Kanomwaan Pakee

You may have encountered sago, tiny pearls that are boiled and served as a dessert or sweet snack (hello, bubble tea) in much of Asia, as well as in Brazil. These days, the vast majority of sago is made from tapioca, a root. But at Kanomwaan Pakee, a dessert shop in rural Phatthalung Province, they do things the old school way.

The headlining dessert here is saakuu ton, tiny pearls made from sago palms. The trees grow in the fecund, jungly countryside only a few miles away, and are transformed into pearls via a labor-intensive, time-consuming process. First, the woody core of the palms is grated to a powder. It’s then soaked, strained, rolled by hand and dried in the sun. Finally, the pearls are boiled in water with sugar.

Order a bowl of saakhuu ton here, and the eponymous owner will scoop out a portion—the sticky consistency of the sago makes this a complicated task—and garnish the bowl with a spoonful of coconut cream supplemented with a pinch of salt. The result is fragrant, sweet, chewy and salty at the same time, one of the simplest yet most satisfying desserts in the southern Thai repertoire.