Exotic things you have eaten

[Bledlow]

A week ago today, I ate at this restaurant, in the room with the red table.
http://ise.ne.jp/daiki/04kannai/index.html
It makes extravagant claims, but the beef was the best I've ever eaten: Matsusaka, produced only in that region.

As for the exotic food, we also had Ise Ebi - served a bit like this -

the meat is raw, the poor crustacean having been alive minutes before serving*. The guts are put on the tail. It's served with a little dish of soy sauce for dipping the meat in, & true gourmets stir the guts into it to heighten the flavour.

You don't touch the head. When you finish, it's taken away, & comes back later as soup.


*At least it wasn't still alive, that not being unknown.

[citoyen]

I don't think I've ever eaten raw lobster. I can imagine it's rather good though - especially when it's that fresh!

When you say the "guts" do you mean just the intestinal tract that runs through the tail? Presume the rest of its inner workings are left in the head?

[hellymedic]

My partner is *far* too squeamish to consider such food.
I am relieved he's not a yacfer...

[citoyen]

My partner is *far* too squeamish to consider such food.

If he ever suggests watching the film Old Boy, tell him he really doesn't want to.

[hellymedic]

We don't have a telly and rarely do films.

[CAMRAMan]

In Sweden, apart from surstömming, I had vodka that had been flavoured by having a beaver's scent gland steeped in it. Very musky. I also had bear tongue there, though I have no recollection of its taste.

[T42]

The lobster looks rather scrumptious, but I'm utterly fed up with soy sauce.

My own offering is not so exotic, since it came from the Isles: gannet.  Our astrophys. prof. held a soirée where he handed round little cubes of unspectacular grey-brown, slightly greasy & fishy-tasting meat and challenged us to guess what it was.  They weren't protected back then and he had friends there who sent him a couple every year.

[Hot Flatus]

Deep-fried cats paws in Borneo.

To be honest, in themselves they were nothing special but it was the dips they came with that made them yummy.

[Bledlow]

I don't think I've ever eaten raw lobster. I can imagine it's rather good though - especially when it's that fresh!

When you say the "guts" do you mean just the intestinal tract that runs through the tail? Presume the rest of its inner workings are left in the head?

1) Yes. Yummy.
2) Correct, just the intestinal tract. The head, complete with contents, was served later, boiled down into soup.

[Woofage]

I had duck's tongue once in Taiwan. It was rubbery!

[geraldc]

In Bordeaux I had homard presse, where they take the uncooked shell and innards of a lobster and crush it in a giant silver press at your table. A small amount of blue juice trickles out which they then cook with veal stock and the pour over your lobster.

I've had numerous strange beasts in China and Hong Kong. The strangest one was hasma, which is a dessert made of frogs ovaries/fallopian tubes.  It's like a neutral tasting sponge.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Just the usual sort of stuff - emu, snake, kangaroo and witchetty grubs.

[Fab Foodie]

Turkey Testicles.

[citoyen]

I've had numerous strange beasts in China and Hong Kong. The strangest one was hasma, which is a dessert made of frogs ovaries/fallopian tubes.  It's like a neutral tasting sponge.

I've had chickens' feet in Chinese restaurants in London but I guess that's pretty tame compared to frogs' ovaries.

[perpetual dan]

I don't think I'm winning here... meals that stand out:
Pudding with gold flake in, somewhere in darkest Kensington.
Cabbage chutney. For breakfast. In India. ( The alternative was Chinese  )
Fish in Hong Kong. Not particularly unusual, but I got to choose it out of the tank it was swimming in.

In Sweden, apart from surstömming, I had vodka that had been flavoured by having a beaver's scent gland steeped in it. Very musky. I also had bear tongue there, though I have no recollection of its taste.

The best meal I had in Sweden was mushrooms we had picked earlier followed by crayfish, at midsummer on an island near Stockholm.

[hellymedic]

There's nothing exotic about eating freshly-caught pike, cooked on a little petrol stove, whilst wild camping in Sweden, in the midnight sun.
But it was rather special.

[fuzzy]

Not exotic but, the clam chowder served in a bowl made from a big sour dough roll, accompanied by a gottle of local geer at Fishermans Wharf, San Francisco was very nice.

[Fab Foodie]

At a motorway Service station in Russia recently, I bought a donut expecting it to be sweet and jammy but it was in fact filled with cabbage.  After the initial shock it was kinda ok ... very greasy though.

[ian]

A crisp sandwich. Ready salted. Exotic how? you may ask. Well, it was on multigrain bread, that's how.

[citoyen]

A crisp sandwich. Ready salted. Exotic how? you may ask. Well, it was on multigrain bread, that's how.

What crisps? Only "exotic" if it was Hula Hoops.

[ian]

A crisp sandwich. Ready salted. Exotic how? you may ask. Well, it was on multigrain bread, that's how.

What crisps? Only "exotic" if it was Hula Hoops.

Sadly, Kettle Chips, but I've pretty much sampled the entire gamut of snack food sandwiches. Hula Hoops are bit disappointing, as to be honest, are Monster Munch. Skips are only edible in sandwich format but preferably as an adjunct to fish fingers. Oh, don't mock till you've tried fish finger and Skips sandwiches. If you want fu-fu, get some boutique bakery sourdough bread. I'm classy.

Admittedly, they all pale next to the pie club sandwich. It's inexplicable to me how it's not on every supposedly-gastropub menu. Bake a pie, cook some chip, butter three layers of bread, put pie in top, chips on bottom, et voila mon petit connoisseur, le grand pie sandwich.

[T42]

Dunno how I forgot this one: garlic ice cream.   Not so much exotic as perverted.  In Gilroy, CA, of course.

[citoyen]

Dunno how I forgot this one: garlic ice cream.   Not so much exotic as perverted.  In Gilroy, CA, of course.

My local ice cream emporium specialises in unusual flavours. They did a Brussels sprout ice cream one Christmas. I didn't get to try that. But I did enjoy their oyster and chilli ice cream last summer. Really surprisingly good.

[citoyen]

Oh, don't mock till you've tried fish finger and Skips sandwiches. If you want fu-fu, get some boutique bakery sourdough bread. I'm classy.

Sounds good. With a bit of thousand island dressing perhaps?

Pie club sandwich sounds fantastic. One of those things you "must try before you die" - and best make it the last thing on the list...

[numbnuts]

Everything my ex wife cooked had an acquired taste