Things that taste like foot, - like jackfruit

Ok, so we had lunch at Thai Dheva for lunch yesterday. (BTW Thai Deva is my favorite Thai in our area, so flavorful and fresh and NOT dry, I hate dry Thai food and believe me, it's out there and it's not tasty). I always judge a Thai place by my two favorite entrees: pad thai and pineapple fried rice They may not be the most exotic of Thai dishes but they are so good. It's just like I judge a good Mexican place by their refried beans, not the most Mexican of Mexican foods but they're my favorite. And that's just fine to have favorite foods that aren't all exotic and stuff. I'm not a foo-foo food person anyway.

But, back to the topic at hand - our Thai lunch. So as we were enjoying our Thai lunch we decided to not gobble it all down and to leave some to take home. But this left us a tad hungry still and decided to try one of the specialty desserts. But how to decide when everything is so different and sounds so tasty?!? Well, I was sold at "homemade coconut ice cream" and Ryan was sold at "fried banana". So it was decided, we'd have the FBI as our waitress called it as she hollered back to the kitchen (fried banana with ice cream). However, we were still curious about the "jackfruit with sticky rice". Our waitress kindly told us that it was sticky rice topped with coconut milk and sugar with jackfruit on the side. Jackfruit, huh? We did not know what that was and asked her to explain. She did an excellent job of explaining this tropical fruit and said that they had already cut the fruit for the day otherwise she'd show us a whole one (which is large and spiky). She actually did one better, though, and brought us a sample of the edible portion of the fruit itself.

We both peered in the small white bowl and found bright yellow-orange slices of of something that kind of looked like sliced bell pepper. There were also two tiny forks with which to taste the fruit. I loved those little forks. Anyway, we each stabbed at a piece of fruit and at first all I could do was smell this fruit, I swear it smelled like foot. Not sweaty, been in socks all day foot, more like well walked on in dirt and lake water foot. I tried to ignore the foot smell and focus on the fruit. The exterior texture was like bell pepper but not the inside portion. It was neither slimy nor mushy but it was not super firm. The flavor was extremely sweet, so much so that I had to eat it with water to water the sweetness down. I cannot tell you what it tasted like, it's its own flavor but it is very sweet with the faint taste of that foot I smelled on the fruit. I wanted to like fruit, I always enjoy trying new things but this just will not be added to me "like" list. Ryan loved it and would have it again. All I could think of was the foot smell coming out of the small white dish it had been.

And then this smell got me thinking of another thing we had a while back that was reminiscent of foot... a local winery has wines that taste like (and smell like) foot! Ick! I cannot imagine how people like their wines. I can understand stinky cheeses, at least they taste good, but this wine actually tastes like foot. Ugh. And the funniest part of it is that it was my mother-in-law who was able to discern the foot taste/smell out of this wine. And it's not just one of their wines, it was all of the wines we tasted at their tasting room. We still laugh about "foot" wine.

Anyway, on with the real dessert, fried banana with homemade coconut ice cream it was delicious and delightful in so many ways. We will be returning to Thai Dheva but not for the jackfruit!