Food Porn Fetish: Eating A Whole Cobra

There was only one reason I agreed to go to Vietnam — to eat a cobra’s still-beating heart.  I’ve had snake meat in Beijing, the blood and bile in Taipei, but I could never find the fresh heart anywhere else.

Anthony Bourdain famously ate the still-beating cobra’s heart in his old show¹ and I thought, “Why the hell can’t I do that?”  This stunt gave him a following I probably never will.

It’s about a $15.00 cab ride to Le Mat Village (or Snake Village) from the Old Quarter², but remember to ask the driver to wait for you.  Le Mat is pretty secluded and there aren’t many cabs that pass through here.  It’s an isolated and quiet place, but the restaurants here all serve the same thing — cobra.

The restaurant we were brought to is called Huong Que.  Before the meal, you will be asked to choose your snake.  We picked a tiger cobra, which should be cheaper than a king cobra.  You can tell them for how many people so they can choose the appropriately-sized snake for you.  Here’s the key now — NEGOTIATE! They initially offered the snake for $80.00, which was just ridiculous.  We ended up threatening to leave before they agreed to $40.00.

The tiger cobra is killed right in-front of you, so this is probably where the PETA people should not be reading about.  They’ll do 6 things before showing you to your dinning table.  They’ll:

1. Slit the snake’s throat,
2. Drain the blood,
3. Take out the liver,
4. Squeeze out the bile,
5. Take the heart out, and
6. Forget to wash their hands.

They’ll serve you shot glasses of the blood mixed with some Vietnamese Vodka and another set of shot glasses for the bile.  The heart, while its still beating, with be mixed in one of the shots of bile then given to the guest of honor, which is usually the male of the group.  Don’t fret for the snake because the whole thing will be served to you in 10 different courses!  And you get a free dessert and some Vodka!

First course was Snake Meat Browned in Fat with Chili and Citronella.  This was just OK.  A bit citrus-y in flavor and snake meat is quite tough to chew.

Second course was Grilled Snake Meat Wrapped in Lanot³.  With the crappy English in the menu, I actually can’t tell you which dish is actually which.  In fact, this looks more fried than grilled (which it probably is).  Whatever leaf this is or however it was cooked, it was pretty good.  Again the tough part was the chewy snake meat.

Third course was Spring Rolls made with snake meat.  Now this was really good! Deep fried like your typical Vietnamese pork spring rolls with that sweet sauce it usually comes with, you probably couldn’t tell the difference if you didn’t know you were eating snake. A bit of a relief from the chewy meat, too!

Fourth and fifth courses were a Minced Snake Meat with Crispy⁴ Wrap and a Grilled Snake Meat with Lemon Grass.  I didn’t like the minced meat so much.  Too grainy and the wrap was too tough.  The grilled snake was nice and came with a salt and pepper with oil as a condiment.

The sixth dish was one of the favorite dishes of everyone — Deep-fried Snake Skin.  Came off as your snake version of chicharon and it was crispy, crunchy, and oily good!

Next was a Fried Rice dish that made me think “What does this have to do with the snake?”  It was your basic fried rice with fried onion and garlic shavings.  I really liked this dish because they used really good quality rice.  It was also really fragrant in terms of flavor.  I later learned that the snake part comes in because the broth used to boil the rice was from snake fat.  This was a dish in itself.

The Snake Soup was also nice, although it was just like your typical chicken soup with the chewy snake meat.  Soup was ginger-heavy in its taste, but like I said, it’s just like your boiled chicken soup from home!

The next two dishes I couldn’t really tell apart from the menu.   They were supposed to be Coated Snake with Flour and a Snake Omelette.  Nothing special, just snake meat (one had the liver I think) fried in batter and eggs.

Last snake dish was the Snake Porridge.  Now, I’ve never been a fan of porridge ⁵ but this was really really good!  Between this hot dish and the different Vodka shots I had to take in between meals, I never had to worry about feeling cold for the rest of the day.  I still don’t like porridge, but I’ll have 2 more bowls of this please.

Final surprise was dessert.  Wasn’t included in the menu. But no matter how cheap any item is, anything “free” is always appreciated.  Just your simple Pomelo, which was really sweet (in a good way).

For $40.00, this was probably one of the more satisfying meals of my life.  I’m quite used to tasting these kind of dishes so the thrill isn’t as exciting as it used to be.  Still, it’s not everyday that you can cross off one item in your bucket list.

When I first told people I was starting a food blog, people were rightfully skeptical.  I am a 100-pound weakling, who can’t eat more than 3 cups of rice.  Doesn’t look credible, right?  But what I can do is I’ll try anything.  So next time, I’m hoping when everyone hears “Food Porn Junkies,” you can think back and say, “Oh, that good looking guy who ate the still-beating cobra’s heart!”

Take that Tony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern!