I like to take pride in the fact that I will try (and often enjoy) almost any food. This is certainly not how it has always been seeing as how I was a very, very picky eater as a child. Up until about the age of 15 or so I never wanted to eat anything other than fettucini alfredo and ice cream. My mom would tell me that everything that was green on my plate was “just parsley”, and if it had an onion in it I went running for the hills.
Nowadays though I find that I am trying new and crazy items that previously would have made me gag. I’ve even grown to love foods like foie gras, sweetbreads and escargot. But to me these things are not strange or unusual, just delicious. Recently I’ve had the opportunity to try chicken hearts (tasted like chicken) and in the past I’ve also tried such things as raw squid (very, very, VERY chewy). But on my most recent trip to New York City I tried what I think is perhaps the most strange item yet: stingray fin.
I’m not thinking of “strange” in the sense of “Ewww I can’t believe someone would actually eat that!”. No, I’m thinking of “strange” being more along the lines of “Wait, that’s something that you can actually eat?” Never have I looked at a stingray and thought that it’s fins looked tasty, or edible. So you can imagine my surprise when we sat down to dinner at Village Yokocho in the East Village and I saw grilled stingray fin on the menu.
The Russian is usually the instigator when it comes to all of the new and strange foods that I’ve tried (he is the one behind the raw squid and chicken hearts), and that was no different this time. As we were looking over the menu he decided that we had to try the grilled stingray fin, and although I was very intrigued I had no idea what to expect. When the dish came out it was served as small slivers of the cut up fin that had been grilled with a nice char on the outside. There was a side of some sort of aioli, but after taking the first bite of the fin I paid no attention to the sauce.
In one word I would describe the fin as this: INCREDIBLE. It might even have been (dare I say it!) one of the best dishes that I have ever had. The meat had an odd texture: it was a little chewy and tough (but not in the raw squid kind of way), but the flavor was out of this world. The fin was sweet and had an ever so slight fish taste, and the char from the grill gave it a smoky flavor that seemed to just enhance the taste of the meat.
After the first bite we both looked at each other and proclaimed how we couldn’t believe that the dish was so good! I would have been happy eating nothing but that for the rest of the meal, but the squid balls and noodle bowl that we also ordered were already on their way.
If I ever see stingray fin on a menu I will not hesitate to order it, and if I’m ever back at the Village Yokocho the first thing I’m going to do is look for that dish as a special again. I never would have thought that one of the best things I’ve ever eaten would come in the form of grilled stingray fin, but man oh man was it amazing.
This experience has only motivated me even more to try new and different foods, and although I know that not everything I try will be as delicious as the stingray fin, I can only hope that there will be more amazing dishes in my future. Long gone are the days of fettucini alfredo, my 15 year old self would be shocked.
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