Sssssssnake for Dinner

One of the true Vietnamese meals is snake. It's quite the ceremony and I'm not sure that I was fully prepared for the whole ordeal. Actually that's a lie it wasn't as bad as I thought that it would be.

The meal starts off with them bringing out the live snake for weighing, just so you see how big of a snake you were about to eat. And as you can see by the pictures they also play with it for a while so that you can get a real good look at the snakes!!

After the photo shoot with the snake it's time to get down to business..for those of you that are a little squeamish you may not want to read on (Em...Just don't' read Period!) They slit the snake open to get the blood out, the blood is mixed with the ever potent rice Vodka. And yes we shoot this vodka!!

The meal was a lot better than I thought that it would be. They make about 4 dishes with snake in it. We ordered a few non snake so that we wouldn't get too overwhelmed by snake.

There is one that all you men have to keep in mind when going for snake, make sure that you are not the oldest man their. It's the Vietnamese custom that the oldest man shoots the beating snake heart in the blood vodka. So my neighbour Mark was the unfortunate eldest and so he had to shoot the heart!! You also have the option to shoot the bile as well, but it's really foul I guess, so none of us decided to give it a try.

Enjoy the pictures from the night!