Exotic food

Street food is serious business in Guinea. Upcountry, even in relatively large towns, it can be difficult to find something that can legitimately be described as a restaurant. Instead, grilled meats, called brochettes, and rice with sauce are everywhere. Brochettes comes in "town meat" and “"bush meat" variates - just make sure the bush meat isn't monkey. The sauce poured over the rice is either made from banana or cassava leaves, while a third option is "soup" - a thin meat broth. Both sauces and soups are spiced up with a healthy dose of chilli. In Fouta Djallon millet forms a welcome alternative to rice, but the east has the widest range of options. Potato salads, meatballs, fermented milk, and rice porridge are just some of the dishes on offer here. Usually sold by women carrying large plastic tubs. If desperate for "real" food, track down the classiest hotel in town, whose restaurant can usually rustle up some chicken or beef with fries.

If there is any country that justifies a clear distinction between delicacies and specialties, Iceland is it. Iceland has some incredible food – particularly fish (salmon, cod, Atlantic charr), seafood (it doesn’t get much better than langustines cooked in butter, garlic and parsley) and lamb. There are a few dishes that, while not exactly exotic, are not as common elsewhere: horse, for example. Reindeer is both healthy and very tasty. Then it gets a bit odder. How about a taste of puffin, seal or whale? Still, these are actually quite tasty, and for the most part they look and smell like normal food. And there is skyr, of course – a delicious yoghurt-like dairy product best eaten with fresh berries or in a skyrcake (similar to a cheesecake): you might struggle to find a single Icelandic dessert that does not contain skyr. Enter the true specialties – and be warned: these are not for the faint hearted, or those with an acute sense of smell. How about slátur (think Iceland’s answer to haggis), svið (singed sheep’s head, including the eyes, sawn in two), súrsaðir hrútspungar (pickled rams’ testicles in sour milk) or, for something really special, kæstur hákarl: Greenland shark, left to rot underground for six months. Better drink plenty of brennivín with that – with luck you won’t remember any of it tomorrow!

Bali isn’t all about temples and beaches, it could stun your taste buds too. Luwak coffee is a rich, smooth coffee with an earthy, unique undertone and what an undertone it is... the secret? The Asian Palm civet. It spends its nights consuming the finest and ripest coffee berries while local farmers spend their mornings eagerly collecting the beans from their droppings and top grade coffee results. Yes, you'll be drinking from coffee beans defecated by another mammal. But produced in the villages of Bali, Luwak coffee is the most expensive and rare coffee in the world and also quite literally, consuming it may be a one of a kind way to take this compelling island home with you. Almost all farms produce other types of coffee and tea including the distinctive Bali and Ginseng coffee in addition to Ginger and Lemongrass teas. This may be reason enough to visit a coffee plantation, but the little huts with scenic views and the free coffee tastings that almost all farms boast adds to the experience.

The Lao people eat pretty much anything, so why not giant water bugs? The Latin name for these insects is Belostomatidae and they can reach up to a monster size of 9 cm. The locals love them and you can probably get used to the gooey bits that explode in your mouth when chewing them.

If you don't know what to do with an otherwise uneatable part of an animal, serve it with beer. In the Baltic region, the number one beer snack is pig ear. Just skin and cartilage - pickled, sliced and served with strong mustard. And it's actually not too bad.

If you like monkeys, this might not be for you... but one of the main meat sources for indigenous groups throughout Sarawak is monkey. There are many different species (nine, to be more precise) to choose from for a traditional jungle meal, but it really depends on what the hunters catch. They can prepare it in many ways, and each way tastes unique - yes, even delicious. If in a small village, keep in mind that dinner is whatever the hunters catch, and in Borneo there are a lot of options of things to hunt!

Take a shark filet, put some batter around it, deep fry it and put it in fried bread (the bake). Then go to a self-service salad bar with lots of vegetables, sauces and other condiments and you end up with a delicious sandwich that is too big to eat and you spend a few minutes wondering how to get started.
People come to Maracas Bay especially to eat a Bake 'n' Shark, and there are several stands selling them. Richard is the self-acclaimed original and first stand and definitely the most popular one. If you don't want to eat shark, you could go for the alternative option: Bake 'n' Kingfish or, for vegetarians, Bake 'n' Veggie, but that is kind of missing the point. Afterwards, you can digest on the large pretty beach of Maracas Bay.

Mutton (sheep) is the meat of choice throughout Central Asia. At the butchers you will see all parts of the animal; head, legs, fat, intestines... and, yes, the testicles. They are sliced and served as shashlyk (kebab spear) like any other meat. And how do they taste? Well, you better try yourself.

The law of the jungle is "kill or be killed". It seems that around any given tree or rock is something or another that could end your life. The criss-crossing waterways of the Orinoco Delta are no different. So there's nothing better to do than fight back. One of the cooler experiences you can have in the Delta is a bit of fishing. This is not for some tame little trout or bass... but for piranha. Various species infest the waters just waiting for some unsuspecting victim to dip into their domain. Knowledgable guides know just where to look, and it doesn't take long before an even inexperienced fisherman manages to catch a few. And, as it turns out, piranha are actually darn fine eating!

Dog meat is a delicacy in Vietnam and something you eat while sharing a bottle of rice wine with good friends. It is found in specialised roadside restaurants advertising thit cho (in North Vietnam) or thit cay (in South Vietnam). The taste of dog meat is, as you would expect, not particularly unusual, but the purple fermented sauce, mam tom, that it is served with, has the most disgusting smell. So all those dogs you see in cages on motorcycles are probably not on their way to a good home.