Galamay

?

There is nothing appealing about the way this candy looks, or how it feels in your hand. There is nothing that, from the outside, would make you want to eat this candy at all. The package, which is a banana leaf with a toothpick and a little bit of plastic on the inside, is not really pretty. Sure, it's kind of foreign, so it seems exotic and different, but objectively it's poorly wrapped and unhygienic. Once you peel through the banana leaf there's a little bit of plastic (not completely) covering a blob of black rubber that is apparently the candy. Even after you get through the crude wrapping, this candy doesn't improve that much at all.

The part where everything changes is after the first bite. This chewy little candy has a slight hint of coconut, just enough to flavour, but not so much that it overpowers. It's a simple flavour, but balanced so perfectly that I can safely say that this is the first full coconut candy that I kind of like. I'm not sure how it's made, or what part of the coconut is used, but for something I bought off of the streets it's remarkably well balanced.

The texture is surprisingly good as well. To the touch it feels like a piece of rubber, but once you put it in your mouth the rubber softens to a nice, soft, chewy consistency. It's as if the heat of my mouth magically turns this into a pretty good candy.

These little candies are exclusive to Thailand (as far as I know) and I'm not sure if they're worth the trip on their own (there's lots more to Thailand that make it worth the trip), but they are something worth hunting down if you come across a street festival there. It's like nothing I've ever had before, and best of all it's surprisingly tasty.