In honor of Halloween, I’d like to talk about one of the most hated mutant fruits: durian.

About a week ago, my mother and I stopped at Joy Yee noodle for bubble tea.  It was my mom’s first time in and she was stunned with the seemingly endless fruit possibilities.  Durian popped out to us after seeing Andrew Zimmern nearly pass out from it on the Travel Channel.  The workers were more than willing to give us a sample…

It wasn’t bad.  It did reak of armpit sweat, but it didn’t taste that much different than guacamole.  However, it’s the aftertaste that will kill you.  The very small spoonful of durian I ate sat with me for the rest of the day.  It reminded me of liver and onions aftertaste, but stronger.  Overall, I was grateful to try it but would never pay money for it.

“Whatever could this be?  I didn’t order anything.  And if I did I certainly wouldn’t have chosen FedEx delivery.”  So I opened it.  Inside were three cans mysteriously labeled #231, #493, and #509 and a letter from DEW Labs explaining their mission.  As it turns out, when I signed in to DEW Labs, they already named each flavor and voted on the color but I still played along.

#509-  The first thing that popped into my mind was Hawaiian punch, but a little fruitier.  Perhaps Fruit Stripe gum?  The color was pink bubblegum.  I liked this one a lot.  It reminded me of an old fruit punch soda my mom used to buy.

#231- This one tasted like a mixture of Sierra Mist and Green River.  Or just a really salty Sierra Mist.  I didn’t like it.  We have a ton of lime based soft drinks on the market and this was definitely not in the top 10.

#493- The first thing I thought of was lemonade, but not as sweet.  It had a nice citrus flavor, kind of like Squirt.  To me this was the fruitiest tasting of the three and didn’t really have that Mountain Dew kick to it.

Out of the three flavors, I found #509 the most refreshing and unique.  #231 fell into the same category as Livewire where it’s just a pale imitation of other products in the market.  I’m not really sure if I enjoyed #493 or not.  It didn’t make much of an impression.  If all three of these do make it to supermarket shelves, I’d be willing to try all three again, but I still think I’d go with #509.  Thank you Mountain Dew for giving me my first taste testing experience!

Below are the official flavor descriptors as voted by DEW Labs’ members and the winning colors as voted by on Facebook:

#231 – Lime Blasted DEW (Deep Green)
#493 – Smooth Citrus DEW (White flash)
#509 – Punch of Tropical DEW (Red Cloud)

When you walk up to the Gabutto Burger stand at Mitsuwa Marketplace in Arlington Heights, you’ll be confronted with a question, “Are you a teriyaki or demi-glace lover?”  Truth be told, their demi-glace and teriyaki sauce tastes the same, but I’ll play along.

I usually order the teriyaki egg burger when I visit.  But today I tried their new Teriyaki Wasabi burger.  The hamburger patty is very different from its American counterpart.  It’s made with beef, egg, breadcrumbs, and pork to “make it juicy.”  In terms of size, the diameter is about the same as your standard McDonalds hamburger, but thicker.  The bun is stamped with the Gabutto Burger logo.  Their wasabi sauce is thick and white, not unlike Arby’s Horsey Sauce, and wasn’t particularly spicy.  The teriyaki gave the burger a nice juicy flavor.

The second item I ordered was the stuffed pancake.  This is an item they’ve been advertising as “coming soon” ever since they opened this spring.  Just like their hamburgers, the pancake comes stamped with the Gabutto logo.  Inside you’ll find red bean paste.  If you’ve never had red bean paste, it’s kind of sweet, but not candy sweet.  It’s hard to explain and probably an acquired taste.  The pancake was thick and tasted more like a waffle.  Overall, it’s a decent side item and tastes much better than their shoe-string fries.

Gabutto Burger is not your average burger joint.  It’s as close to a Japanese hamburger as you can get without going to Japan.  But I don’t expect the McDonalds/Burger King loving folks to appreciate it as much as I have.

