Recently, there is a food fad in Taiwan called “Godzilla Ramen” sold by Witch Cat Kwai, a restaurant in Douliu City in southern Taiwan. The ramen features crocodile meat and its name was inspired by the famous Japanese movie icon.
The soup of the ramen consists of quail eggs, pork, baby corn, dried bamboo shoots, black fungus and cubes of fish paste, topped with a crocodile leg. The ramen shop owner, Mr. Chien said that only 2 bowls of crocodile ramen he served a day. It was because of the challenge and difficulty of getting the crocodile to be cooked. The price of the crocodile ramen, which is usually called as “Godzilla Ramen”, was NTD 1,500 or about $50 USD for each bowl.
We can categorize “Godzilla Ramen” as a high price dish. Besides the difficulty of getting the crocodile to be cooked, there is a lot of cost, time, and work required to create the whole dish.
“A lot of (customers) say crocodile meat tastes like that of chicken but is more springy, soft and elastic,” Mr. Chien said. “I think it tastes like braised chicken feet.”
Not only ramen topped with crocodile meat, “Godzilla Ramen”, Mr. Chien also sells ramen topped with a giant isopod, a 14-legged crustacean. It made his ramen restaurant went viral again through the dish.
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The isopod ramen doesn’t need a lot of time, costs, and work required for the preparation. The isopod only needs to be steamed for ten minutes before adding it to the top of the steaming bowl of ramen.
The uniqueness and the exoticness of the dish sold by Mr. Chien led his restaurant to massive attention and interest from the guests. Mr. Chien said that the bookings of his restaurant are full through late August, since the waiting list of his dishes is in a long waiting list.
