Like their predecessors in this snug storefront, most recently Inthira, the aunties make room for a delightful variety of goods on the shelves, in the fridge, in the freezer case, and on the countertops, too. The featured ingredients of their freshly steamed toddy palm cakes (four for $3.50) are, I believe, the seeds of the nipa palm, which you might easily mistake for translucent sweet gummies the size of fat almonds.
The gumminess is gone from these cakes, thank goodness; most likely they were made from a palm-seed paste that has been given a golden color. Compare what I identified as palm sugar desserts at a Khmer celebration in the Bronx. The cakes, whose other ingredients include rice flour and coconut milk, have little flavor that can be pinned specifically on toddy palm, but the darker batch beside them taste decisively of banana.
3 Aunties Thai Market
64-04 39th Ave. (64th-65th Sts.), Woodside, Queens
718-606-2523
www.Facebook.com/3AuntiesThaiMarket
