Foreign food that scares me...
 

For my husband's birthday, he wanted to take a group of our friends out to Chinatown to "experiment" with foods we'd never usually try. If you're interested, here's some photos (in "Eric's 28th Birthday). It was an adventure. But thankfully, there were no casualties.

Anyone else have any unusual foreign food stories?

Tip from OC:

Know the language BEFORE you order food in a foreign country.

Another note, Feel free to make random marks on a bill that is presented in Chinese and does not come with a translation into English.

If there are any people who were at the Joy Tsin Lau GTG way back when you should remember me doing just this in retaliation for the unreadable bill.

Brian

Steak tartare and a couple of other raw red meat dishes took a little getting used to, love it now though. Lots of strange things in Vietnam but I doubt I could identify any. Snake was odd.

I love steak tartare. I also had ostrich carpaccio in Toronto once (yummy!)

However, even *I* won't try whale anus sushi. It was offered once in a Hawai'ian sushi bar and I'll try anything once. Except that.

My husband was sad that we couldn't order the birds nest soup that night. Yes, birds nest soup. They take a swallow's nest and boil it with some veggies and herbs. Their saliva, which is used to hold the twigs together, is supposed to be very tasty and high in some kind of vitamin. Only problems, it was $85! for 4 people and you had to order it the day before. I guess they have to go find a nest? They also had shark fin soup. I was curious, but my friend said it wasn't all that good. It too was $85. Geesh.

I cannot freakin' believe people pay to eat the saliva of birds. What. Is. Going. On? Grossest thing I have ever eaten was a buffalo steak burger but only because I didn't know what it was. Toughest thing I"ve ever chewed thru. Yuck. Though it wasn't foreign food. I avoid things like that. Scared.

birds nest soup is yummy!

Why anyone would pick the anus of a whale to make sushi out of makes my head ache.

Well, you just ate bird's nest soup, so it can't be a huge leap to eat whale anus.

I ate tongue soup in Germany. I was expecting chunks of tongue in a thick soup with vegetables and stuff. What I got was a bowl of thin clear broth with a big whole tongue sitting in it staring at me. The part that grossed me out was that as I cut off pieces, and put them in my mouth, I could feel the taste buds of the cow rubbing against my own taste buds. Kind of felt like I was licking a cow's tongue. And I was, basically. I had eaten tongue before, sliced, on a sandwich, and it was good that way, but I wouldn't recommend the tongue soup in the student cafeteria at Albert Ludwigs University. I finished it though.

There are a lot of scary foreign foods out there. Tongue, chicken feet, blood pudding ... but I think some of the most insidious are those in which the frightening ingredient is disguised in some way ... ground, sliced, or gussied up to the point where you can't tell that it's from an unpopular part of the animal.

We have plenty of domestic frightening foods too ... some of which I even really enjoy.

Like Scrapple. yummmmmmmmmm.

However I do shun many of the other Pennsylvania Dutch Delicacies, including headcheese and souse.

I went to Sweden two summers ago and for one of our dinners, we were served a plate of cold fish products - pickled herring, smoked salmon, other cold, slimey fish bits. I liked the smoked salmon, but that was about it. It was a weird assortment of cold fish. I don't like cold fish.

I tend to think that all Chinese food is dirty, so I try to avoid it at all costs. I know that is a stupid thing to think, but I can't help it.

Headcheese. Yuck. When you are a kid, you have to eat what the parents feed you. I haven't had headcheese in over 25 years.

About beef tongue: you are supposed to remove the outer casing (taste buds) before eating it. It otherwise is fairly tasty. I enjoy experimenting with foreign foods and I prefer to NOT know what it is until after I've finished eating it.

Italy was a good place to experiment...lots of yummy things and combinations of foods that are not found in American Italian restaurants. Colombia was also fun, but never eat dog meat. Trust me on this. This is also the place where I broke a statue with a coconut. This was inadvertant and a story in itself. For another thread. Eating in Egypt was...an adventure. Never again, but once so that I can say I did it. And survived.

I will never understand those Americans who visit another country and insist on eating only familiar American foods, or McDonald's. Note the separation between their menu and actual food. This is intentional. It's more fun to try new things, if only to say you did it and offer an educated opinion on them. What fun is it to say I visited a country and ate nothing but hamburgers? And spent $500 on booze in "the Gut" but didn't visit any touristy sites?

