further culinary adventures

Here in Davao, it is pretty much mandatory that visitors try durian fruit. It's kind of a hazing ceremony.

What is durian?

Any spike-covered object that can only be opened with a machete was probably never meant to be eaten. 

Durian is a fruit rather infamous for its smell - said to be so powerful that people will refuse to allow it in their homes, places of business, airplanes, etc.  

It is also one of the least-appetizing fruits I've ever seen.  The smell is, honestly, not that bad - but texture-wise, it looks like a spiky bowl full of giant, yellow slugs.  Slugs with great big seeds inside.

Supposedly, durian "smells like hell, tastes like heaven."  In my experience, however, durian smells faintly unpleasant, has a distinctly unpleasant texture, and a taste...

how to describe the taste?  It really is unique.  i have never tasted anything like it in my life.  I asked my durian-eating companion, Rod, who was kind enough to eat 90% of the fruit, how he would describe it, and he paused and said, "like milk?"  And yes, it does taste a bit, just a little bit, like milk.  Sour milk.  With the texture of a slug.  And if a sour-milk-flavored, slug-textured fruit sounds absolutely terrible, well,

It is. Absolutely terrible. No two ways around it.  Sorry, Davao, but I gotta keep it real.