Life is to short to not try the world :)

 Hi All -

I am proud to announce that I have turned my passion for international food into a new business!

It's called Try The World (www.trytheworld.com)

Try The World is a monthly subscription box service delivering the best products from the most exciting places in the world to your door. Every month, we ship a box of our curated picks from a different country.

We launched this week and are excited to present our first box - the Classic Paris Box.

This box includes some of the finest gourmet products made by family-owned (some over a hundred years old!)businesses using traditional methods sourced from across France. We are most excited about our sel de guerande (considered the most prized of all salts for its texture and complex mineral content), all natural black olive tapenade from the South of France, and a chestnut spread (yes for you weird food lovers, this one might be a hit!)

Clément Faugier

Chestnut spread

 I am super excited about this box as I have been a huge fan of all things French ever since I lived in Paris for a year back in 2005-2006. We've timed the launch of this box specifically for Mother's Day because pretty much all mothers love French things - n'est ce pas?  It really makes a great gift. :)

We are working hard on our next 2 boxes - Tokyo and Istanbul! If you know of any particular amazing Japanese or Turkish products that we simply must include, please send me a note at sayhello at trytheworld dot com.


In the meantime, please like and share our facebook page to stay tuned.

Thank you!!

Xoxo
Kat Continue...

New blog - Oui J'Adore

Hi all! I started a new blog called Oui J'Adore about all things French, and in particular about Paris. We will have posts by guest bloggers writing vignettes about what they love about Paris. Our first post is food-related, about Laduree macarons. Check it out!

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A brief list of our fave bizarre food joints in New York City

With an increasing number of TV shows that venture out and review a range of exotic and bizarre foods around the world, the American palette has become more adventurous in the past few years. Dishes that were once considered strange or reserved for a specific ethnic group have become increasingly sought after as delicacies by a wider demographic. For those in New York City seeking to try bizarre cuisine, consider some of the following locations:

Maharlika, 111 1st Ave, New York, 646-392-7880 This trendy new Filipino restaurant knows its roots and isn’t scared to stray away from the average eater’s comfort zone. Here, you might notice people eating what appears to be a poached egg, but take a closer look and you’ll notice bits of bones and feathers in its own broth. What could it possibly be? Maharlika offers this fertilized duck embryo called a Balut, which is a popular Filipino street snack. Their signature dish, Pampangan Style Sizzling Sisig, consists of pig ears, snout and belly, which is boiled, grilled and sautéed. If you’re feeling less daring but still in the mood for something relatively unconventional, try the beer battered, fresh-from-can, Spam Fries.

El Pequeño Coffee Shop, 86-10 Roosevelt Ave, Jackson Heights, Queens, 718-205-7128 With a name like that, you might expect to find more muffins and bagels and less roasted guinea pig. But that’s just what you’ll find at this Ecuadorian restaurant located in Queens. This off-menu item, the Cuy, or guinea pig, is spit roasted and served whole–with the head intact. El Pequeño’s began as a humble coffee shop around 15 years ago, but over the years it has morphed into one of New York City’s premier destinations for a modern take on authentic Ecuadorian cuisine.

Sik Gaek, 161-29 Crocheron Ave, Flushing, Queens, 718-321-7770 & 49-11 Roosevelt Ave, Woodside, Queens, 718-205-4555 The most popular item on the extensive menu at this Korean restaurant is Sannakji, or live octopus. Arriving at your table whole and actually moving on its own platter, the octopus will continue quivering even after it is killed right before your eyes. Upon your request, Sik Gaek’s chefs will then chop the tentacles up into smaller pieces, which will eventually cause the octopus to cease wiggling. The real reason to have them chopped up, though, is so you can dip the pieces into the restaurant’s delicious homemade chili sauce.

Watch Weird Food Club members struggle with moving octopus tentacles here.

Ali’s Kebab Café, 2512 Steinway St, Astoria, Queens, 718-728-9858 At this small Egyptian restaurant in Astoria, be sure to ask owner, chef, and artist, Ali el Sayed, for “the good stuff”. You’ll soon be treated with a heaping serving of pan-seared lamb brains, a sautéed lamb heart, spicy veal sweetbreads and finely chopped goat testicles. There’s no menu, so if “the good stuff” seems a bit too wild, the owner will gladly list the dishes he is serving that day. This quaint atmosphere adds to the authentic feel of a real café in Egypt, and enhances the overall eating experience for any good bizarre foods aficionado.
Guest post by Angie Picardo.
Angie Picardo is a staff writer for NerdWallet, a website dedicated to helping consumers find the best credit cards, travel advice, and soon, recipes. Continue...

