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.
_____________________
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.
_______________________
Death. The snake is drained.
_________________________
Cheers. Shooting the snake blood.
___________________________
Snake head liqour.
_______________________
The food. Who knew that snake could be prepared so many different ways?
___________________________
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.
______________________
The Scene. Vietnam is beautiful.
__________________________
shots of cobra blood???
you my friend are freakin crazy
ps. i hate snakes
[...] rice, picked stuff and soup. Mmmmmmmm! I love food adventures…this kinda reminds me ‘eating a still-beating cobra heart.’ Show [...]
Now I like to think of myself as pretty darn adventurous when it comes to food, but I don’t know about fresh snake blood. Especially from sick-looking snakes. What if you catch their disease?
Why do you think it’s important to eat some ‘crazy ass shit’ ? Why not eat your own?
this is so discusting, get a life people, eat some good shit, or eat ur own shit….. peace of crap, shame on ur guys
@evan, @jeet: thanks for the insightful comments!
Hi Greg,I’m actually in Hanoi now and was googling this when your blog popped up. I’ll be headed into snake town for this in just a few more hours; pretty excited and was glad to find an actual rundown of the process instead of just another post rambling on about how novel the whole thing is. Stay black my friend.
@jeff – Thanks Jeff, good luck with it. Even thought it’s a sort of “crazy shit I ate” story, I appreciate the fact that we ate almost every part of the snake. Barely anything went to waste.
Hi, nice litte blog…I’m going to be in Hanoi in a couple of weeks and wante to try cobra.
Can you remember the name of this place?
Or does anyone else have a good recomendation?
Cheers.
@Oli: if you’re in Hanoi, ask for Snake Village (Lang Ran in Vietnamese). If you also go to the Mekong delta, you can easily find it anywhere.
@Greg: not sure what was up with you guys. I felt like slurping down 3 doses of Viagra after my buddy and I consumed the whole slimy thingy that day…
@Others: drop those fucking political correctness and open up your fucking messed up brains. Eating a cobra ain’t different from gulping down those cheese burgers. Where does beef come from, hypocrites? Your chicken breast subway grows on trees?
Hi live_cobra_eater,
looks like you silenced the critics!
I will be in Hanoi around the end of May this year. I want to try the whole snake eating thing, but probably don’t have the stomach for it.
Any tips to break down the thought-process barrier of how to consume a still-beating heart?
My mate told me it is just like swallowing a pill. That eased my mind a little.
Is “Snake Village” the actual restaurant name or area name…eg like Chinatown
Cheers,
Big Al
@Big Al
Here’s a bunch of info about “snake village” aka Le Mat: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=hanoi+snake+village
In terms of eating it, it’s about the size of a grape, and they serve it in an alcohol made from the snake’s bile. I just did it like a shot of alcohol. If you’re hardcore, I suppose you could chew, or let it sit in your mouth and feel it beat.