Forrest Brown

One of the great things about Taiwan is the food. No, I didn’t eat the stinky tofu and no, I didn’t eat chicken feet, but pretty much everything else is pretty amazing.

Taiwanese Food

A interesting Taiwanese snack that I had never seen before was this ice-cream burrito…actually since this is Asia, I guess maybe it’s more of an ice-cream egg-role.

Taiwanese Ice-Cream Burrito

The ice-cream burrito/egg-role thing was being sold at a little roadside food stand and was made from peanuts that were shaved off of a huge brick of peanut brittle using a woodworking plane. The peanuts and a couple of scoops of ice-cream were then wrapped in a thin papery skin.

Yummy!

You could also have cilantro added to the burrito/egg-role thing, but that just seemed a bit too weird for me and I stuck to one without the salad.

I'm not so sure about cilantro and ice-cream together

How can something that smells so bad taste good?

Taiwanese Sticky Tofu

Aurora Expeditions, the travel company that organized and managed this voyage is Australian, so most of the passengers and many of the things on the ship were Australian. One famous (or possibly infamous) Australian food that made the voyage with us was Vegemite, which is yeast extract produced as a by-product of beer manufacturing. Vegemite is most commonly used as a spread on toast or crackers.

I’ve tried quite a few strange foods in other countries so I thought I should give the Vegemite a try. I scooped out a decent sized glob of the thing dark brown Vegemite and was getting ready to spread it on my toast when all the Australians at my table all started warning me that it was way too much and that all I needed was the thinnest of coating of Vegemite. I heeded the warning and gave my toast just the barest of coatings. The Vegemite had a strong, funky smell when you get close to it, so I was a bit nervous about taking a bite out of my toast. The first couple bites were not too bad, but then again, I could barely taste that Vegemite. The paper thin coating just wasn’t going to do if I wanted the full Vegemite experience. So I spread a bit more Vegemite on my toast. Now I could really taste it. It has a strange, salty, unpleasant taste that wasn’t doing anything for me. It wasn’t spit it out of my mouth horrible, and I finished my slice of toast, but it also wasn’t something I really enjoyed. Maybe as some point, I will give it a second chance.

Vegemite and Toast

In the evening there was a final recap and drinks in the bar where people told stories of some of the things that had impressed them on the voyage. Gag awards were also given out by the Aurora Expeditions staff and the Captain. I received the “Alien Antennae Award: Best Reception”. People who’ve been skiing or in cold weather with me will know why I received it, everyone else will just have to wonder.

The food on the Polar Pioneer maybe is not 5 star restaurant quality, but it has been good, with a nice variety from day to day. I have the feeling that I’m going to gain weight this trip.

There was a lot to pick from for breakfast. Usually there were eggs, bacon or sausages, toast, oatmeal

Cereal, yogurt, toast and juices.

Lunch could be soup, sandwiches or something along those lines. This is a Traditional Russian Borsh from the day we were served all Russian food. It was really good.

Dinner was a main dish and a couple of sides.

Green-beans as one of the side items.

Potatoes

And most importantly, dinner always was followed by dedsert.

County and State Fairs are known for livestock, farm equipment, carnival games, rides and booths selling ShamWows. They are also known for lots of booths selling interesting and sometimes strange foods.

I’ve survived eating raw horse and fugu in Japan, stinky tofu and a thousand-year-old egg in Taiwan, poutine in Canada. So now it’s time to try some of America’s strange fair foods.

I'm a believer that deep frying anything can make it taste better. And many of the food booths at the LA county fair seem to believe that also. Deep Fried Twinkie covered in chocolate syrup. Actually pretty good.

Chocolate Covered Bacon?

Yup, it really is chocolate covered bacon. Not as bad as it sounds, it has a strange salty, meaty taste under the initial chocolate taste. The salty chocolate taste is a bit like chocolate covered pretzels, but then you get the bacon taste that comes on strong as you chew. My biggest negative was that the chocolate used was dark chocolate and I'm a much bigger fan of milk chocolate.

The main course, a deep fried White Castle Hamburger.

The White Castle is battered and deep fried, which gives it a crispy outside over the standard mushy White Castle. Not something I would want to eat everyday, but not too bad.

One interesting thing about Japan are it’s Kit Kat candy bars. Everyone has probably eaten a Kit Kat and knows that they are creme filled wafers, covered in an layer of milk chocolate. But In Japan, Kit Kats come in a huge variety of flavors, everything for the regular chocolate to a crazy Wasabi flavor, some really good and some truly awful. What’s interesting is that different seasons and different regions of Japan have different flavors of Kit Kats that people collect as souvenirs of that region.

Once I saw that there were so many flavors of Kit Kats, I started watching out for new flavors to try whenever I was traveling.

Soy Sause Flavored Kit Kat

Soy sauce flavored Kit Kats sounds pretty strange and possibly awful, but they were actually pretty good. They had a sweet and salty flavor, kind of like chocolate covered pretzels.

Click here to see all of the different flavors of Kit Kats that I tried

A Yubari Melon is a Cantaloupe like melon that is grown in the town of Yubari in Hokkaido Japan. The crazy thing about the Yubari Melon is how much they sell for. Just one melon sells for $100 -$200 (yes, really), with two melons selling at auction in 2008 for $26,000 (yes, Japan is strange sometimes).

I’ve never had a Yubari Melon, so I can’t say if the price is worth it. But I’ve had Yubari Melon flavored Kit Kats.

The Kit Kats were interesting, they were milk chocolate and looked like a regular kit kat, but there was a faint cantaloupe smell to them. The taste was pretty much what you would expect if you crossed a cantaloupe with a Kit Kat. Unfortunately it’s a combo that doesn’t really work all that great together. The Cantaloupe flavor was not real strong, but it was noticeable.

Yubari Melon Flavored Kit Kat

Click here to see all of the different flavors of Kit Kats that I tried