Snake + Cake

There is a restaurant at 115 Xingfu Road in Shanghai called Lin Lin. Lin Lin specializes in fresh snakes. It's a small, divey place and in the little courtyard behind the kitchen there's a stack of cages that hold several species of live snakes.

The waiter walked us back there to check them out and we pointed to a few of the big ones he said were the tastiest. He put some heavy thick plastic gloves on and pulled them out. With strong scissors he simply cut their heads off, and threw the bodies into a bucket. The headless bodies writhed and wriggled as blood spewed out from the top. We licked our chops and went inside.


photo by Safety Scissors

The snakes came stir-fried in a spicy mix of vegetables, chili and oil. Tastes like frog.

We were happily eating away at this when we noticed at the other table there was quite a loud party going on. Red wine, snakes, and ... a birthday cake. The party was getting louder to the point of obnoxious. Then one of the drunken gentleman came over and toasted with us -- his English was decent, but obviously he doesn't interact with foreigners often. "My two friends, it's their birthday. They are policemen! Policeman birthday! hahah!" (I think he was quite proud that they were police ... at first I was like, so what's the point? Police need to eat too...)

Anyway, a few minutes later we were standing and toasting beer and wine with these guys, and singing happy birthday songs. Then came the cake. We were given big slices of chocolate cake with white frosting. We thanked them, set the cake down on our table, and continued to eat our snake dish.

A few minutes later, the gentleman came back, blushing, and said "you should eat the cake now (wink wink). It's time to eat the cake. We are eating cake now."

"Ah yes, we will, after our snake," I said.

"You should eat cake now. We eat cake together," he said.

So we did. Cake + snake. Yum.

People from The West are uptight about what courses to eat when. Dessert goes at the end. Count me as one of those people. Cake and spicy snake don't mix. Neither does red wine with spicy snake, or light beer with cake, for that matter. But now things were completely out of control and they were all mixed up together on our palates and in our bellies.

I have a Shanghainese friend who likes to drink chocolate milk with her spicy fish. Just the thought makes me ill.

We survived. Tummies full, we bid farewell to the birthday police and walked down to Logo bar and partied with Safety Scissors, Ben Houge, and Nosaj Thing.

Snake Alley, Taiwan

Huaxi Jie, Taipei, Taiwan

After filling up on Rooster Testicles and Deer Penis Wine, we had to hit the main attraction on Snake Alley, and down some shots of snake bile.

The restaurant hosts a twice-hourly public snake feeding. They feed a mouse to a big boa and announce the spectacle on megaphones. A crowd of families form in front of a glass cage, but no photos are allowed. (I sneaked one here):



A group of tough looking dudes take a mouse and whack its head on the floor to stun it half unconscious, then they throw it in for a big hungry snake. The snake (how lazy, he needs the dudes to feed him a whacked mouse) takes the mouse and wraps itself around it to squeeze it to death. Kids oooh and ahhh as they watch death taking place in front of their eyes. After 5 minutes of intense squeezing, the snake gobbles up the little white rat and swallows it down.

All of this is done to attract customers in, to eat the snakes, to really get that feeling you're at the top of the food chain. That's what we did.



We ordered the deluxe set -- a bowl of snake soup, snake oil pills, and shots of liquor with snake bile, snake blood, snake sperm, snake venom, and snake urine.

Why would one drink this stuff? According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), these fluids benefit you in many ways, each one a unique cure or booster. Of course, they claim to have aphrodisiac qualities as well. Some of it's good for your liver, some curbs cancer, some are good for your sense of humor. We just drank them to look macho and get drunk.

The shots all tasted like liquor and medicine, that nasty sweetness. Soon after, we discovered a snake in our pants. Ouch!

They also have these snake pills for sale...



If you're visiting Taipei, tell your taxi driver Huaxi Jie, and get ready for some shots of snake semen, yum!

Snake Soup

The recent earthquake in Taiwan has made the internet slow and logging into blogger difficult from Asia, so we apologize for the delay in updates...



I was in Hong Kong recently, to visit my friend PaPeRo. PaPeRo is a robot made by NEC. I was asked to perform (as a DJ) at NEC's booth at the ITU, a massive technology expo. My little friend PaPeRo does cool stuff like talk in 7 languages, dance, use GPS to track down where my friends and fans are, does internet searches for me, and if you tickle him a bit too much, he farts (although he's polite and calls it "break wind"). He's also kind of a flirt, we found him chatting up all the models at the expo, getting phone numbers and posing for pics with the cute ones.

One day, PaPeRo scored a dinner date with a girl who suggested they go for snake soup. One of PaPeRo's features is that he can detect human emotion. He could tell I was a bit jealous. After teasing me a bit, he invited me to tag along, so I could check out the snake soup for WeirdMeat. Another of Papero's features is that he can taste food for you, so he's a perfect companion for weird meat explorations.



We went to a little cafe in Causeway Bay, you know the typical Hong Kong ones with white tile floors, steamy windows, and elderly waiters that have more wit and energy than I could ever dream of. In the window at this place, there are several large glass jars with snakes in them, including one fearsome looking king cobra.

We ordered a bowl of the house standard snake soup. Everyone was having this. According to the waiter there are 5 different snakes in it -- I mean, 5 kinds of snake. Including the king cobra. The soup was yummy, with a comforting, mildly savory broth, and plenty of snake meat. Snake meat is similar to eel, but more delicate and white like fish. It's supposed to be good for you, especially in winter, and like everything in Chinese medicine, an aphrodisiac.

PaPeRo just giggles when I ask him how the rest of the night went.



We didn't make it to Kowloon's Snake Street this time, but there's a good article about that here. We'll have to do pics there next time.

BTW, is my PaPeRo robot friend a communist?

Snake Bites Back

Sorry for the delay since last post, trust us we've got some fun stuff coming up soon -- we ate bird vomit, and finally we've solved the mystery of the "winter worm, summer plant" -- but here's a quick bite, er, link to an article about Shanghai's hospitals warning residents to watch out for snake bites. These snakes are intended to be eaten by humans, but sometimes they bite first!

Thanks to Shanghaiist for providing the tip.