#40@40: A meal of worms!

An extreme little food experience to add to my list. I've heard it be said that in the coming years, due to the growing population and the cost food production we will be looking in other places for our daily food requirements. For western audiences this could mean trying something that a lot of the rest of the world has no problems with, eating insects.

I managed to find a place in London called Archipelago, which advertises exotic dinning. So I booked a table for a Saturday night. I coincided it with a visit from my girlfriend and took her along for a bit of moral support.

I didn't say where we were going to my girlfriend and had her trying to guess what we were doing all day. Do we need to dress up? What should we have at lunch so we didn't have it again at dinner?

I wouldn't budge and so that evening we found ourselves in a dark and mysterious street near Oxford Circus. Facing a door which could only be entered if you know the password. Fortunately such things are know to me, OK the man told me when I phoned and made the booking.

Inside the restaurant was also dark and mysterious with walls covered in wood carvings, knives and stuffed birds. We sat down in a comfy corner and were given the menus on a scrolls. To my girlfriend's credit she didn't make a run of it when she saw what was on the menu and in any case is was possible to pick items not too usual for western tastes.

The restaurant has a range of dishes with usual ingredients from the selection of insects to a range of different meats. I think vegetarians might be a bit disappointed, but we had plenty to choose from.

I started very tamely with a very tasty duck starter and my girlfriend dived straight in with crocodile in vine leaves! I tasted the crocodile and it was nice, a bit fishy/gamey if a little dry.

The Main course was duck for my girlfriend and bison steak for me. But this time I ordered the love bug side salad which contained crickets and locusts lovingly sprinkled onto a green leaf salad. The insects were very tasty and I found them crunchy a bit like eating bacon frazzles crisps.

My girlfriend declined my offer to taste them.

For pudding my girlfriend went for the sorbets and I had meal-worm caviar with sour cream and blinis
This too was very nice, a combination of crunch and sweet treacle to balance the sour cream.
Another pudding option which I didn't want to try was the chocolate covered scorpion, but only because it looked a bit small. Honest!

In all with the very nice wine it was a great experience, if a bit expensive, and I definitely would do it again and want to try some other bugs.

I wonder what I can order on the internet :)