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From fish sauce cookies to mala ice cream, discover the strange and unexpected snacks and desserts catching attention in Thailand lately.
Who thought of this? Honestly, we have questions.
Food has entered its chaotic era, and Thailand seems more than ready to play along. Sweet meets savoury, classic flavours get a strange little twist and brands keep teaming up to create combinations that sound questionable until you actually try them.
It is the kind of food that makes you pause, stare at the menu and think, “Wait… this might actually slap.”
From unexpected collaborations to flavours you never knew you needed, here are the latest food drops that have us questioning our taste buds… in the best way.
1/8 Frankenstein’s Cookie Creation
Thai fish sauce has a little trick up its sleeve. Its deep, salty umami can work surprisingly well with sugar: once heated and balanced with sweetness, the fish sauce adds a rich savoury depth that can resemble a salted caramel sauce. Here, it takes the place of dulce de leche in a banoffee-style cookie, with the salty umami cutting through the sweetness. Weird? Absolutely. Would we order another one? Also yes.
Then comes the 72hrs carbonara cookie, made with a 72-hour brown sugar-cured egg yolk, bacon Parmesan dough and carbonara sauce. Rich, savoury and packed with cheesy umami, it is basically carbonara in cookie form.
Then there is the canned fish cookie, with tomato filling, lemongrass cream cheese and dried fish flakes. At this point, we have officially left dessert territory.
These are cookies in name, shape and texture. The flavour? A whole different story.
2/8 Who Put Soy Sauce in the Coffee?
Onto the same category of “why are you using the kitchen pantry in the sweet?” — this time, soy sauce replaces the usual sweet syrup.
Café Amazon × Dek Som Boon teamed up to turn caramel soy sauce into two sweet drinks: the iced espresso caramel soy sauce, which pairs a bold espresso shot with sweet, salty caramel soy sauce, and the milky frappe caramel soy sauce, which tops a smooth milk frappe with the same savoury-sweet sauce.
Sweet, salty, creamy and surprisingly umami. Somehow, soy sauce works in your sweet.
3/8 Supermarket Sweep: Ice Cream Edition
One brand that keeps its weird streak firmly in the ice cream aisle; it’s Guss Damn Good. Every year, Guss Grocery turns familiar pantry staples into flavours that make you question everything you thought you knew about dessert.
Now in its third year, Guss Grocery bring a full-on grocery store-themed ice cream festival. Ten Thai grocery and supermarket brands get the Guss treatment, with their everyday products turned into unexpected scoops.
On the savoury side, things get especially unhinged. There is the Puthai crumble yoghurt sour cream, Prung Thip salt, Three Lady Cooks sardine tomato berries, No.1 Hand Brand white pepper ginger Biscoff, Maggi & honey and Nokpirab pickled mustard greens vanilla.
Sadly, these flavours are no longer on sale, but Guss is one brand worth keeping an eye on. If this year’s lineup is anything to go by, next year’s weirdness is already loading.
4/8 Is That Even Cake?
Then there is the sponge lemon jelly cake from 7-Eleven, aka the cake that looks suspiciously like a dish sponge. This one went viral online before making its way into Thailand’s convenience stores, where the joke became an actual dessert.
The cake is lemon-flavoured with jelly bubbles that mimic the texture of a sponge, making it look almost too convincing to eat. Taste-wise, it is nowhere near as weird as some of the other snacks on this list. The real challenge is getting past the visual. You might need a few minutes, a deep breath and a little faith before taking that first bite.
5/8 The Mad Cocktail Lab: An Egg in Your Martini
Who gave the bartenders access to the kitchen? Because the new drinking course at Bar Us has eggs, onions and butter making their way into cocktails.
First up: the boiled egg martini. Yes, an actual egg-inspired Martini. The 50/50 mix combines vodka infused with boiled egg white and shell. Dry, savoury and gently salty, it comes with a soft boiled-egg aroma and a touch of sweetness. On the side, there is even a quail egg with soy sauce jelly.
Another cocktail joins the chaos: the caramelised onion whisky sour. Also known as butter + onion, it pairs butter-infused whisky with caramelised onion syrup, lemon juice and a touch of pickled onion brine.
6/8 Love Destiny, But Make It Jelly
If you watched Love Destiny, you probably remember the sweet fish sauce moment. The 2018 Thai historical drama helped turn this very Thai sweet-savoury pairing into a pop-culture phenomenon, with sour mango and sweet fish sauce becoming one of the show’s most memorable food moments.
Now JollyBears has taken that familiar combination and turned it into jelly. The jollybears sweet fish sauce jelly pairs tangy mango-flavoured jelly with a thick sweet fish sauce dipping sauce made with fermented fish.
7/8 Durian and Coriander Walk Into a Crisp
Thailand has plenty of flavours that can divide a room. Durian and coriander? Put them on a crisp and things get even more interesting.
Originally sold in China, Lay’s has now landed in Thailand with two flavours: coriander and durian, both available at 7-Eleven.
The coriander flavour packs a strong herbal hit with a subtle peppery note, while the durian delight goes sweet and creamy, with that unmistakable durian aroma.
Pick your fighter: team coriander or team durian?
8/8 Mala Has Entered the Freezer
China has had a serious influence on Thailand’s food scene this year, and the mala fever is clearly not slowing down. Now, it has made its way into the ice cream cart.
Nestlé extreme pop’s hot mala flavour has landed as a limited-edition drop at 7-Eleven. It comes coated in chocolate and crunchy nuts, with a light mala heat that hits after the sweetness.
Spicy ice cream might sound like a hard sell, but with mala everywhere right now, perhaps this was bound to happen.
