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Food of the Week – Durian

By jeni | July 24, 2008

Welcome to our newest feature – food of the week, wherein each week one of us will try a new food and we’ll blog all about it for you! To start off, we have the KING of FRUITS – duh nananana – the durian!

The durian is native to Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia and can be found all over the place here in Singapore. 

The durian is used in all kinds of fruity drinks, desserts and what not and there are whole cafes dedicated to it here. People love it. I mean they really love it. Why? 

I truly have no clue. 

Wikipedia says the durian has a “distinctive odor.” Umm yeah. That’s an understatement. It smells like hot garbage. Or a swiss fondue restaurant in the middle of a bank of port-a-potties . Or some other equally awful odor.  And that’s just the smell. Some say it has the texture of a cow pattie. I prefer to describe it as an avocado. It’s creamy and gushy and bleh. 

Based on the smell and the rumors alone, John and I had successfully avoided durians up until recently. But when our service apartment had a little party and durians were part of the fare, we decided to just go for it. The staff told us to try not to think of it as a fruit, but rather as if we were tasting a fine cheese. Okay, sure. Fine cheese it is.

Catherine (my BFF from guest services) plucks a supposedly “good” piece from the spiky shell.

Okay, I’m ready. Let’s give this a shot.

Umm, I’m just supposed to take a bite right? I think I’ll close my eyes. 


I don’t think I like this. 

Fine cheese this is NOT. I know fine cheese. I mean, I know Kraft at least. And this is not on par. In fact, I think I may have to spit this out. 

I got it all down. In fact, I couldn’t stop taking bites, even though I hated it. It was a trainwreck. I just couldn’t stop. John just had one tiny bite. Wimp. Then he moved on to lychee. Mmmm lychee. We just love lychee. 

I decide to cleanse my pallet by having a popsicle. Of course I fail to look at the wrapper – it’s a durian popsicle. Disgusting. 

So what’s the verdict? Durian is not for us. We were told you have to try it four times and you’ll like it after that. I don’t think I can handle the smell three more times. But you never know. 

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