Wat Mongkolratanaram Khanom Krok: My first exposure to this Thai street food was at Wat Mongkolratanaram, a buddhist temple in Berkeley right around the corner from Berkeley Bowl. Every Sunday, they host an outdoor market serving a variety of dishes, including pad thai, thai iced tea, curry, and beef noodle soup (a non-vegetarian buddhist meal). Along with these entrees are two desserts: mango sticky rice and khanom krok, the latter of which is $6 for 8 pieces. Khanom krok are a mash up of pancakes and rice pudding served in small hemispheres about the size of a donut hole. They're prepared in a cast-iron pan reminiscent of Hong Kong egg waffle pans, which gives it its crispy exterior. When you bite into one, it has the soft texture of rice pudding and tastes of coconut milk with sprinklings of chopped green onion. I expected them to be chewy like mochi, but they were much softer. I was thankful to have the opportunity to try this unique dessert, but it wasn't as delicious as I hoped it would be, and I probably wouldn't order it again, at least not from the temple. 2.5/5.0

thai pudding coconut berkeley watmongkolratanaram khanom krok 2.5