I always will lament that I missed the port visit to Greece. I like Greek food and would love to try new things there. Also to see the various historical sites like the Parthenon and such. I might even remember to take pictures. I once took a piece of advice from a chief. To wit: Think of what you will tell your grandchildren when they ask what it was like in such-and-such country. Will you have only drinking stories of how plastered you were? Or stories of how you saw this and that? Decide for yourself. After that I hung out with the older hands and saw a few wonderful things and avoided most of the drinking stories. Save Palma de Mallorca and Rota. I will NEVER be drunk enough to repeat those stories again.

Brian

Your parents must have been into torture. and Brian--there is a difference between "foreign" food and plain grossissity. My stomach is turning...gads.

Brings new meaning to the usage of the phrase "this tastes like ass!" wouldn't you say?

Hey, be grateful: At dim sum at Ocean Harbour, more than once our waiters have missed a couple items because the bill was illegible in between the blobs of soy sauce and duck grease.

And yes, they are really writing out a character when they make those five marks indicating how many dishes you've had.

I haven't had too many bad experiences (I love food), but in western China I have a) watched a cat get cooked, and b) eaten turtle, snake and whole frogs in the same meal at some decrepit restaurant near the southwestern city of Kunming.

:eek: :mad2: :headshake :finger: :spam1: :smashfrea :grouphug:

Sorry, got carried away with the smilies there. Carry on.

I'll betcha she eats hotdogs though ...

Actually, I don't like hot dogs. I think they are pretty gross.

I try chinese food... and then as I take the first few bites, I realize, wait - I don't like chinese food.

If i make it myself... I'm okay. It's the restaurants that scare me and that stems from bad chinese food restaurant experiences. I've been to chinatowns all over the world and I try the food each time and each time I leave with feelings of regret and fear that I really didn't eat what I thought I ate.

Yes, I realize this is completely irrational. I'm trying to get over it because chinese food looks so good.

You haven't had a Gray's Papaya dog in NY. EXCELLENT - they *snap* when you bite into them. An effect like no other dog on this planet.

Just out of curiosity, what kinda stuff do you try? I know the stuff I eat doesn't sit well with most of my friends, but they're willing to go for the simple things like noodles and dumplings. If you dislike pig belly or cow intestines, that I can understand, but there's so much other good stuff to be had as well. :thumbsup:

A big bowl of soba noodles in broth with a few tasty bits floating in it would change her mind . ;)
Me I will try most ANY thing at least once , and i went on 2 west pac cursies( the PI , JP, AUS, Malisia , etc...) , and was stationed in Iceland( can you say Sheep head, the WHOLE thing, eye balls and all ) for a year .
The only things i didn't enjoy were the Ballout in the PI , the dog in Okinowa( or was it MEX?? ) , and this dish from a street vender in Singapore that was noodles with 5 types of mushrooms , i like mushrooms but this was just TOOOOO much .
I refuse to eat chiterlings , tripe , munedo , guts in general , no way no how !!!!!
I know liver is good for me but it tastes like mud .

I'm willing to try anything as long as the description on the menu is what I actually receive. For example, this past summer I went to china town in london for dinner - attempting to give chinese food a try. My dining companion and I ordered two dishes - one was a chicken and noodle soup type thing with snow peas and carrots - sounded tasty and harmless and the other was a honey braised pork with mushrooms.

The chicken and noodle dish was not soup - but was actually good. The pork on the other hand was basically just big pieces of fat - NO MEAT - just fat in a sickenly sweet sauce with no mushrooms. I was ordering PORK not fat. It was the grossest thing I have ever had in my life. I was expecting pork because that's what it said on the menu. Yet again, I was wronged by Chinese food.

Moral of the story: I'll eat chinese food if and only if the place where I'm at has no variation between menu description and what i receive on my plate. Other than that... I'm totally willing to give it a shot.

Whiskey, Foxtrot, Tango, over.

Lots of my friends work in restaurants or have, hell I've done a stint. If you think Chinese restaurants are any better or worse than 'western' ones you're kidding yourself.

Oh, PLEASE, please, let's not get into a thing on restaurant cleanliness or grossness! I can barely eat now as it is!!!! :yelsick:

Did you ever think, when you eat Chinese
It ain't pork or chicken but a fat Siamese?
Yet the food tastes great, so you don’t complain.
But that’s not chicken in your chicken chow mein.
Seems to me I ordered sweet-and-sour pork
But Garfield’s on my fork.
He’s purrin’ here on my fork.

CHORUS
There’s a cat in the kettle at the Peking Moon
The place that I eat every day at noon.
They can feed you cat and you’ll never know
Once they wrap it up in dough, boy.
They fry it real crisp in dough.

