A thought towards Thai cuisine to someone with a western palate immediately conjures up visions of chilies and hot and spicy food.  Upon further exploration you learn that Thai cuisine offers up a beautiful symmetry between hot, sour, sweet and salty.  Thai cuisine delicately navigates the balance between these flavors creating other worldly dishes that [...]]]>

A thought towards Thai cuisine to someone with a western palate immediately conjures up visions of chilies and hot and spicy food.  Upon further exploration you learn that Thai cuisine offers up a beautiful symmetry between hot, sour, sweet and salty.  Thai cuisine delicately navigates the balance between these flavors creating other worldly dishes that are appreciated throughout the world.  Exploring even further Thai cuisine shows an exotic side that is completely foreign to the west.  Hit the jump to find out what exotic vittles wait ahead.

First up, and pictured above, is Snake Whiskey created primarily for tourists, you can’t help but be fascinated by the concept.  Start with horrible low quality rice whisky, stuff a venomous snake into a fancy looking bottle and let it sit.  What you receive is an amber liquid with snake skin floating in it.  I have read that you need to chase a shot of it almost immediately with some type of melon to cut the astringency.  That particular bottle pictured contains not only a cobra but the cobra has a grass snake in its mouth.  It’s the circle of life in a bottle!

Snake whisky not your thing?  Perhaps pregnant crickets are more to your liking.  Dried crickets with eggs are high in protein and low in fat.  These crickets are farm raised so have no concerns about the native cricket population.  This also means that instead of a diet of organic material and decaying plant matter, they are feed a variety of grains and cereals.  In my mind this has to mean a better tasting cricket!

Both of these unique culinary offerings and more are available from Thailand Unique a store located in a quiet corner of northeast Thailand.  They also carry a wide range of other exotic food items from Thailand.  Items ranging from Squid Sticks, 1000 year old eggs, Birds Nest drink, and even chips made from the Durian (this is another story) fruit. In addition to the pregnant crickets they also carry a wide range of edible insects produced by a small team of professional food manufacturers.  Oh, if snake whisky is not your thing perhaps their line of scorpion whiskies will be more to your liking.  So why not spend a couple of minutes browsing the many exotic edibles available at Thailand Unique?