Thanks to a friend of mine who brought back this joyful box of crunchy insect larva from America and the fact that Australian border security didn’t detect this coming through customs meant I got to savour these deliciously crunchy Californian BBQ-flavoured ‘Larvets’…

I asked Google and found out that these are actually mealworms, or larva from a type of grain beetle of sorts. These worms also resemble the live wriggly ones an old friend of mine used to feed his Arowana fish with. Funnily enough, you can even buy these Larvet snacks in bulk from Amazon.com! But whether it will make it past customs or not is another question…

Besides being a tasty novelty item, the packaging indicates that these Larvet Worm Snax have practically zero nutritional value. However, it would probably be a beneficial source of protein if consumed in large quantities!

After opening the plastic wrapping, a waft of wormy, wheaty, smokey, nutty goodness creeped up my nostrils. The BBQ flavouring actually complimented the worms in a strange way. I mean, the last thing you’d consider for a snack would be BBQ-flavoured worms right? To be honest I don’t think they would have tasted any worse or different without any flavouring because the worms were dehydrated and hollow, and tasted like crunchy chicken skin without the grease.

If they sold snack Larvets here, I would definitely be filling up my party bowl with them. I actually liked the taste and crunchy texture of the Larvets, and didn’t find it offensive at all. A good way to get a kick out of these is to eat a large handful and crunch away…nom nom nom…

Yet another bizarre find – this time from a vending machine. I had some spare yens so I gave this little beast a try – Sweet black coffee jelly in a bottle. The stangest thing was that I had to shake the bottle to ‘activate’ the jelly so it turned into a thick  fluid. It tasted like coffee alright, so that was a plus. But the texture was an assault on the senses. Cold. Jelly. Sludge.

Needless to say I was left feeling slightly queasy..

This kept me awake for a few hours as it was nearly midnight when I ate/drank this. The drink was surprisingly high in caffeine! At least I got my 200yen’s worth for trying something new…

Forget energy drinks – Collagen-enhancing drinks are all the rage, only in Japan! And I thought I’d seen my share of the bizzarro. I was wrong. All the pharmacies in Japan have a ‘health drinks’ section – and that’s where I found this Collagen beverage.

In fact, I have even seen this particular bottle for sale at some everyday convenience stores like 7-11. I would give you more detail, but I can’t for the life of me read Japanese. From what the bottle says, one of my assumptions would have to be that it contains 1000mg of Vitamin C. Who knows what the other 3000mg is!

I am assuming that this product would somehow  increase one’s collagen intake? Improve skin texture? Decrease wrinkles? Improve your overall wellbeing? I didn’t want to risk having a trout pout during my trip, so unfortunately I didn’t sample this! It was still an intriguing find though, I must say!

I wasn’t really sure what to call it, but that’s exactly what it was – Soba Noodles in a bun!

We found this interesting combination of carbohydrates at a cafe in Tokyo. It was pretty much a white bread bun sliced open and slathered in thick mayonnaise, then topped with Bolognaise-flavoured Soba noodles and some pickled ginger!

As the noodles were dark brown, we thought it would have been flavoured with soy sauce or something. But strangely enough, it tasted like Bolognaise, albeit artificial.

My friend Josh didn’t like it, so I snatched the bun off him and wolfed it down. I enjoyed it – I figured I wouldn’t see or taste anything like this often so what the heck – I couldn’t let it go to waste!

Naturally when in Hanoi we sought out the weird and wonderful for each and every meal. When we heard of a “Snake Village” called Le Mat on the outskirts of town we quickly decided that this was worth further investigation. After a quick taxi ride over the river we arrived to find a suburban area with very little sign of action. Luckily there were plenty of local hawkers eager to take us to their “friends” house where we could enjoy a meal of snake.

The man jumped on his bike and rode off to a local house to negotiate what kind of commission he’d get for leading four stupid westerners to the snake vendor. We followed through a dingy garage to arrive at the below scene.

