I do stuff like that. I’ve traveled enough that I have eaten some pretty foul stuff in my lifetime. A canned item with the seal unbroken and no visible or olfactory signs of being off? Fairly low risk. For me, anyway.
My GF, on the other hand, is religious about tossing just about everything out of date except old spices, which is the one thing I wish she did throw away.
Obviously you need to take a hefty shot of liquor after each bite to kill off any bad juju.
No photos, but before I went shopping for boardgames my friend and I ate at the Chinese restaurant next door, and when we saw “marinated jellyfish” as an appetizer option we had to try it. The server was skeptical that two white guys would really want to eat jellyfish, but we assured her we were looking forward to it, and indeed we enjoyed it quite a bit. It was marinated in some sort of vinegar (I think she may have said but I don’t remember exactly what kind) along with sticks of cucumber and chopped scallions and served cold, and it was a very pleasant aperitif. Kind of chewy (my friend said it had similar texture to tripe, but I haven’t had tripe so couldn’t say), with a mild ocean-y undertone but mostly vinegar and cucumber and scallion.
I went to this place, in Austin:
http://www.fukumotoaustin.com
And it was awesome. Everything we had was great, and the prices were good.
And I ate tiny crabs.
Do you just bite down on the shell?
You just eat them whole, they are about the size of a piece of popcorn.
They were good. Crunchy, with crab inside.
Crab inside crab? Crabception?
Well, technically it’s just, you know, a crab.
That looks like waaaaaay to much effort, and I love crab.
I stand corrected, that would be even easier than their larger brethren. Will have to keep an eye out for popcorn crab now. I assume it’s not called popcorn crab, which is shame, because we already have popcorn shrimp.
They were called sawagani.
I had what I think is a version of that while traveling for work in Asia. They were quite good. I’ll have to remember this place for the next Austin visit.
Everything about that place was awesome, so you should go.
I have to eat those crabs. I’m wracking my brain to think of the next time I’ll be near a big city (no chance anyone in Boise has them).
Okay, my bad, I looked up what we had and it was full sized crab that you break apart. Singapore Chili Crab. Why I remember it though is that it’s kind of rare here to get a full sized crab cooked completely intact unless it’s soft shell.
There’s a Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Asian snack that is dried flash-fried little crabs. Sometimes they’re covered with sesame seeds. Pretty good, but can be hell on the inside of your mouth and tongue thanks to all the potentially sharp bits once you start biting.
I think that’s basically what I ate and pictured there, isn’t it?
I found the shells to basically be similar to the hull on popcorn. They’re thin enough that once they are fried, they end up just being crunchy.
Yes, pretty much! The snacks I’m referring to can be bought by the prepackaged bag in some Asian grocery stores, and there are specialized snack stores that have them in huge bins, like Sprouts.
We got these at Costco yesterday. Absolutely mind blowingly good. Of course, knowing Costco, this will be gone next month.
So all of you mini crab eaters. You don’t mind eating the poop in the crab?
We call that “flavortown!”
There are surprisingly few real chocolatiers in Japan (considering women are obligated by law to gift “chocos” to any males they know on Valentine’s day, as some sort of gesture of submission). I was recommended a shop a few months ago. As this was Easter season, I went there, and was very pleasantly surprised right upon entering that the store actually smelled chocolate. The displays were beautiful. I brought home this gorgeous little thing.
It didn’t taste as good as it looked — but how could it!
