Asian Market Food - Grasshoppers, Turnips, and Nazi Noodles!

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The other day I visited Kansas to see some friends and thought I would look around for some blog material. I decided to visit the international market, 888 Market, and I was not disappointed. There was virtually infinite things to look and laugh at! This place is awesome.

I got way more than I bargained for; I expected to maybe find a few odd foods and review them here, but what I got... was a bit shocking, even for me. I got a lot of stuff, so I'm splitting this one into two posts - today I will review the land lubbers (plants and animals found on land) and next will be the seafarers.

First up is some Nazi Ramen Noodles!

I can't read much on this package, but the Nazi symbol on the left intrigued me. This one is "vegetarian" flavor, so considering this is coming from the Nazis, I'm pretty sure I'm about to eat a vegetarian. A human vegetarian. So I'm going to assume that all that fancy writing says "Soylent Ramen."

When I was making it, it came with a sauce pouch that I had to mix in with the noodles. The sauce looked like mud or grime you'd find in a storm water drain in Tokyo, but I braved it and mixed it into the noodles. This is what it ended up looking like:

No surprises there. Let's see how they score on a scale of 1 to 10.

Smell: Kind of like stale noodles, or in other words, like Ramen noodles.

Texture: Noodly.

Taste: Something is a little off about this... I can't quite put my finger on it. Probably the grime sauce. It tastes a bit fishy, so maybe the vegetarian broke his diet and ate fish before he was harvested. Sort of tastes the way a lake smells. I ate the whole thing though.

Final Score: 7/10 

Next we have some turnip stuff: 

I'm not really sure what this stuff is because I can't read those symbols, but the description on the back of the package is what sold me:

Electing the grass pocket radish of high mountain, blown by the wind of the farmhouse eaves, and put into a tile jar to ferment, it has strong delicious taste, and is very refreshing and crisp.

I've never wanted to eat turnips more in my life! They also included an "eating method" which is simply "Just eat it after opening the bag." So the packaging is cool looking, the description is epic, let's see its true colors.

Hmm... it looks like a human liver. Well, let's get right into the review.

Smell: Pretty overwhelming. Slightly sweet, kind of like Chinese food, but very strong. Not super pleasant. And after I threw it away it stunk up my kitchen :(

Texture: Strangely crunchy and tough.

Taste: Pretty spicy and VERY salty. It kind of attacks your taste buds. I can't really detect the wind of the farmhouse eaves, but on the front of the package it states that it has a long aftertaste - that much is certainly true. I didn't finish this stuff, but I didn't ENTIRELY hate it.

Final Score: 4.5/10 

Next up is some quail eggs! 

These guys were cute and small and I just couldn't resist. Apparently, in some countries quail eggs are considered a delicacy. I decided to unceremoniously fry and scramble them.

Actually, my sister did the frying. I did the scrambling.

That's an entire set of 10 eggs! Look how cute! How could you not love them? How did they fare in the review? Let's find out.

Smell: A lot like chicken eggs.

Texture: Pretty crunchy, but that's only because the quail egg shells are really brittle so there were a bunch of shell bits in there.

Taste: A little more "fatty" tasting than chicken eggs. Maybe more yolky. I don't really know how to describe it, but if no one told me it was quail eggs instead of chicken, I doubt I'd notice a difference.

Final Score: 8/10 

Finally, we have the grossest item of the night, Fried Grasshoppers with Salt:

For things you find in your yard and in plagues, these were pretty expensive at about $6. However, I could not pass up a chance like this, so I ate some grasshoppers - for you, Dear Reader. Actually, I talked a surprising number of my friends into trying them with me. 

Would you eat one?

These guys are pretty enormous. I actually tried these twice, with two different sets of friends. I got some videos, too, but none of them are very blog-worthy. However, I will show some highlights after the review!

Smell: If you've ever owned lizards or anything that eat crickets... that's kind of what these smelled like. If you want to recreate the smell, lift up a rock outside and smell underneath it.

Texture: extremely crunchy on the outside, gooey in the middle. Kind of hard to chew them up sufficiently before swallowing.

Taste: A lot like dirt and earth. It was like eating twigs from the yard. The worst part of them was the idea that you were eating a grasshopper.

Final Score: 2/10

It got such a high score because the crunchiness at the beginning was kind of good.

I'm not posting the videos, but here are some snapshots. The videos basically consist of a big *crunch* followed by disgusted faces. 

This is immediately after putting them in our mouths. Right here you can hear my friend say, "Arggughg uggrrrg, huh uh." And then proceeded to do this: 

He threw up :(

I managed to keep them down, though :)

Our second panel of taste-testers.

The results were pretty similar. But this time no one threw up! Good times. You should all try eating grasshoppers and let me know how it is! Next time I have jellyfish and canned squid... So stay tuned!