I went to China and tried 3 of the strangest foods - including world's stinkiest fruit

From Kangaroo burgers to escargot (snails), I love to try from around the world. Last month, I headed to the beautiful and innovative city of , and I made it my mission to try the different cultural dishes recommended by the locals, including the world's stinkiest

Chinese food is one of my favourite cuisines, but I am only accustomed to the heavily Westernised version. There were no chips and curry sauce, prawn crackers, or sweet and sour chicken balls, just pure authentic meals. Here are my honest thoughts on the vastly different dishes I tried. Spoiler alert: My favourite is chicken feet.

Durian

Kicking off with the world's stinkiest fruit, the durian. This fruit wasn't as bad as you may expect, given the drama of its name. For those who are unaware, the durian is a large and spiky tropical fruit with a yellow interior, and the smell has been described as either "rotten eggs" or "sewer gas."

When describing the fruit to me, a lovely local woman named Jo said, "It's like a mix between an onion and a marshmallow," to which my mind could not comprehend, but after tasting it, I understand why. I was standing in a night bar in the city's party district when I commented that I hadn't tried durian.

To my surprise, one of the local women ordered it quickly after the conversation, and it arrived in 15 minutes, despite the time being almost midnight. The durian arrived hot, which we believe was boiled before arriving.

This minimised the legendary smell, which was better for me as I have a strong sense of smell and can be easily put off when eating. Once I bit into it, it was very creamy and almost melted in my mouth; it had notes of vanilla, which was delicious but subtle.

However, the texture was too slimy for me, so I couldn't enjoy more than a few bites. The marshmallow description comes from the sweet flavour notes and gooey texture, and the onion aspect will be the smell.

Chicken feet

I LOVED the fried chicken feet; I even dream about this dish to this day. My family come from Barbados, and from time to time, my Grandmother will cook cow foot or pig tail, so when I heard chicken feet, I wasn't that phased compared to my British and American counterparts on the trip.

However, I have to admit, the look of the feet did surprise me due to the unusual shape, but nonetheless, I was ready to try anything and everything. The first bite was tricky as there's not much meat on the bone, as it's mostly cartilage, but once I got a piece of some meat mixed with the delicious fried skin, it was like a flavour bomb dropped in my mouth.

It is believed that the closer the chicken is to the bone, the more flavour you will get, and now that I have eaten the chicken feet, I have to agree. I would even say it tasted better than chicken wings; I highly recommend it.

Goose liver Pâté

Liver pâté is a French dish, but my first time trying it was at the Marriott hotel in Shenzhen, a luxury five-star stay courtesy of the iMpact and CommunicateMore PR teams. The hotel offered a buffet of different foods that stretched across the room, however, the staff handed us different dishes throughout the dinner, one of which was the goose liver pâté.

The dish arrived with what looked like a grape, a piece of radish, and some flowery decorations surrounding the pâté. I had no idea what this was, but another local who was sitting next to me kindly explained that goose is one of the most popular meats to enjoy in China.

I'm not a fan of pâté. It had a rich flavour but was somewhat sweet, and the texture was very smooth, almost like a mousse, which I didn't like. However, I did try another goose dish, which was delicious.

Goose is much more flavourful and succulent than duck. When paired with a sweet and savoury sauce, it becomes the perfect hearty meal to enjoy with rice or noodles.

Silkworm pupae

Unfortunately, I was unable to try the silkworm pupae, but I am not opposed to trying a bug or two. In my lifetime, I have eaten escargot (snails) and crickets in a chilli con carne, so I was gutted to miss out.

However, a journalist on the trip, Peter Scardino from Trusted Reviews, shared his opinion after indulging in the bugs for the first time. He said: "The spice they used on the silk worm pupae was decent, slightly spicy and salty, and the outside was nice and crunchy, but the inside was all gooey and not in a good way."

My favourite aspect of trying all these weird and wonderful foods was tasting them as a group. A beautiful aspect of Chinese culture is that eating as a community is an important value, and meals are often shared in a "family-style setting" to highlight the importance of maintaining and making new connections.