Trifecta

I've completed my Vietnamese culinary hat trick: cobra heart, dog, durian. If I had ever seen insects I would have eaten them too, but they never showed up. If I had seen monkey brain I would not have eaten it, because it is my understanding that those monkeys are endangered, or threatened or something like that, and are being killed just for dumb tourists to eat their brain (and increase male potency). I don't want to encourage that.

Of the three, I would say the cobra heart was the worst, because it just didn't taste like anything. Just moonshine. The dog and durian were quite good. The durian didn't even stink that bad. Sure, it had a slightly unpleasant odor, but it was really subtle. I think my shoes smell a lot worse. The flavor of the fruit is really nice, and I forgot about the smell as soon as I started eating. An Australian man walking by said it was better if you put it in the fridge first. Apparently that masks some of the smell. Tomorrow I go for a motorbike ride around the countryside surrounding Saigon with the same driver who gave me the Saigon city tour. I talked with him today about durians, and he said that a really nice treat is to mix the durian flesh with vietnamese coffee (basically espresso) - not the kind with condensed milk, just black. I'll try to get a durian tomorrow and try that out before I leave, because durians aren't available in the states.