Comments about the video:  The footage was shot on a winter afternoon.  The voiceover and editing was done on a separate day.  It’s probably the best choreographed project I did in the class, but I realize there’s some audio problems.  A classmate of mine read the script for the commercial.  I uploaded this video to YouTube the day after I finished, but they slammed me with a copyright violation for using the Chuck Berry song.  I wasn’t about to slap on an alternative track so I left it.  When I logged on yesterday to my account, the video was mysteriously visible on YouTube with zero views so I decided to post it here.

http://www.augustinos.com/

If you catched the “Survival Special” of Bizarre Foods in June, you probably didn’t know it was the last episode.  Andrew Zimmern has decided to focus on his new series, Bizarre World.  You may remember the pilot from last year, Bizarre World Turkey (who could forget that oil wrestling segment?), or have seen the 30 minute sneak preview playing on the Travel Channel.  In any case, Bizarre World premieres on September 1st and I’m excited.  From the looks of it, Andrew will still be eating bizarre foods, but will focus more on the culture and bizarre customs.  If you still can’t get enough of Bizarre Foods, Andrew’s first book The Bizarre Truth: How I Walked out the Door Mouth First . . . and Came Back Shaking My Head comes out September 8th.

Episodes:

1. Cuba (Premieres September 1)
2. Belize (Premieres September 8 )
3. Kalahari (Premieres September 15)
4. South Africa (Premieres September 22)
5. Germany (Premieres September 29)
6. Bali (Premieres October 6)
7. Sulawesi (Premieres October 13)
8. Florida (Premieres October 20)
9. Wisconsin (Premieres October 27)

I recently had the pleasure of attending Mitsuwa’s annual Japanese Summer Festival in Arlington Heights on Saturday.  For the past couple years, I’ve been told by my anime friends to visit Mitsuwa.  So I finally got the chance to go earlier this summer and I love it.  The Japanese bookstore, grocery, and other shops are great, but what I love most of all is the Japanese food court.  I’ve never seen so much Japanese food in one place!  It’s my mission to try every thing there.  I’ve been there almost every week since.  For the summer festival, I decided to try out the “outdoor” vendors, most of which isn’t sold in the food court.  In addition I saw some awesome Japanese drumming by JASC Tsukasa Taiko, and watched a lot of white people embarrass themselves during the Bon Odori dance.

Takoyaki- Although it looks like a meatball, it’s actually a fried dumpling with a surprise octopus inside.  Drizzled on top was a teriyaki-type sauce and fish shavings. I wasn’t a fan.  The octopus was okay, but totally caught me off guard.  Of course, I didn’t ask what was in it before I ordered.  The dumpling itself tasted like potato.  I probably wouldn’t order it again, but it was really fun watching them prepare it.  They had a frying pan with circle holes in it to hold the dumpling.  They used chopsticks to turn over the dumplings.  And if you’re not careful transferring the dumpling to the pan, boy do those flames shoot up fast!

Hayashi- If it looks like stew, that’s because it is.  I originally was going to buy the curry, but they sold out.  This dish is pretty tame and was made to appeal to Western appetites.  The beef is thinly sliced with a thick demi-glace sauce.  The rice was standard white and nothing special, but compliments the beef nicely.  Overall, I enjoyed it, but I would like to try something more exotic next time.

Ramune- One dollar Ramunes?  That’s how much they sold if for in the coolers outside.  Cheap, especially since it sold for $1.39 inside.  My sister begged me to get this one, since she misread Sangaria for “sangria.”  Turns out that it was just the name of the company who made it.  It was the orange flavor and it tasted fine.  I haven’t had a Ramune that was exceptionally good, but the fun of it is popping the marble.  My sister bought the lychee flavored Calpico.  It kind of tasted like sour milk, very sweet.

Matcha Parfait- I went inside to order this.  I needed something sweet and this fit the bill. This was sold in the food court by reLeaf.  The ice cream had a unique flavor named matcha, which is finely powdered green tea.  In addition, the parfait had red bean paste, mochi, a cookie, and green tea flavored jello at the bottom.  This isn’t a flavor I expect to see anytime soon at Baskin Robbins, but it definitely filled my sweet tooth.  Next time I want to try the sesame ice cream.

Would I go again?  Of course!  Where else can I see so much culture in the north-west suberbs?  More pictures of Mitsuwa and the Bon Odori dance are after the jump.  And if you’re interested in attending, there will be another festival in New Jersey on the 8th, San Jose on the 8th, and Torrance on the 15th.  Enjoy!