Eating Snake Alley

Maybe we were inspired by our recent trip to the zoo, but we ate some weird-ass stuff tonight and a lot of it was yummy. This was all at the hands of our landlords/neighbors, who lived in the U.S. so they speak English really well. It's been really great getting to know them and I think they're getting a kick out of introducing us to lots of Taiwanesey things.


When we first moved in, Christine brought over a bunch of "dragon eyes" (sound good?) for us to try. She told us that Taiwan has a new fruit in season every month and that she'd bring us some to try each month. So, we've joined a fruit-of-the-month club... cool! The dragon eyes tasted a lot like lychee to me, with a hard black walnut-type pit in the center. Very tasty- the bunch didn't last long.


On Saturday night we had supper at Samuel and Christine's and they ordered in a feast of local foods... there were a lot of fishy options (we are on an island after all), but the soup, chicken and rice were very good. So tonight, they decided they were taking us to the Snake Alley Night Market. On the way to the market they drove me to the school that I start working at on Wednesday, which was awesome of them because I don't know how I'd ever have found the place without them! When we got to the market we thought we were just going to try the snake- and don't ask me why we decided that would be a good idea- but they were running from stall to stall picking out things for us to taste. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take out my camera at the first place we went to, where we had a thick bowl of rice cake that I really enjoyed. It was kind of like bread pudding with some pork and gravy in it. There was a fish ball soup that was a bit too fishy for my tastes, but Mel thought it was good.


Next we tried "stinky tofu"(picture above), which I'd read about before coming here. It didn't smell as bad as I thought it might... it was kind of a funky cheese smell that we had actually smelled before- we just didn't realize what we were smelling. The tofu was fried and cut into bite-sized triangles with garlic, chili, soy sauce and Taiwanese kimchi. It was alright, but it really just took on the flavor of the dipping sauce and after a few servings I started to taste the smell :P


Next we tried some hot rice cakes topped with peanut and poppy seed. I tried the peanut one and it was really good- not as dense as some rice cakes I'd had before. I forgot to take a picture of some fried sweet potato balls that we also had... they were really good. I thought it was just like eating a timbit. Mel described them as donut meets french fry.


Of course, we didn't have time to eat everything we wanted to, but I know that we'll be back to try the "castrated chicken", as seen above. Samuel said it's called "castrated chicken" because it is served with everything but the you-know-what.


Aaaaand if you're still hungry for some you-know-what, here they are! Chicken testicles for sale. Yummy.


Frogs on ice!


This seems pretty tame in comparison to everything else, but those are pigs feet and tails in the above picture. I've had pigs feet before and they aren't too bad, you just have to watch out for the toes.


So, yeah we did try the snake soup! To enter the restaurant we passed by some cages with huge snakes inside, and a bunch of bunny and rat cages as well. I wonder what they were for? From the menu, we opted for the "deluxe set", which consisted of a bowl of snake soup, snake oil pills, and shots of liquor with snake bile, snake blood, snake sperm, snake venom, and snake urine. Mel and I split a serving while Nareesa braved all of the shots herself. We did the bigger red shot of snake blood first, then the other ones followed in some order that was supposed to be "good for health" or "good for skin" but in my opinion was just for "a good story".


The shots went down relatively easily... I definitely prefer shooting snake venom over shooting tequila, for example. The soup was not quite as great. The broth didn't have a lot of flavor and the snake meat, while flakey like chicken, was also tasteless and absolutely full of small little bones. I can't really believe that I ate it!! I totally put my mind somewhere else while I was eating. When we'd tried it all, I was glad that I'd sampled this strange local favorite. It was definitely an experience!


Photo op with the snakes :P


This guy was advertising his restaurant with a cobra show (that's a cobra on the surface in front of him).


Mel trying some spicy squid jerkey. She reported that it just tasted like the spice, I report that it stunk like the sea.


Before going home, we went to a shaved ice place where you got to pick out any 4 toppings on your dessert. As you can see, the three foreigners selected jellies and fruit while our hosts went with corn and beans which would probably be the more traditional option. It was so good.


As we were leaving, we happened to catch the last fountain show of the day outside Longshan Temple Station and it was really nice. To take the above picture I got really close to the fountain and a guy had to come down to ask me to move. A few minutes later I realized why- the area where I was sitting erupted with water.

So, we've only been here a few weeks and we've already eaten out of toilets and done shots of snake blood. I'm gonna go ahead and say that this is going to be an interesting year.