Eating weird stuff

I've just seen Jeremy Clarkson on Best of Top Gear travelling across Japan and eating tiny crabs, whole, shell and all. And washing this all down with curry flavoured lemonade. And rather than thinking "yuk", I thought "I want to try that!". I've got to the stage where I love trying new foods but, thanks to (a) having a small child and (b) trying to save money prior to going on maternity leave, we aren't going out for dinner very often so I don't get to try new food as much as I'd like. When we did go out for a nice meal recently we tried smoked eel (at La Chouette near Aylesbury, lovely place with lots of character!)

The last new thing I ate was goose, which was delicious. I can't imagine why I've never had it before - probably opportunity rather than anything else. I had it at Hibiscus, a very swanky London restaurant where we had our company Christmas lunch. The whole meal was lovely, and it got better as each course arrived. I hate having a marvellous starter and then feeling underwhelmed for the rest of the meal. I had scallops to start (but the ones we had in Nova Scotia this summer, wrapped in bacon and BBQ'd, were better), then the goose, and then the christmas pudding, which was an amazing interpretation of a traditional christmas pud with what tasted like mince pie ice cream.

When our office was in Farringdon, a restaurant opened in nearby Exmouth Market called something like Eat, or Alive, or something along those lines. It was one of those novelty places that served dishes like cobra curry and ant mashed potato, and I really meant to go, but before I could get my act together it closed. Gutted. Looks like no-one else got their acts together either.

The only times I've eaten anything really unusual is when we've been on holiday. In Florida we had gator bites (alligator tastes like gristly chicken, not very impressed). In Kenya, we went to a restaurant in Nairobi called Carnivore (hint - if you're a vegetarian, don't bother going...). It's a Masai BBQ restaurant serving local delicacies including, I kid you not, giraffe, antelope, zebra and other things I'd never even heard of such as hartebeest. Like a wildebeest apparently, and DELICIOUS - like the best lamb ever. I feel kind of guilty for eating giraffe, I must admit, especially since Isabel's favourite soft toy is a giraffe called Gerald, but it sure was an experience.

Next aim is going to The Fat Duck - husband made valiant efforts to book a table but it's not an easy thing. We need a proper strategy in order to get in. And I refuse to go while pregnant - not letting anything prevent me from trying anything!