L'Houstalet: Flying Foxes

Established since 1972, L'Houstalet is a French Restaurant, Bar and Nightclub in Vanuatu. This is supposed to be one of those most popular casual restaurants that serve pizza and pasta and traditional French desserts. The difference is their specialties include snails, coconut crab and flying fox. Flying foxes also known as fruit bats are the largest bats in the world.

Archipelago: Zebra, Kangaroo, Peacock, Locusts and Crickets 

Archipelago restaurant is an international fusion of culinary influences that brings together the exotic, exciting, and unexpected right in the center of London. How would you like to dine on seared zebra with a port & juniper sauce and sour green mango soba noodles? How about some peanut-crusted wildebeest rump? Or would you rather have the wok-seared frog's legs cashew and callaloo with ginger & coriander rice? If you’re not ready for that, try the lunch-time tasting menu of African crocodile bites and the spiced Australian kangaroo fillet instead.  Of course you can always opt for the chilli and garlic locusts and crickets, and the chocolate covered scorpions. The restaurant’s reviews include: “Archipelago is actually a serious restaurant, with an extremely competent chef” and “dishes make as much of an impact as the striking setting...flavours are vivid and there's plenty of less eccentric choices.”

Shock Legend Restaurant: Lizards, Scorpions and Toads

Insects have long been considered culinary favorites in Thailand where street stalls offers mounds of crunchy pan-fried crickets, grasshoppers and beetles. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if Shock Legend Restaurant’s waiters don scary masks while spooky music can be heard on the background to create just the right dinner ambiance as guests sample on creepy crawlies such as lizards, scorpions and chili-fried toads. They say fried lizards tastes like fried shrimp while toad and gecko tastes like chicken.

Kaokeng Beef Restaurant: Cow Eyes, Tendons, Intestines and Heart

Kaongkeng Beef Restaurant in Kinmen, Taiwan is one steakhouse you will never forget. It’s the perfect place to familiarize a cow’s anatomy. Appetizer includes sliced tongue and shredded stomach which comes with chili sauce and coriander leaves, to be followed by crispy and greasy deep fried large intestine. A “whole cow” banquet serves up to 15 people. You need around two hours to try on the 17 dishes served which includes curried cow eyes, bull’s penis in brown sauce, tendons in spicy sauce and cow’s heart in sesame oil. A “half cow” banquet is also available.

Guo-li-zhuang: Animal Penises and Testicles

Located beside Beijings West Lake is China’s first specialty penis restaurant. At Guo-li-zhuang restaurant, the reproductive organs of yaks, donkeys, oxen and even seals are part of every dish except for the ones containing testicles. A trained waitress with a nutritionist will explain the menu to brag about the medicinal value of the food when you make reservations. Some dishes looks indistinguishable such as the simple goat penis, sliced, dipped in flour, fried and skewered with soy sauce. For beginners, the nutritionist recommends a sampling of six types of penis and four testicles, boiled in chicken stock. The deer and the Mongolian goat were said to look and feel like overcooked squid tentacles. The Xinjiang horse and donkey both came sliced lengthwise looking like bacon but the horse are light and fatty while the donkey has a firm color and taste. The only one with bone in it is the dog penis. The testicles are slightly crumbly and tastes better with sesame, soy and chili dips. A specialty that requires advance ordering is the Canadian seal penis. Liquids include deer-penis juice.

She is quite tall. Most people would have reluctant feelings about dating someone 60 feet taller than they are. Please take into consideration that she comes from a very well to do family and is currently living on a beautiful plot of beach in the city of Margate, New Jersey. It is a lovely section of land complete with wrought iron fence.

I understand that you may have reservations about her height, and have to admit that there are other shocking dimensions about her. Her ears, as it turns out, are in their own right quite prodigious. Several people that I must admit are much more intelligent than I am have estimated that each would weight in the neighborhood of 2,000 pounds. In all fairness to this lady, you hardly notice them next to her gigantic head, itself measuring some 48 feet in circumference. Rest assured, however, that she is quite well connected in society. She has been host to United States Presidents and innovators of industry, who all spoke fondly of her.

I am sure you have noticed some alarming numbers up until this point. She is a big gal; there is no point in denying it. As you have read this far, I assume that you would not mind me mentioning just two more items that many of the more shallow people in the world these days would be unable to overlook. Her height and ear size make for a frame that can be seen clearly from space with the proper satellite technology. Also there is the matter of her tusks. I ask you simply to look once into her beautiful eyes and I guarantee you will fall in love with her, just as I did.

