Weird and Wonderful

When it comes to food it really is a matter of taste, no pun intended.

Weird and Wonderful City Delights

There may be renowned Thai restaurants in the city such as Baan Khanitha and Blue Elephant but when it comes to some Thai treats found in the city some dishes can only be described as weird and wonderful to anyone trying them for the first time. To some, these dishes are weird and to others simply wonderful. One thing is certain, for a non-Thai palate they are definitely a little different and are found lurking on menus around this weird and wonderful city.

Take grilled duck beaks, for example, at Bangkok’s renowned Issan restaurant, Vientiane. Perhaps they are an acquired idea before they even become an acquired taste. Of course they could be set off with a nice frog soup too. This is dining for the true food explorers and it is in these authentic city spots that the real Thai delights are discovered.

One dish that is certainly not dead in the water when it comes to Thai taste is the Jumping Shrimp salad. There is a mixture of classic Thai ingredients to get the taste buds fizzing but this is cooking in the loosest sense of the word as the river shrimp are served not only raw but alive! Crunching down on a jumping shrimp has to be a unique culinary adventure and certainly not for the faint hearted. Any good moogata restaurant in the city has shrimp, which are thrown jumping in icy water before being cooked in the biggest barbeque blowout to be had. Those wanting to do the jumping themselves but still keeping the shrimps raw can dine at live music venue Brown Sugar.

Stepping slightly out of Thailand but not out of Bangkok, top-notch Chinese restaurants such as those found in Chinatown’s Yaowarat Road serve somewhat strange fare. It may be one of the most expensive foods in the world and a much sought after delicacy in some quarters but eating a glutinous broth of birds nest made from the saliva of a swiflet is certainly unique.For those not wanting to climb that particular culinary tree there are the depths of the ocean and the somewhat contentious shark fin soup.

Those needing a little street side snack before sitting in a fine Bangkok brasserie, there is always a fried grasshopper or locust to get the appetite worked up. Eating bugs is not a fad or a tourist gimmick, although it may seem that way for Bangkok’s sophisticated city dwellers and diners. For many hungry farmers in Issan these crispy critters are a good source of protein and if the Chinese can eat bee larvae and the Cambodians can eat spiders, then surely the odd deep-fried beetle is neither here nor there. If this all sounds a little too much to stomach you could always hop over to the Philipines for a good old fashioned balut - that would be fertilized boiled duck egg to you and me!