So how much? For the low low price of $90 US we could eat the snake. Considering that almost every meal we’d had in Vietnam had cost less than a dollar we quickly left to find another restaurant / house. The fact that the characters in the garage looked like the shadiest men in all of Vietnam certainly didn’t help.

Our “good friend” on the motorbike rode off to find us another vendor. He lead us down a few dusty alleyways to a lavish mansion with some snake cages out the back. The man was friendly and the price quickly dropped to $35 US for all four of us to have a feast of snake with alcohol included. Expensive but what the hey, we agreed and the man went about selecting the unlucky snake.

Out came two jars, two funnels, a knife and a doomed Cobra. The snake’s neck was broken, it’s heart was located and a cut was made.

At this stage we have no idea what is going on. Why are they collecting the blood? I guess we’ll find out later.

A close up of the blood being drained.

The heart is cut out and slips down to the bottom of a small glass. It is still beating rapidly for several minutes before it begins to slow to just a beat here and there.

The men make another cut further down the snake and begin to drain it’s dull green bile. It looks something like very strong green tea but smells like… snake bile I guess! At this stage we are led upstairs to the guest area and take a seat. A bottle of snake blood and another of snake bile are brought up to us by our host and the sounds & smells of cooking snake waft upwards from downstairs. Several shots are prepared, the first contains the snake’s heart along with a healthy splash of bile and some home made rice wine just to make the entire concoction that much more appetizing.

By this stage we are all feeling a little queasy and the question is raised as to who is going to have the heart. I offer to be the guinea pig for this excursion and find very little in the way objections from my friends, one of whom has already gone outside for fresh air and fails to return until the meal is over.

Looks delicious doesn’t it? Our host explains that the locals drink snake blood to help them with “sexy lady boom boom”. Look out Viagra!

Surprise, surprise, it tasted just like snake bile with rice wine with a raw heart in it. Luckily the off burning aftertaste of the rice wine saved me from more than a few seconds of suffering. We now proceed with shot after shot of rice wine with snake blood.

These were not too bad and definitely far superior to the snake bile. Our host quickly works out that we are not interested in any more bile shots and so begins to help himself, quickly becoming outrageously drunk.

Our host’s wife enters with several dishes made from the unfortunate snake. The first being snake meat which has been battered with flour and sesame seeds and deep fried. Mmmmmm tastes like chicken yet with the consistency of mashed potato. We are all surprised and impressed, the crispy pieces of snake are quickly consumed.

Snake spring rolls anyone? Very Yum. After dipping in the traditional Vietnamese vinegar sauce (often used with rice paper rolls) they were a real crowd pleaser.

Our host now obtains a large bottle of something from the cupboard. The fluid within it is cloudy and has some mysterious “things” floating around the bottom. After some interesting sign language we understand that these “things” are indeed snake testicles and the liquid itself is rice wine. We were all quite amused until our host pours as each a shot. We took a bit of convincing but eventually caved in and downed our shots. The taste was foul and we all refused to touch our second shot, again leaving our host to enjoy the spoils.

Next we are served snake skin that has been deep fried to perfection. This was delicious, something like a cross between chicken skin and the crackling on roast pork. We all agreed it was the highlight of the meal and fought over the last few pieces.

With the meal over and our shot glasses empty we move to a new room downstairs where our host has readied a home made water pipe. Despite having one of the better homes in Hanoi, his pipe is nothing more than a scaffolding tube with a tin can strapped to it. He shows us his favorite party trick which is to overload his already massive pipe with tobacco, spark up and inhale the entire lot then hold his breath for over a minute. When he breathes out all the smoke is gone. Wow. We begin to wonder if he drinks and smokes this with all of his snake guests and if so how he hasn’t died from multiple organ failure. We thank our host and leave him with his well earned US dollars, now it’s time to see if we can locate that restaurant that serves locusts…