Chou Lin asked if I wanted more
As he was dialin’ up his buddy at the old pet store.
I said "Not today. I lost my appetite.
There’s two cats in my belly and they want to fight."
I was suckin’ on a Rolaid and a Tums or two
When I swear I heard it mew, boys.
And that is when I knew.

CHORUS
There’s a cat in the kettle at the Peking Moon
I think I gotta stop eatin’ there at noon.
They say that it’s beef or fish or pork
But it’s purrin’ there on my fork.
There’s a hair-ball on my fork.
:)

Knowing that I can always count on bruce is an enormous relief.

Now, if you'll excuse me :vomit:

Well, in Chinatown here in Philly there are a lot of restaurants where the menus are in two languages. In most of them you have American-friendly foods side by side with what we consider exotic. A case in point are the dim sum places where you can have steamed dumplings or steamed chickens feet.

No, I didn't try any.

I did try oriental style beef brisket. It definitely wasn't like mom used to make. What I didn't like was the way it was cut, with the fatty layer sandwiched between the meat.

I won't do tripe or head cheese (brains), but I do like to try different seasonings, styles, and types of noodles. When I was a kid in the 60's, all you could find was Cantonese food. Now almost every province in China and most of the rest of Asia is represented by a restaurant in major cities.

There are almost too many choices. Lately I've been going to an Indian lunch buffet about once a month in Frazer. Tandoor chicken and Gulab Jamun for dessert.

I was once on a train in southern Russia sharing food with a bunch of people I hardly knew. One offered me a meat sandwich and said the meat was a great delicacy, called "вымя" (vyymya). I took a bite, and as I chewed, I thought, "I know that word. It's one of the ten neuter nouns that end in "мя", a little grammatical oddity I had to learn at school, the words mean ... flag, earth, burden, time, name, tribe, seed, stirrup, crown, and .... UDDER! :eek: " I almost didn't manage to swallow. I didn't take another bite.

Gulab Jamun is one of the most magnificent foods in the universe. One of our Indian doctors (sadly, no longer employed at the hospital) would bring me a batch every time she made them at home.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering.

No problem, Buddy. :biggrin:

If you're ever out near Exton mall during the week, call me and we can have lunch at Himalyan . The lunch buffet usually includes chai tea, tandoor chicken, 'chilly chicken' which is SPICY, some kind of vegetable pakora (Indian tempura), one or two rice or stew dishes, one or two breads, salads and various sauces and relishes, and some traditional desserts like gulab jamun, another which is like candied funnel cake, as well as fruit cup in melted ice cream.

I think it's $8 for lunch now. A $1 extra gets you soda.

I am not a light eater by any means, but 2 or 3 pieces of tandoor chicken, a helping of the chilly chicken mixed with bread to cool it down, and 4 or 5 gulab jamuns, which are the size of meatballs, is enough to put me down. I love the chai tea, which has a nice blend of spices and is mixed with milk. If I'm feeling adventurous I will try some chutney or the hot and sour pickle relish. The soup is usually called Mulligatawny, but all the times I have been there it has been a broth and not the thick soup usually associated with the name.

I just had sushi for the first time today at lunch! One of my bosses recently has gotten several grants, so he took the lab out to lunch as a thanks for our hard work.

I loved the miso soup, first slurp reminded me of ham and bean soup though.

Tuna was OK, tasted like tuna from the can, but stronger. The seaweed was kind of weird to chew though. Eel was not OK, tasted a bit muddy and way too strong for me. Had to drink some soy sauce to get myself to swallow it. There were several other kinds of sushi available, however, I wasn't feeling up to trying them after the eel.

For my main meal I went with cooked (medium) marinated beef tenderloin atop asian veggis. Super yum. I will be going back for that again sometime. My boss got a soft shell crab sandwich. There were LEGS sticking out of the bread for crying out loud. Um, I don't think so, not for this rat.

If anyone is ever in Iowa City, I highly recommend Takanami.

LOL "legs sticking out of the sandwich" !

if foreign food scares you, don't watch Anthony Bourdain! There's no way I'd eat some of the stuff he does on his travels.

One of the weirdest foreign foods I've had is huitlacoche (corn fungus) tacos. An acquired taste, I'm afraid.

Very cool LR, you'll be an addict in no time. Was the eel anago or unagi?
The best way to get started in sushi is to find a nice place that does an all-you-can-eat lunch... that way you can try everything (which you should, at least twice).

Rich, is Himalyan next to Hello Deli, or...? It sounds fantastic.

