You’s signature dish is based on Japan’s famous Shibuya honey toast (and comes in nine varieties ranging from matcha green tea to cheddar cheese). Meanwhile, the rest of the menu encompasses everything from breakfast pancakes, brownies, fudge and lava cakes, and mille-crêpe, to kakigori Japanese-style shaved-ice desserts (long since widely seen in Thailand as nam keng sai, too).
There’s also an extensive selection of coffees, teas, frapes, and other soft drinks – and the new After You Durian spin-off at Siam Paragon serves nothing but desserts based on the notoriously pungent, love-it-or-hate-it fruit.
Swensen’s
This long-running American ice-cream chain can be found in shopping malls just about everywhere in Thailand, and it remains a firm local favourite.
As well as their famous sundaes – often seemingly loaded with more cream and toppings than actual ice cream – there’s also an extensive selection of surprisingly good-quality ice creams available by the scoop, or in quart format to take home (or, even better, have delivered!), plus ice-cream-based cakes for birthdays and the like.
Nuttaporn
Tucked into a quiet square in Bangkok’s old town of Rattanakosin Island, Nuttaporn is the kind of local ice-cream shop you would neither expect to exist nor likely find yourself by chance.
For over sixty years, this humble little open-air shophouse has been turning out delicious homemade, coconut-milk-based ice cream in locally inspired flavours like mango, coconut, chocolate, Thai tea, and (for the short period it’s in season each year) durian.
Jazz up your frozen delight with traditional Thai toppings like sweetcorn, sticky rice, nuts, and condensed milk – or be extravagant and take a whole tub home.
Daily, 8am-4pm; 94 Phraeng Phutton; 092-889-6768
Local markets
Wander through any of the countless local fresh markets around Thailand and you’ll struggle not to come across a plentiful array of traditional Thai desserts that you’ve likely not spotted elsewhere.
The likes of mango sticky rice are now famous across the globe, of course, but you can also expect sweets such as kanom krok (coconut rice flour dumplings), crispy condensed-milk-laden pancakes, taco-like soft-meringue-filled kanom buang crepes, and Chinese-influenced bua loy, sweet coconut or ginger broth loaded with sesame dumplings.
Explore Bangkok Through Food with Expique
At Expique our mission is to help people discover the real Bangkok and the local cultures. We do this through a range of experiences including Food Tours, Walking Tours and Tuk Tuk Tours
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