So I read in the lonely planet Vietnam cuisine book that at some restaurants you can drink cobra blood and eat the still-beating heart. Consuming cobra is supposed to increase male virility. I’m not here to eat spring rolls (not that good so far), I’m here for some crazy ass shit.
One area in Hanoi is known for its cobra restaurants, so we taxied on out. Our friend/guide found a decent looking establishment. We entered. On one side of the patio was a large cage with lots of sickly-looking poisonous snakes. Inside the main room were glass vessels of all shapes and sizes filled with snakes and liquor (see photo). After the initial ooohs and aaaahs and picture taking, we chose a snake from the cage. With it’s head in a death grip that probably broke the snakes neck, the proprietor let us touch the skin. It was just snake skin. He handed the snake over to two assistants/snakehandlers/cooks/family members and they proceeded to slit it open near its head (see photo), drain the blood into a vessel, remove the heart and remove the gall bladder. The heart was placed in a shot glass for later consumption and the gall bladder was placed in a larger vessel, then mixed with alcohol making a bright green bile flavor liquor. The blood was also mixed with alcohol making a bright red liquor.
We were taken upstairs to a 3rd floor patio that overlooked the surrounding neighborhood. We took a round of shots of the fresh cobra blood mixture. I was the oldest, so had the pleasure of shooting the bile-soaked still-beating heart. If you didn’t know that it was snake blood, bile, and heart, it’s really just like taking shots. For the weak, you could chase it with cucumber and flat bread. The rest of the snake is cooked in 4 different ways–the meat is stir-fried with some veggies, the bones are crunched up and fried into egg rolls, one unidentifiable part is mashed up and formed into small fried patties, and the skin is rolled up, battered and fried into little snake skin poppers. It all tastes pretty good, if you can get over the fact that you’re eating a cobra that was killed only 20 minutes before.
After the meal, the proprietor brought out 3 more snake-based liquors: one with caramelized snake broth and tree fungus, one with snake heads and one with medicinal root and snake reproductive organs. He basically had us doing rounds of snake liqour and by the end of the meal, we all felt pretty damn strong, probably because we were pretty damn faded. I think the “male virility” aspect of meal is a lie, but either way is was a great experience.
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Vessels. Our Vietnamese friend, Bing, checks out the many vessels of preserved snake and snake alcohol. The best vessel had a cobra with a large scorpion in its mouth.
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Death. The snake is drained.
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Cheers. Shooting the snake blood.
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Snake head liqour.
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The food. Who knew that snake could be prepared so many different ways?
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The Proprietor. He got trashed and started smoking two cigarettes and eating leaves off of a bush to demonstrate how he overcomes poisonous snake bites.
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The Scene. Vietnam is beautiful.
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Just odd. We walked into a “drug store” or “clinic,” I’m not sure what it was. There were 3 girls quietly sitting with their feet up out of the water. They weren’t doing anything, just sitting and waiting. To top things off, the computer was on and working.