How many weird foods have you tried?

I tried 89 of 100 rare foods, making me a "True Foodie", according to this quiz.

Only 8 people have tried all 100 foods on this list.

I have yet to try: kangaroo, black truffle, Pavlova cake, fugu, mangosteen, morel mushrooms, chile relleno, purple ketchup, or dessert pizza!



How many rare foods on that list have you tried? Continue...

Hurricane Irene gave us a reason to smile

Everyone on the East Coast prepared for Irene as if the end of the world was coming. We boarded up our windows and stocked up on water and canned food, as the government instructed us all to do. Some of us even evacuated our homes.

My family and I decided to spend the night of the wicked storm together in Bergen County, one of the more elevated areas of New Jersey.

We had a great evening together and even decided to eat dinner with candles lit, to celebrate the impending power outage early. The storm came at night. Wind whistled. Thunder roared. Lightning struck. Massive downpour of rain flooded streets.

When all cleared up in the morning, we took a stroll outside to check the damage. Yes, small rivers formed in the streets, and branches were scattered around. Yes, a few trees were downed. And yep, we didn't have power.

Yet there was one great thing that surprised us all: a fantastic sea of mushrooms covered our neighbors' lawns. It was the greatest harvest of wild mushrooms that any of us had ever seen in our lives. Thanks to Irene, conditions were perfect for thousands of fungi to spring up literally overnight in our suburban town.

Being Russian, our eyes bulging with excitement, we ran with our bags and knives to go mushroom hunting. We looked for lawns that were marked as not chemically treated and collected these completely under-appreciated, misunderstood and even feared things called mushrooms, with permission from property owners (who while expressing their concern for our safety allowed us to do as we liked!).

We collected multiple bags of gorgeous chanterelles, russulas, and boletes. Some of these species can sell for up to $30 per pound! Needless to say, we went home with our booty happy as clams, and proceeded to clean, cut and cook these beauties on our grill and in the fireplace, producing the most spectacular meal.



Nothing tastes better than the food you hunt or gather yourself!


WARNING: mushroom hunting requires expertise! Before attempting this yourself, please review these guidelines to avoid mushrooms that are not only bitter but lethal! Continue...

Tourbie

Classmates from my alma mater developed a start-up for visitors and locals to meet and share cool experiences in New York. It is called Tourbie and is still in beta, but you can find my Weird Food tour on it! Plus, here is a short profile video we shot at the High Line:

Kat V. from Tourbie on Vimeo.

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Insect Cocktails at White & Church

Grasshoppers at Toloache was just the beginning of our insect exploration. Once again, we challenged our fears and common sense at White & Church (281 Church St), a TriBeCa newcomer that is already generating buzz for its cocktails with grasshoppers, spicy worms and scorpions.

Their cocktail menu includes:

Summer: Batilda de Coco, oatmeal milk, sugar, and dried grasshoppers carefully placed in a weaved bamboo leaf sphere. This cocktail was delicious, gorgeous and certainly bizarre. To get over the fear of eating bugs, WFC member Alex convinced herself that the grasshoppers looked cute on its cotton-ball-soft foam, "as if they died and were now sitting on clouds in heaven". Perhaps a bit of self-hypnosis is necessary in this kind of situation!

9/10 for taste, innovative presentation and weirdness factor

Rosemary: cinnamon flavored rum, apple juice, lemon juice, with toasted honeybees and a sprig of rosemary. Unfortunately, White & Church's supplier discontinued honeybees, so Rosemary is now served with grasshoppers. While we were disappointed that honeybees were no longer available, Rosemary was actually our favorite by taste.

8/10 wins points for taste and weirdness factor

Why not? consists of Don Julio tequila, Cointreau, sugar, lime and avocado topped with Mexican dried spicy worms. This bland frozen margarita inspired cocktail would not exist without the exciting spicy worms. The combination of avocado and citrus was just not working, and thus left us disappointed. The spicy worms tasted like fish food, and were seriously overshadowed by their companions grasshoppers and scorpions.

5/10 wins points for worms, loses points for taste

Blue Velvet is a dangerous mix of Crème de Menthe and Sambucca, rimmed with black sesame seeds and topped with a scorpion.

7/10: wins points for scorpion and presentation, loses points for mouthwash taste and inconsistency (we ordered 2 and they were different in taste and color.)

Watch WFC member member Mike trying "Blue Velvet" scorpion cocktail:



... and a grasshopper.




Most cocktails at White & Church are in the $12-14 range. Note that White & Church runs a happy hour on ALL BUT insect drinks Tues - Sunday 5-7pm, when you can try their other amazing concoctions half off.

