Snails Triumphant: Asian Garden Night Market, Westminster, CA, USA

On a search for balut, a Filipino delicacy consisting of a fertilized duck egg, Rick stumbled across the Yelp page for Asian Garden Night Market in Westminster, CA.  That Friday night, we drove to Westminster, commonly known as Little Vietnam.  We knew we’d arrived when the scent of smoke drifted through our open car windows.  Strung lights shimmered in the dark, illuminating the three or so rows of stalls set up in the parking lot of a larger shopping center.  We parked on the street and wended our way through the crowd gathered around the stage, Vietnamese music drifting in the air. 

We’d come in search of dinner, so, aside from snapping a few photos, our feet headed straight to the food stalls along the perimeter.  So many choices.  Such limited space in our stomachs.  How could we choose?  Unable to resist the glorious combination of meat and grease, we settled on pork skewers as our amuse bouche.  The older men manning the grills barely spared us a look as they shoved two pork skewers in a folded-up paper plate.  A younger man took our money with a distracted smile.  The skewers were burnt black on both ends and oil spots dotted the paper plate.  The pork tasted like sweet marinated heaven, warm and savory against my tongue.  While our teeth finagled all last remaining morsels off the stick without impaling our throats with the pointed end of the stick, we browsed the other non-food stalls.  Many sold discount clothing and sparkly discounted jewelry.  A large toy stall at the end provided children with boxes of tiny paper-wrapped packets that, when thrown on the ground, made loud cracks of sound.  Throughout our whole time there, not once did the symphony of sharp sound-bursts stop, the ground littered with discarded white papers.  A stall full of elegant bonsai stood near another one demonstrating a lemon juice spritzer, the owner watching each passerby with speculative eyes. 

Done with our pork skewers, I decided I wanted bananas wrapped in sweet rice.  The picture looked delicious, lumps of rice displayed on a green leaf.  I pointed at the picture when I went to order it, not knowing how to pronounce the name in Vietnamese.  The lady behind the screen raised an eyebrow, then withdrew a lump with her gloved hand and whipping out a pair of sharp scissors.  I watched, mouth agape, as she sliced the lump into bite-sized pieces, dumped them in a small styrofoam bowl, drenched it in some unknown white liquid, and sprinkled some peanut dust on top with some flair.  When I displayed the finished item to Rick, he stared at it and said, "That doesn’t look anything like it does in the picture."  I grimaced, before lifting the spoon to my mouth.  Delicious.  The rice was glutinous, the plantain-style banana mild in its sweetness.  The unknown white liquid turned out to be some coconut concoction that added a tropical undertone to the whole mixture of flavors.  We polished it off, standing up at some nearby tables, eyeing our next potential treat. 

Rick, drawn by the sight of a whole display of squid grilling up right beside us, decided he would eat that next.  I settled on some sausage skewers, the smoky slices of meat bookended with shriveled bell pepper.  We weren’t going to buy anything non-edible, so we found some seats on a stone bench placed next to a dolphin fountain.  A man delighted the children gathered near us with a bubble-gun, blowing the shimmering rainbow-sheened soap spheres high into the night sky.  The infant girl in his arms looked mesmerized.  Quickly polishing off our treats, I asked Rick if he still wanted to find some balut.  He shrugged, so we headed in the shopping mall to see if there was anything else interesting. 

The balut, de-shelled.

We spotted a small cafe that not only served balut, but also snails.  I’d had snails before, sitting outside in a green garden in China, using a toothpick to dig out the delights hidden in the teeny snail shells.  Maybe I wanted to recapture that moment of peace or try to remember what those snails tasted like, so we stopped and ordered both the balut and the snails.  Rick made quick work of his balut, disassembling the shell and gobbling up the insides, but not before pointing out the feathers of the half-grown embryo inside and slurping up the juices.  I stared down at the snails before me, drenched in another sort of off-white liquid.  The shells looked larger than the ones I’d ingested in China, and when I picked one up, it oozed a white slime similar to the mucus of a particularly bad cold.  I dug into one.  No meat.  I dropped the shell on my napkin and reached for another one.  The meat of this one slowly uncoiled onto my spoon, shaded a dark green and vaguely translucent.  I bit into it, then spat it back out.  I glared down at it.  Took a deep breath, hoisted the spoon to my mouth again, paused, then dropped my hand back down.  "You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want," Rick piped up from the other side of the table, watching my struggles with a barely-concealed smile.  "I paid for it.  I’m going to eat it."  I stared down at the coil of gelatinous meat and dropped it back into my bowl in defeat.   Rick pulled me into his side in commiseration.  As we made our way back to the car, he bought me Thai iced tea to cheer me up again.  I sipped at the creamy sweet drink and leaned into his side, "Maybe, when we’re in China, I’ll try to find the good snails." 

The snails that defeated me.

Details:
Asian Garden Night Market
9200 Bolsa Ave
Westminster, CA 92683
Fri-Sat 7pm-12am
Sun 7pm-11pm

**This Travel Tale is part of the Summer California Series, where we try to enjoy all the goodies Southern California has to offer before we take off on our trip.