Top 10 Things Not To Eat
March 14, 2008
1. Smoked squid guts. Explanation necessary? A traditional Japanese fare, like torture by appetizer. They’ll be served like one might serve crackers or beer nuts, as light-weight snacks before meals or drinking, in a little bowl. If it looks like rubber bands in butter don’t eat it. It’ll taste like rubber bands in kerosene.
2. Horsemeat. It might taste good but could you live with yourself? Why not have some dolphin or chimp while you’re at it?
3. Eyeballs. More than likely, someone will order half-a-tuna head and they will shove their chopsticks in the eye-socket, yank out the fish’s eyeball, and then offer it to you if you’ve never tried it. It’s “good for the brain,” they’ll tell you without a thought for the irony, given the psychological scarring you’ll have.
4. Chicken hearts on a stick. (One of various kinds of yaki-torri.)Look, to emulate John Travolta, chicken livers taste good; chicken breasts taste good; chicken legs taste good. Chicken hearts? If your grandma never dropped a chicken heart on your plate, it was for a good reason.
5. Chicken skin on a stick. The Colonel mastered how to serve chicken skin: breaded, fried, crispy and delicious. In Japan, it still looks like chicken skin, feels like chicken skin, and tastes like chicken skin. They put it on a stick just to make it more awful.
6. Chicken cartilage on a stick. ‘Nuff said.
7. Chinese sweet bean rolls. Every Japanese person will tell you they’re delicious. That’s because the Japanese have a completely different concept of delicious, which includes not-cooked-enough dough stuffed with not-sweet-enough bean paste. The consistency and the pairing will leave you looking for a Pepsi, which you won’t be able to find. Just be glad it’s not something else, because it could be and you won’t be able to read the package to know. It might be a Chinese bun gastronomic surprise!
8. Okonomyaki. Literally translated as “whatever you want,” this is the Japanese native cuisine that is the nearest approximation to pizza. But it’s nothing like pizza. It’s gross. Again, they’ll tell it’s wonderful. Don’t listen.
9. Japanese pizza. Many foreign things have been adopted by the Japanese culture and, just like America has done with culinary imports, have been adapted to Japanese taste. We’ve already established that sometimes that taste is not quite on the mark, and neither is their adaptation of this Italian classic. Unless mayonnaise, squid, and fish sounds good on your pie. And you don’t mind paying $25 for a large, which is roughly the size of a doughnut. Japanese doughnuts, by the way, don’t seem to have any sugar in them. If you do order a pizza, try it near Christmas. At least then you’ll get to see your bike-delivery guy hating his job as he stands at your door in a Santa suit when it’s 60 degrees outside.
10. Fried jellyfish. Never tried it. But be careful because in a picture menu, it looks just like chicken. Don’t go pointing willy-nilly. Make sure you ask if it’s really chicken.
Bonus: Someone may offer you the “delicacy” of octopus lips. These are surprisingly edible, but just barely. You have to chew around the rock hard mouth center, which is kind of like chewing a tire off of its rim. But if you like salty, smoky, little-bitter things, give it a shot.
Bonus #2: Try a shot of turtle’s blood if you dare. It’s for “energy.”
