Phetchaburi Palace Desserts

The gold-coloured egg sweets of the Thai royal repertoire - thong yip, thong yot, foi thong - are traceable to Maria Guyomar de Pinha, a woman of Portuguese, Japanese and Bengali descent born in Ayutthaya, who married the Greek minister Constantine Phaulkon and worked in the royal kitchens in the 1680s; she adapted Portuguese convent sweets built on egg yolk and sugar syrup, and they entered Thai court cooking and stayed. Phetchaburi became their home because of its palm sugar: the province's toddy palms produce the sugar these sweets depend on, and the town has made them commercially for generations, with shops around Chomrut bridge selling nothing else. Alongside the egg sweets are khanom mo kaeng, a dense baked coconut and mung bean custard that is the province's signature, and a range of other palm-sugar sweets. It is an hour of walking between shops and tasting.

What you actually see

• The egg sweets - thong yip, thong yot and foi thong from yolk and syrup.
• Khanom mo kaeng - the dense baked coconut and mung bean custard.
• The palm sugar - Phetchaburi's toddy palms, which the tradition depends on.
• The Portuguese origin - convent sweets adapted at the Ayutthaya court in the 1680s.

When to go

Any time; shops keep normal hours through the day. An hour to walk the Chomrut bridge area and taste. Phetchaburi is two hours from Bangkok by train.

Honest expectations

Extremely sweet - these are sugar and egg yolk, and a little goes a long way. They keep only a few days. Shops are small and cash-based, with little English.

Nearby

Phra Nakhon Khiri and Tham Khao Luang cave are in the town; Cha-am is south.