"If it ain't poison and it ain't related to ya' it's food; an there's exceptions to botha' those rules"
My Pop (grandfather to most of ya')
I love going to large cities and finding ethnic foods and trying them. The more exotic the better, especially hot, spice belt, nationalities.

I'm with rkzenrage on this: if people eat it, it's not related to me, and I'm hungry then down the hatch it goes.

I had the best fish and tripe tacos the other day. I'm kind of surprised I didn't get sick from them, but the risk is part of the fun.

ugh. no. After living in Mexico and seeing wheelbarrows of steaming tripe rolled down the street--

I Just Say No to tripe. And Menudo.

Having just rediscovered this thread ... you know, we could still do this. I'd seen that restaurant when driving around with Tester San, and I was curious about it. He might enjoy it as well.

I'd have to squeeze you in between momwolf's doctor's appointments, but just so long as I can get back to the nuthouse before my daypass runs out, I should be okay.

I don't have your phone numbers, though ... could you PM them?

I looked up what those were, and I'm not sure. Might have been listed in the menu, but I don't recall. All I know is that is was smoked, supposedly.

I don't know about things growing on me. If I have a bad experience with a food, I don't think I've ever changed my mind about it. :greenface

"If it ain't poison and it ain't related to ya' it's food;

I can dig it , but I DON'T do INNARDS !!!!
No tripe , liver , Menudo ,chiterlings , sweet breads , etc,,,,,, !!!!!!

Damn no Chitlings.

Second.

You guys are missing out. Duck liver pate, foie gras, liver and onions, menudo, sweet breads, rocky mountain oysters...I could go on and on about the amazingness of these things.

The next thing I want to try to cook is Peruvian-style roast guinea pig.

ok one exeption , Pate is ok , in fact Pate is KILLer ( eveen though it looks like cat food )

Menudo scares me. I didn't like it all when I tried it. It had a weird texture to it.

Chicken feet - I know that there is a dim sum restaurant here in Philly that serves them, but no.

Any food that has to be prepared with bleach or lye - Lutefisk and chitlins come to mind.

From here


From here

I thought this thread was about ferin food. Chitlins aren't ferin they's from the South. Put some South in yo Mouth.:lol:

I've had chitlins before - they are ok. And the precautions are not that different from cooking chicken - you have to be careful but not insane careful.

And how is it that we've gotten this deep into this thread and no one has brought up the poster boy for scary foreign food:

Haggis http://www.scottishhaggis.co.uk/imag...oked_whole.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hag.jpg

Haggis is innerds , I don't do innerds

I'm with zippy on this... no guts.

There's a great Malaysian restaurant in Philly that serves them too. Under the menu listing, it says, "Please ask for advice when ordering." LOL

I've had haggis.

The sensation is more than a little difficult to describe. It's darkish, and moistish, very faintly liverish but mostly rather grainy like a pilaf. Somehow hearty, rather bland underneath the generous seasoning of black pepper.

Since it's essentially a sausage of sheep lungs, liver, and scraps, thoroughly cut with pinhead oatmeal, seasoned with the spices of the hills like wild thyme, and stewed with the sheep's stomach for a sausage casing, well, it's filling, for sure -- and more than a little darkly mysterious. It is a pretty fair way to make innards taste worth while, though.

The Scots of America tend to approach haggis mainly on Burns Night dinners, when they've already been tippling at the malt Scotch for a while, which tends to make their recollections of haggis even vaguer, and reduces them to mumbling trying to describe it to someone who was otherwise engaged on Burns Night.

In Scottish butcher shops, you'll see premade haggises in the display cases, looking just like the pic, all plump and stubby. About the only way to make 'em more ethnic would be tying tartan ribbons around each end.

You know, I've considered going to a Burns Night dinner except for the fact that I don't drink and don't want to eat haggis.

Fine poet, though.

No link sausage, then...?

No body knows whats in sausage , brats , kelbasa , or hot dogs , lots of speculation , lips , ears , cocks , etc,,,,,
If you don't know and it tastes good then I will at least try it ,

Now a big ol slab of liver , well you can tell what it is , the first bite tastes good , then my mind says ( Self , this is a filter that you are eating !!!) and the second bite ( and every one after that ) tastes like MUD !!

You're right, but I'm talking about what holds the sausage together: sweet, delicious intestine! Mmm-mmm!

Ain't they all innards? I would hate to eat outards.

oooh! I love to eat outards.

er . . . wait. Where's the sex thread?

:)

sweet, delicious intestine

Not so much any more , the actual caseing is a paper product that has a burst rateing ( for commercial sausage that is )