When visiting family in Korea, I went to a restaurant with my great uncle. He kept joking around about trying 'Boshintang', which translates roughly to vitality soup. The main protein is dog. In South Korea, the consumption of dogs has been illegal for a while, I believe there was a push back in the 80's to criminalize the act to appear more palatable/civilized to the international community during the '88 Seoul Olympics.
Being a very high rank in the military, he had some connections and apparently knew of some back alley restaurants that served 'Boshintang'. As we parked and began walking toward the restaurant, we hear many dogs barking from a kennel which appeared to be located on the rooftop patio of the restaurant. My dad and I nope'd the hell out of there really quick.
At the next restaurant (without dog cages), I thought the plate full of meat was pork belly, turns out it was fermented skate fish. It looks like a stingray and has the unique trait of excreting ammonia from its pores. Traditional Korean preparation for skate is to let it ferment at room temp, and then eat it. The ammonia from the skin was so powerful that my entire face went numb, as if just coming back from a bad root canal. The most foul and visceral eating experience I've had.
As for game meat, I was lucky to try my roommate's grandmother's Moose stew. Apparently her signature meal, the moose was caught in Newfoundland and I honestly thought I was eating beef. It was excellent.
Some other uncommon meats i've tried:
- jellyfish (Chinese wedding, they cut it into long strips, I thought I was eating some glass noodles)
- shark fin soup (chinese wedding lol)
- horse
- live sea worm
- live octopus
- every type of fresh sashimi from the famous Tokyo fish market at the popular Sushi Dai
As someone who doesn't have family or friends who hunt, I've not been fortunate enough to try more local game meats. On the bucket list.
