Inspired by my recent Thai cooking class, I stopped by the local Asian food mart in search of galangal, shrimp paste and fish sauce for green curry sauce. As I stood in line to pay I spotted a big bin of freeze dried durian. Normally I only make last minute impulse purchases when chocolate is involved, but having recently seen and read so much about the much-maligned fruit, I quickly grabbed a bag and added it to my basket.

Ok, so while I was excited to tear into the package, it wasn’t in the same way that I might anticipate a creamy chocolate bar or moist cake snack. Instead, I was eager to taste this indescribable king of fruits. What does it taste like? Indeed, it is indescribable. The best I can do is to say that, the freeze dried version anway, tastes like very strong, stale Japanese rice cracker snack mix with a fishy, salty aftertaste.

After doing some research, it seems that the gasses the fruit emits is likely to contribute to the intense flavor. Since there’s no gas in the freeze dried form, I’m guessing it’s much milder than taking a bite out of the fresh, chewy flesh.

I ate one piece and stored the rest away in a sealed bag–if anyone has a hankering, let me know. I don’t intend to finish the bag!

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This happens every time I go to the farmer’s market-I don’t eat beforehand and end up crazily hungry and overwhelmed by all the food options. And then I eat too much.

I started off with the soft shell crab sandwich from the Hayes Street Grill stand. The perfectly grilled bread really made this sandwich exquisite–that and small smear of mayo.

And because I’m sucker for spiced, cured pork I picked up the sampler cone from Boccalone. While I love the capacolla and soppressata, I’ve never acquired a taste for guanciale-salt-cured pork jowl.

To finish it off there was an ‘old fashioned’ (chocolate cake with boiled icing) cupcake from Miette.

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I’ll be at BlogHer on Friday and Saturday. If you’re attending say hi or send me a note via twitter: offbeat_eating.

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Did a little snacking and shopping at the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market this morning and came back with both food and honey, as well as a poem about honey.

Had chocolate bomboloni from Boriana. I love chocolate, but I think this would have been better with no filling. The dough, fried and coated in sugar, is tasty, but a little dense. There was just something off about the combination of both the very sweet chocolate and heavy bread.

More on the honey…

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Getting settled in SF. Updates to resume shortly.

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