Went out last night to one of the best sushi restaurants in Singapore. The meal started off typically.
Started with a few Sapporo beers, edamame, and gingko nuts which where served in a tiny basket woven from seaweed. (note: I popped the entire basket in my mouth and when i crunched it felt like there were a dozen fish hooks in my mouth. The seaweed was a lot sharper and more brittle than I expected).
The sushi was all beautiful stuff including a lot of o-toro. We were washing it down with a lot of very good Sake. Had some other odds and ends like giant scallops on kelp and unago. By the time it was dessert (I was having cherry blossom ice cream) we were finishing up the second of these 720ml Sakes. We were basically done the meal but the guy I was with told the waitress to bring another bottle. He was just trying to get a rise from me, but I guess I was feeling ebulent (or stupid) and said, "sure, why not," so out it came along with beautiful slices of Japanese musk-melon (nothing compares) and cherry blossom ice cream. Finished up half that third bottle and all of the fruits. They were out of any more desserts and i'd eaten several musk-melons already so I told the waitress, "what is something only Japanese eat here." She pointed at a menu item and I agreed, "yeah, two of those."
Minutes later she reappeared with two small cups approximately the size of a dixie cup. Each was filled with konowata, known in English as fermented sea slug intestines.
Against all odds it was worse than it even sounded. Imagine a dixie cup full of dirty, viscous, brown snot that smells and tastes like a New Jersey beach. My friend tossed his back like a shooter. I started trying to drink mine but it stalled in my mouth. It was so thick that a 5" long snot trail of it down my throat pulled back all the way into the pile in my mouth. I was very close to puking it up. Between tears and paralytic laughter I had the waitress bring a scalding hot cup of tea that I used as a chaser as I worked down the snot. It was beyong bad. Probably in the top two or three grossest things I've ever eaten in my life.
We went on from there and today I was nursing quite a hangover. Twice during the day I would have a resurgence memory of that konowata and become nearly sick to my stomach. We did not need that encore bottle of Sake last night.
Thanks to reader Dossy, I found out the correct spelling of konowata as well as the horrifying explanation of it:
Here is an interesting list of many chinmi (local cuisines that have fallen out of popularity or those cuisines that are peculiar to a certain area.) of Japan.