# Deep end dining

Category: Grub Garage

## Post 1 by TexasRed (I'll have the last word, thank you!) on Thursday, 20-Apr-2006 11:29:19

Deep End Dining
daring. different. delicious.©
There’s high end dining. There’s low end dining. And then there’s everything
else in between. We’d like to introduce you to another level - Deep End
Dining.
We are diners dedicated to seeking and devouring the food uncommon, the
cuisine exotic and the entrees less ordered. Have an open appetite and get
ready
to take the plunge into the Deep End.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
There Are Others. The 7th Annual Weird Food Fest. Van Nuys, CA.
pig_face400 Vis-à-vis with dinner. Literally.
Back in the very lean ramen days of college, one of the most anticipated
weeks in the new school term was the “Hello Lunch” week. This was the
blessed week
when free food was bountiful and flowing like the famous Thanksgiving
cornucopia with its horn spilling forth fruit. Almost every club or
organization
with a semblance of a budget would at minimum offer a free cheese pizza
slice and a cup of caffeinated drink. The more lavish Hello Lunch spreads
rolled
out gherkin garnished meat and cheese platters where you could build a
custom sandwich, an exotic Greek salad (usually at Fraternity luncheons), a
box
of glazed donuts and Doritos. But, of course, as we all know well, there is
no such thing as a free Hello Lunch. No way. You will pay. And the price is
steep. Even before you get to cozy up to your plate of free calories, you’ll
be accosted by one of the lunch’s hosts who will be your uninvited meal
companion
and very own club membership marketing assault machine.
The club’s objective at the Hello Lunch is to recruit and recoup; that is,
to recruit lots of new members and to recoup the Hello Lunch expenses with
new
membership fees.
My objective was, however, exactly opposite: to eat, leave and not join. The
old “dine and dash” routine without the law breaking. After all, there’s no
contract between the club and the eater that states if the eater ingests any
of the chow, then the eater must join the club. Don’t underestimate the
Hello
Lunch though. Its organizers are prepared for the likes of me. Whenever I
went into a Hello Lunch I’d be greeted by many of the current members who,
with
fanged grins, encouraged me to partake in their bounty. At the same time
they are assigning themselves a target to recruit. It’s a classic parasite
and
host relationship: They feed you and you help them to survive.
Now, a little strategy.
One way to discourage Hello Lunch harassment is to simply chew with your
mouth open and speak with your mouth full. This technique works 90 per cent
of
the time. For the other ten percent I quote Groucho Marx who famously said
“I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.” I say
this as clearly as possible with my mouth full. I then get up from my seat,
grab a slice of pizza to go and look for the next free lunch to say “hello”
to.
Since those years, I’ve not been interested in any clubs other than the kind
that makes me wait in a long line out in the freezing cold while a clipboard
wielding jerk clad in the latest D&G handpicks those worthy to enter. Oddly,
I want in on a club that probably doesn’t want me.
But then there’s this other group. It’s a sort of kinky culinary collective
who call themselves the “Weird Food Fest.” Once a year, a relatively
intimate
group of about seven get together to eat. Their gathering may be small but
their passion for food is big. To be specific, this group is really into
food
that is exotic, weird, uncommon, an acquired taste, extremely foreign or
highly indigenous. Whatever label you want to place on it, it’s food that
you
won’t soon forget.
Can_of_Silkworm_Pupae400 On the buffet, silkworm pupae...
laver_bread400 ...laver bread...
sliced_thousand_year_old_d4 ...thousand year-old egg...
fermented_papaya400 ...fermented papaya.
Scott Levi Ahlberg, one of the principals of this gathering, explains, “We
loosely define weird food as anything that the typical American would likely
find odd or disgusting, but that someone somewhere on this planet would eat
and consider normal. So of course it's subjective. Personally I think some
of the processed food found at the average supermarket is pretty weird and
disgusting but that's just my subjective bias.”
Again, this gathering may be small but its ambitions are not; to wit this
annual get-together calls itself the “Weird Food Fest”. A true festival it
is
far from but the bones are there. This accidental freaky feast began in
December 1999 at the house of one of Ahlberg’s friends. The first ever Weird
Food
Fest was a humble affair which had its participants sample ketchup flavored
chips, Limburger cheese and Indian pickled mango.
If you attended the most recent 7th Annual Weird Food Fest, you would’ve
found yourself at a typical San Fernando Valley condominium in one of the
many
impersonal, stuccoed citadels on the Valley floor. There is perhaps nothing
less exotic. But inside this non-descript domicile you may be transported by
your palate to distant locales like Wales, Seoul, Stockholm, Shanghai and
even Yerevan, Armenia - as delectably far from Van Nuys as possible.
The Breakfast Club this isn’t. Here you’d avail your appetite to foods such
as fermented papaya, surströmming, silkworm pupae, lamb’s testicles, pork
bung
and many others. Some of the choices are more daunting than delicious. All
of them are not typical of your standard American potluck. Oh yeah, I forgot
to mention, this event is a potluck. Everyone is expected to bring edible
exotica. That’s what makes this gathering unpredictable and fun, maybe
frightening.
If you’ll indulge me, it also reveals each participants degree of Deep End
Dining. For example, the attorney might bring shark’s fin soup. The soccer
coach
dishes up pig’s trotters. The grad student offers durian ice-cream for
dessert. There is no pre-fixed anything here. Just show up, bring something
interesting
and taste everything.
What’s this?
Beef pizzle.
Fo’ shizzle?
Yep. Take a bite.
Mm-mmm, what exactly is pizzle?
Bull penis. My bad.
almost_seven_dollars_worth4 Beef pizzle aka bull penis.
Relax. It’s not going to kill you. Nothing at the Weird Food Fest will kill
you. And, as everyone knows, what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.
Especially
if you eat lamb’s testicles. Make you strong. Make you love long time.
Lamb_testicles400 Lots of heart.
There’s nothing deadly at the Fest only because nobody has introduced live
octopus or fugu to this funky bunch yet. But I have a feeling that it’s only
a matter of time before somebody does. Maybe I will.
GQ’s restaurant critic Alan Richman has been trying desperately to find a
place that serves assholes. The “Weird Food Fest” might be just what he’s
looking
for. And I mean that in a good way. Even a delicious way.
pig_bung400 "Do you serve assholes here?" Pork bung.
It looks like I may have actually found the perfect group for me. They’re
local. They’re interesting people. They enjoy exploring the edge of the
gastronomic
world. Now if only they’d refuse to have me as a member, I may just find
them irresistible.

## Post 2 by wahaha (Zone BBS Addict) on Friday, 28-Apr-2006 12:41:22

is this an event you put on? Haha, many of those things listed are just normal Asian foods an not very unusual to me (and also very tasty. Most of the other stuff is offal and while it's not widely eaten in the US, the advent of celebrity chefs the past few years and their pushing this stuff is enabling it to be found more commonly on menus, which is great because when cooked right it can be very delicious and a lot cheaper than traditional cuts.

## Post 3 by Ukulele<3 (Try me... You know you want to.) on Friday, 28-Apr-2006 18:40:57

Oh wow, TR! hehehehehe I think this deep end dining is going a bit too deep for me. Although some of the foods that were mentioned does sound familiar, I can't picture myself wanting to eat it. If I were to try something exhautic without knowing it, I might be ok with it. But I'd rather not put myself in that situation. lol I wonder if they serve dog meat there. My dad went to China last year and they gave him dog meat to eat and said it was good for the health. After eating a bit of it, he couldn't stop throwing up for a very long time. However, my father does enjoy eating bull's penis. *shutters*