Her name is Lucy. Did I mention that she is an elephant?

James Vincent de Paul Lafferty, Jr. wanted to attract buyers to his plots in then named South Atlantic City. At the time, the only buildings were a handful of fishing huts. By the end of 1881, however, there was a new inhabitant of South Atlantic City. She was a 65-foot tall elephant-shaped building, complete with observation howdah perched on her back. Lafferty was so taken with the elephant that he applied for and received patent from the U.S. Government.

Lucy was the first of three elephant-buildings designed by James Lafferty. Her sisters, the Light of Asia of South Cape May and Elephantine Colossus of Coney Island, were both built three years later in 1884. Only Lucy remains. Elephantine Colossus, the largest at a whopping 122 feet tall, caught fire and burned to the ground in 1896. The smallest of the three behemoths, the Light of Asia deteriorated beyond repair, and the owners purposely torched her in 1900. Maybe it was blind luck, but in my heart, I think it was because Lucy was made of something stronger.

By 1887, Lafferty was looking to rid himself of his Jersey Shore land. Lucy found a new owner in Anton Gertzen. From there, Lucy was passed down the Gertzen line, surviving a short stint as a tavern and several violent storms, including a 1944 hurricane that destroyed almost everything else on the New Jersey coastline. After almost 90 years in the Gertzen family, Lucy was donated to Margate due in large part to the work of the Margate Civic Association. Despite legal red tape and a variety of odd obstacles, Lucy was moved in 1970 to her present location two blocks south of the original and heavy restoration began.

I first went to meet this lovely lady fully expecting leave shaking my head, overwhelmed with a sense of tackiness. Lucy was, for me, the first planned stop on a trip that would take me from my home in Ohio, to Atlantic City, and then all the way down the eastern coast to Charleston, South Carolina. I had learned about her on accident. While searching for fun and strange stops along the way, I came across her web site. I mentioned to my traveling companion that it would be a laugh to stop and see. I fully expected to leave disappointed, having built up in my mind what I expected to be the end all-be all of roadside attractions.

As we grew closer and road weariness began to set in, I found myself calling out the big girl's name. A bizarre excitement poured over me. While I did not want to admit it at the time, I felt as if I was at the edge of a life changing experience. I was not prepared for what I felt when the light reflecting off her tin skin entered my eyes and burned onto my retinas, a sensation only slightly marred by the fact that the first view was of her cumbersome backside.

“Lucy the Elephant!” I screamed so loud that my voice failed slightly, and my companion chuckled. I whipped the car across two lanes of traffic, all four tires screaming, and dove into the small parking lot adjacent to the beautiful lass. I jammed the vehicle into the first spot I found, threw the door open and jumped out, all pretensions of adulthood thrown aside. Suddenly I was five again, and surely that elephant in front of me was the biggest thing ever built. I stood with mouth gaping open, corners turned up slightly in a goofy sort of smile. Once rational thoughts returned, surprisingly her size was not the dominant focus. “She's beautiful,” I thought. “I've never seen anything so beautiful in my entire life.”

We did not waste much time before I insisted on entering the gift shop. “Welcome to Lucy,” the woman inside greeted with a large smile. “Have you ever been here before?” I am sure she could tell that I had not. She sees that look all the time on faces of the young and old alike. I somehow found the words to express that it was my first time and that I had to have two tickets for the tour. Then again, maybe she just guessed based on my stunned face and sheepish child's grin, as I really do not remember saying anything. I stumbled around the gift shop only briefly, taking in elephants of all size and nature, before the tour guide announced that it was time to start.

We entered through her hind leg and ascended a set of stairs to the main room making up most of the inner belly of Lucy. Through windows in her side I could see the original inner shell, Lucy artifacts, and out through her eyes to Lucy's view of the ocean. The tour guide pointed out two wooden handrails. The first was an original; the second was a reproduction. Proudly, the old handrail is standing the test of time better than the new one, which is already showing signs of splitting.

After another climb, we found ourselves atop the elephant, taking in the 360-degree view from her howdah. From the perch, one can see up the coast to Atlantic City, not to mention Margate's water tower, complete with painting of the wonderful Lucy. As the ocean breeze blew by me, I knew that leaving was going to be hard. I know it will be for you, too. This is one woman you simply must meet.

I love you, Lucy, and I promise to visit you very soon. Wait until you meet this guy I set you up with. I think he is just your style.