Headed to Romdeng for dinner after visiting Tuol Sleng. Yes, that’s when I ate the spider!

Initially I thought that I definitely would not be able to do it. But after talking to the restaurant staff, a very nice guy who told me that the spider doesn’t taste much like anything, and was in fact offered on the kid’s menu for kids (if a kid can do it so can I!), I decided to try it.

Have to admit when the spider came, I almost chickened out. But I passed the camera to the nice restaurant guy, asked him to help me take photos, and picked up the tarantula by one of its legs.

Couldn’t bear biting into it while looking at it, so I looked straight ahead and chomped down.

Half the spider’s butt gone!

It doesn’t taste spidery or anything like that. It was extremely crunchy and the texture was kind of like soft-shell crab.

After I ate the head and legs, I was left with the abdomen and that was the hardest to chew of all. I kept trying to bite the abdomen into half but the skin wouldn’t give way, so I dropped it on the plate and skewered it on my fork and smothered it in that sauce you see and nom-ed the whole thing and washed it all down with a big gulp of lime juice.

Done and done! 🙂 Was an interesting experience.

I still won’t eat fried cockroaches or those grasshoppers or beetles. Something about their shiny wings freak me the fuck out (and still do).  But spiders are okay.

An Invitation

On my last night in Phnom Penh, I was invited to the opening of a guesthouse next to the place I stay. It’s the first time I’ve seen so many Cambodians in one place!

They were all very cheerful and rambunctious. Very hospitable as well; the lady who owned the place kept offering us Cambodian food they’ve cooked (chicken and fried beehoon; was really similar to normal Singaporean buffet fare!).