Also of note were some dishes at White & Church: zucchini blossoms, literally tempura fried flowers of the zucchini plant (beautiful but not exactly a meal), and artichoke croquettes.


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Dusseldorf weird foods

Here are a few bizarre food items I picked up while in Dusseldorf, Germany:

• candy that tasted like cardboard with sour poprocks-esque filling inside
• caviar spread in a toothpaste tube
• deer terrine
• Killepitsch, a local liquor that tastes like cough syrup and sounds like "Kill a b*tch"
• pistachio spread that got taken away by airport security
• bubble gum in a tube
• chocolate with absinthe filling
• chocolate pasta that tasted a lot like regular pasta
• candy cigarettes (there were rumors these were banned in the US, but in fact it was real candy/fruit-flavored cigarettes that were banned)
• candy that looks like eggs -- so much fun!

Other items not pictured:

• chocolate with chili peppers
• chocolate cell phone from The Chocolate Museum in Cologne, Germany

I also had the opportunity to attend a cooking class with Frank Petzchen Cooking School where my coworkers and I learned how to make Mustard Soup with Blood Sausage Ravioli.



See recipe posted further.



Recipe for Dusseldorf Mustard Soup with Blood Sausage-Apple Ravioli

Ingredients for 4 people

Soup:
200g celery
60g onion
30g butter
500ml chicken stock
20g roux (1:1)
200ml cream
80g mustard

Ravioli:
80g black pudding (blood sausage)
30g apple
30g onion
majoram
8 wan-tan leaves
1 egg
chip/ French fry fat

Preparation

Mustard Soup:
Cut celery into fine slices.
Cut onion into slices, melt in butter and fill up with chicken stock.
Cook celery until tender, puree and strain it.
Boil the broth and use roux to thicken it.
Add cream and season to taste.
Before serving add the mustard with a blender.

Black pudding/apple ravioli:
Chop blood pudding, apple and onion into small cubes and then fry in a pan
Season with majoram and let it cool
Apportion the mix on the wan-tan leaves and glue the sides with egg
Deep fry the ravioli in chip fat and place two ravioli in each soup bowl. Continue...

Taiwan in New York

Last Sunday WFC went to Passport to Taiwan in Union Square. In its 10th annual installment, this is the largest Taiwanese American outdoor festival in the States.

We were happy to find a Dracula Popsickle and Crystal Meat Dumpling among the multiple food stand offerings.



Dracula Popsickle is made out of pork blood, mixed with rice flour, corn starch, sausage and rice. It is baked, briefly deep fried, and rolled in crushed peanuts. Served with cilantro.

You can watch this tutorial video by food writer Josh Ozersky with Public's chef Brad Farmerie on how to make it.

The blood popsickle tastes a lot like boudin noir, but has a more prominent pork blood taste and smell. The peanuts add a nice crunch and the cilantro balances out the smell.

Crystal Meat Dumpling was unlike any other crystal dumpling I've ever seen. The rice dough was a lot more translucent than that of other dumplings. It was wrapped in saran wrap for convenience, and was stuffed with all sorts of meats (I will never know which!) and shiitake mushrooms. I can't seem to find any information on the crystal meat dumpling. It will remain mysterious.

A more popular recent Taiwanese culinary export is Taiwanese Shaved Ice. Many other countries have their own versions of Shaved Ice (or "Shave Ice" or "Snow Ice"), a dessert made by shaving a block of ice and topping it with various sweets. The Taiwanese version is often topped with fruits, condensed milk, syrup and red beans. (WFC Factoid: red beans are sweet because they are cooked with a whole lot of sugar, not because they are naturally sweet!)


SeriousEats lists places where you can try Taiwanese Shaved Ice in New York, including:
- Excellent Pork Chop House (3 Doyers Street)
- Ten Ren (75 Mott Street)
- Dumpling Man (100 Saint Marks Place)
- Vivi Bubble Tea (49 Bayard Street)




So far I've only tried Shaved Ice at the Flushing Mall food court, which had an impressive variety of toppings.

As Shaved Ice becomes more popular, perhaps it will soon be as ubiquitous as bubble tea! Continue...

Free Veal Brain and Cricket Tacos today only!

Dos Equis's "Feast of the Brave" truck is a godsend to all weird food eaters this Cinco de Mayo: today only you can get FREE tacos with ostrich, veal brain, tongue and chapuline (cricket) fillings!

Today's "Feast of the Brave" Truck location:
- Park Ave and 47th street



If you miss your free tacos today, you can catch the truck in NYC until May 7. For the latest truck locations and photos, go to facebook.com/dosequis or Twitter at @FeastoftheBrave.
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