Eating Durian

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07QuaJJFNeo

While I was staying with Ming-San and Rose and their family, I had the opportunity to try Durian, which is the favorite fruit of Malaysians and Indonesians. It smells a bit like rot, but if you can think of it as old fruit rather than old other things, you are well on your way to enjoying its flavor.

We got four different kinds: King, Pork Fat, Butter and Malaysia 100-year-old Tree, and I got to taste each of them. Durian is rather a unique flavor in general - a bit like really thick, heavy, rich pecan ice-cream. But the texture is a bit more like mango, and depending on the size of the individual fruit the seeds can be rather large. The seeds are brown (and bitter-tasting, I'm told), but surrounded by a yellow-white pulp (again, the color varies depending on the individual fruit).

The King and Butter kinds were very creamy and mild, slightly sweet, while the Pork Fat had slightly more of a bite to it. The Malaysia 100-year-old Tree was the most flavorful - you could almost taste coffee or bits and pieces of other fruits/flavors. It was pretty interesting. I might have to try it again at some point. The flavor was pretty rich though - 4 seeds (1 from each) were all I could handle.