Lychee-tini

I was feeling bummed because I haven’t written in awhile, which means I haven’t done anything on my list in awhile, but then I remembered- I never wrote about my lychee-tini!

(#13) Taste 25 Foods I've Never Tasted Before

1. Pattypan Squash
2. Beets
3. Eel
4. Wahoo
5. Lychee

Last weekend Ronnie and I went to visit a friend who bartends at a local Indian restaurant. You may think, Indian food- there must be something I haven’t tried there, right? But we’ve actually been to this restaurant several times previously and, looking at the menu, I realized I’d tried everything there that I was willing to try. Ie: I was not going to try goat. Sorry readers.

Luckily, knowing the bartender came in handy. He was able to run through a few of the less-traditional drink options available at this particular establishment. The most obvious choice was tamarind. Unfortunately I had already tried this when we brought Ronnie’s parents to this same restaurant and Ronnie’s mom ordered (and hated) a tamarind-based drink.

So Chris recommended the lychee-tini. Lychee is (according to Wikipedia) a fragrant member of the “soapberry” family with a red rind and delicate whitish pulp.

Here's what it looks like in pulverized juice form: 

Since the drink tasted largely of vodka, I did try the juice on its own. To me it tasted…sweet. I guess I should say goodbye to a career on the Food Network, because I don’t know how else to describe it. Maybe my sense of taste was slightly dulled by the fact that this was my third (and final!) drink of the evening, but there wasn’t really too much that stood out about it. It was a cloudy white, so I expected something coconut-y, but I was wrong there.

According to this website, the taste is somewhere between a pear and a grape. I would agree with that assessment, being that like the lychee neither of these things are particularly distinctive-tasting.

Apparently it’s also full of vitamins and a favorite fruit of the Chinese. Who knew?

On another note, I do hope to check another book off the list sometime in the near future. And-spoiler alert!- I bought a Groupon yesterday to help me tackle item#4- take a yoga class. Very exciting.

Happy Fourth everybody!