I’ve tried phaal a few times – truly, a matter of sitting there while the tears run copiously down one’s face. I do like hot curries; but put phaal in the category of “glad to have done it for the experience – not likely to do it again”.
That Italian spices are part of the original recipe. The curry powder is how I would do it if I were to do it again (which I probably will at some point).
Somebody around here was going on about Haggis-flavoured crisps a while back. I have to admit I’m still curious, and would very much like to be able to say I had tried them. One of those weird pride/curiousity traps where I don’t expect to enjoy them at all, but feel the need to have done so at least once before I can legitimately say “That’s digusting!.”
On a trip to London, I couldn’t wait to try haggis. Sure it sounded disgusting, but many of my favorite foods sound disgusting. And there are very few foods I’ve eaten and not liked. So I ordered it. In short, the taste was even more disgusting than I had imagined, but I forced myself to actually swallow one bite of it, and keep it down.
Later in the trip I encountered vegetarian haggis. I found it to be every bit as disgusting as the real thing. How in hell did they make oatmeal taste like shit?
What amazes me is there are lots of people who prefer the taste of haggis to root beer.
My reaction to trying it “just once” was different to my reaction to having it around all the time. Like the difference between visiting a country and living there.
Durian is a sweet fruit with a strong but not overwhelming smell. If you associate the smell with the sweet fruit, it’s just part of the charm, like a smelly cheese.
On the other hand, if you associate the sweet fruit with the smell, it’s a tiresome and unredeamable waste of space, like a smelly cheese.
I enjoyed it the first time. The second time not so much. The third and subsequent times…
London. The centre of the haggis universe.
Have been looking through the Lonely Planet guide to the Philippines – place that interests me, though for various reasons, going there is not on the cards. The country is described as “a good place for culinary daredevils”. The piece goes on to tell of a number of very weird-sounding Philippine food experiences. Some of same, I can envisage trying just in case the thing might prove a delight. There is one in the list, though – “balut, a boiled duck egg containing an embryo that sometimes already has down or feathers”. That – for me, no: never in a million years.
I see you’re not interested, but you can find it in the US, too, if there’s a decent Filipino community nearby. I know I’ve seen it in Phoenix (just in a random ethnic grocery store), and you can apparently find it in Chicago, although I haven’t sought it out.
Only because London’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to the “centre of the haggis universe.”
Mercifully, I’m in the UK.
“Take me far over the sea,
Where the balut-pushers can’t get at me…”
I have lots of the ‘WTF is that…I have to try and see!’ moments, the most recent being pepino y chile paletas, which I love. (Cucumber and chili popsicle…awesomely refreshing!)
But my most surprising one was in Seattle, forever ago. I had only tried oysters in soup, and hated them, so slippery and disgusting. (Canned oyster soup, gross). And I knew I hated beer, after a decade of trying every flavor and type I could get hold of. Just don’t like beer; maybe it’s the hops, who knows.
So when I was in Seattle at the Market and there was an oyster bar of sorts, a smallish set up, selling oyster shots, I thought ‘omg gross’. Then my brain did some rapid calculations and decided that two ounces of beer in a little shot glass with an oyster and some lemon and hot sauce might be good…and it was. 
Really liked it. Chewed the oyster up proper; tastes much better like that than as a gooey gross mass slithering down one’s throat, yuck.