What kind of strange or cultural food do you want to try?

I LOVE Bizarre Foods: with Andrew Zimmern and sometimes i wish I had the honor of eating strange foods...


I kinda want to try the seasoned sea cucumber and fried crickets. lol.|||Hey! I watch Andrew Zimmern too! (I've had beef tongue before once or twice in a burrito; delicious).





I'm willing to try anything... maybe chicken myself into smelly, disgusting durian fruit like Mr. Zimmern couldn't stomach down.|||Hi: Rattlesnake is good. (don't eat Python, it tastes like rubber bands) The best steak I ever ate was Yak steak. Happy hunting!|||While I have not tried fried crickets, I've tried sea cucumber before in Chinese restaurants in Seoul and Honolulu. Its jelly-like flesh is rather bland and takes up other flavors from the dish they are served in. That reminded me that I've also tried Jellyfish too. I would would like to try Fugu. Fugu is a poisonous puffer fish which the flesh needs to be carefully prepared by a licensed/certified sushi chef or it would be your last meal.|||Ugh. Andrew Zimmern almost always talks about meat. (I'm not a vegetarian or anything, but still..)





I would like to try....





Dragonfruit- I've actually never had it before, although I have had persimmons (north american native and asian), passionfruit, oranges, bananas, ect.





KFC- it seems to represent "America", right? Apparently it tastes good..





Kombumaki-It looks so cute! lol..





and..maybe injera. it looks interesting








But I am of course open to anything. :D


Natto is surprisingly...tolerable.


We now keep a jar of homemade kimchi in our fridge.


Eating locusts is an (almost) annual tradition.


Whole wheat chapati is a typical item on our grocery list.


I made stuffed grape leaves (dolmas) just a few days ago.





etc etc etc





:D:D:D:D|||Have you tried all local restaurants yet? Many "strange" foods were a lot more readily available than you'd expect. You could find many interesting fruits in China Town. Durian, jackfruit, mangosteen, dragon fruit, cherimoya, lichee, and star fruit are not that hard to find at all.





Sea cucumber - You could find sea cucumber in a lot of Chinese and Korean places. Korean style tend to use small, chewy pieces more frequently; those tasted pretty bland. Chinese style tend to use softer, bigger pieces. At some places, you could find whole, braised sea cucumber. May I recommend braised sea cucumber with shrimp roe. :)





Vietnamese:


Balut - You won't find this in restaurants but you could find them in some asian markets. Look for duck eggs. The most expensive duck egg (around $1 to $2 a piece) is balut. They steam balut. Vietnamese said it is very tasty and it is very good for your skin. They also said it will increase a male's "potency". I got access to those more than twice but I chickened out every time. LOL


Raw beef - They wrap sliced raw beef and put raw garlic and/or raw chili on top. Those looked pretty cute (pink in color). I thought they were some kind of salty/spicy mochi when I first saw them. LOL


Braised catfish with pork - This one looks and sounds very innocent. It is relatively easy to find at Vietnamese fast food places and many Vietnamese love it. It tasted... scary. (I think they lied when they said catfish. LOL)


Pho with beef on the side - This is about the beef on the side of course. Many vietnamese put raw onion and basil leaf on raw slices of beef and eat them raw. You squeeze some lime juice and dip beef in hoisin sauce and chili sauce mix. Black peppers - optional. Not that bad at all.


Vietnamese sandwich - The cheapest cold cut contained head cheese with a lot of pork ears. :)


Hot and sour eel hot pot soup - When the soup start to boil, those eel pieces will move around as if they were "swimming" inside the pot... LOL





Japanese:


Ika - raw squid. Chewy and a "little" slimy.


Quail egg (raw) gunkan sushi.


Tororo cold soba - the dipping sauce was made out of grated nagaimo yam; it tasted like mucus!


Natto - Fermented soy beans with a POTENT smell and they are sticky.


Yaki-onigiri - Ever tried BBQ'ed. BBQ'ed/grilled rice balls?


Not so "weird" Japanese food:


Beef tataki - This is very raw seared beef. Some call it beef sashimi. Tasty stuff.


Uni - Sea urchin. It got a very soft texture and it got a unique smell. I like uni.


Ikura - Raw salmon eggs/roe. Those things pop inside your mouth and squirt you with fishy slime.





Korean:


Raw octopus - Less chewy than raw squid but it is very slimy.


Raw dried squid - This one doesn't taste like squid at all. Very tasty actually.


Raw beef - Raw beef with Korean pears. Very tasty.


Raw stingray/skate - Flesh is very soft. Cartlidge is a little chewy and crunchy. This dish is very spicy.





Chinese:


Duck tongue, duck feet, pork intestines, pork small intestines (this one is a little crunchy), chicken/duck gizzards, chicken/duck hearts, pork heart, pork maw (stomach), jelly fish, duck heads and pig heads. (Guess what could be found in those heads? Brains.) Pork blood with mixed beef offals (some contained beef lung) is pretty tasty. I don't like that pork blood too much though. Most if not all above list items could be found at a regular Cantonese Chinese BBQ duck/char siu place. The psychological effects from those foods will bother you more. They really don't taste as offensive as it sounds. Some places serve deep fried braised pork intestines with plum sauce or sweet and sour sauce on the side. It is soft and chewy inside and crispy on the outside. Good ones will taste like crispy duck with a weird twist. I can't say all of them are good but the good ones are excellent. Chinese also eat eels. Shanghai stir-fried eels are very good; some places serve those on top of a heated iron plate.





North America (many of them are hard to find):


Grizzly steak - Try not to eat grizzly fat because it got a pretty potent smell.


Alligators - It didn't taste as special as I expected.


Rabbits - Yum!


Squirrels - Tasted somewhat similar to venison. Yum!


Menudo - Mexican beef offal soup.


Tacos: lengua - beef tongue, seso - cow brains, buche - pork stomach (some said buche is esophagus; I think they are wrong.), cabeza - meats from a cow's head. Most of them tasted pretty good.





Foods I've not tried (but wanted to try) in North America:





Pickled pig feet/ears/tails - I've seen those pretty frequently but they usually come in pretty sizable jars. I'd have tried them if they came in smaller jars. LOL


Deep fried testicles - I do not have the balls to try them yet.


Opossums, skunks, nutria and snapping turtles were said to be VERY tasty.





The strange/weird foods I wanted to try are actually American foods. LOL





PS: You could find all Asian dishes and most other foods listed in Canada. :)