If you are an
adventurous eater and want to invoke the spirit of Andrew Zimmern, one
destination that should be considered is Le Mat Village. Le Mat village is called the Snake Village
and is about 30 minutes outside of Hanoi’s Old Quarter in Vietnam. Here you can find many restaurants that
specialize in the preparation of snake for your eating pleasure.
When we sat down, a
guy came out with a live snake and proceeded to slice it open right next to our
table within a minute of us getting there.
The snake handler
first slits it and then drains some blood into a pitcher of rice wine and then
after that is done, he cuts out the heart while it is still beating and places
it in a plate to be put into a shot later on.
The snake then is ready
to go back into the kitchen. Some places
cut open the gall bladder and put snake bile into the rice wine as well,
unfortunately (maybe fortunately) our restaurant did not do this. Something to take note of, we were told that
eating snake increases guys’ “sexy power.”
This was how our
snake was prepared:
 |
| You could be fooled, it looks like a strawberry drink |
Rice wine infused with snake blood – the rice wine is relatively
strong, probably at least 60 proof. You
don’t really taste the blood in the rice wine.
However, if you let the blood rice wine sit at your table for a bit you
can see the blood start to coagulate, which led me to want to take them quicker
so as not to get too sketched out about doing them.
Snake’s beating heart inside one of the shots – I wanted to do
this, but I allowed my older brother to take it. He said you don’t taste the heart when it is
in the shot, but you feel it beating as it goes down.
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| From L to R: fried snake skin, grilled snake, deep fried snake spring rolls, snake meat in la lot |
Fried snake skin – nothing special really, it was fried but it was still a little chewy
Grilled snake – I wasn’t a big fan of this. All of the dishes had bones in them (a lot of bones) and eating this was a chore. Snake definitely has a distinct taste, most similar thing I have eaten previously was frog. The texture is closer to chicken than beef if you haven’t tried frog before.
Deep fried snake spring rolls – These were pretty tasty, but small
for a deep fried spring roll. The snake
was pretty mild tasting here.
Snake meat with lemon grass and chili wrapped in la lot (betel leaf)
– This was probably my favorite dish. If
you have ever been to a Vietnamese restaurant and ordered Bo 7 Mon (7 courses
of beef) then you would recognize this dish.
This dish, the snake spring rolls, and fried snake skin were did not
have bones in them.
Pan fried bones with rice crackers – the thought of this one was
not terribly appealing. To eat this you
spoon some fried bones onto a rice cracker then put on some nuoc mam cham
(dipping sauce that you often get when you eat spring rolls).
Rice porridge with snake – This was just like any other rice
porridge but with small bits of snake
A couple tips if you
are to go to Le Mat:
- Negotiate the price before you sit down to eat
- Ask them if you can watch them cook the snake (to make sure it is the one they originally brought out).
- If it looks good, eat it (and even if it doesn’t, try it)
Lastly, thanks Linda
for letting me be a guest blogger on My Hungry Monster.
Post by Kha Hoang. Photos by Kha Hoang and Benjamin White.
