A beacon of edible exotica.
I’ll just get this part out of the way now. Let me clear my throat. * ahem ahem ahem*
THERE ARE MOTHERFUCKIN’ SNAKES ON MY MOTHERFUCKIN’ PLATE!!!
Oh yeah. That felt good.
By now Snakes on a Plane is out in theatres everywhere and is either:
a) thrilling audiences, or
b) unintentionally making movie goers squirt milk out of their noses.
Most reasonable people who see the film will be expecting “b”. After all it’s the movie’s undesigned campiness that the fans are embracing. Some have dubbed Snakes on a Plane as this summer's The Blair Witch Project due to the film’s grass-roots support which spread across cyberspace like a celebrity sex video on YouTube. Snakes on a Plane’s strange symbiotic relationship with its rabid internet following has even resulted in reshoots of the movie’s key scenes because a blogger said it would be cool.
Yo, fool, if some blogger was giving me notes on my script and I had to make those changes because the studio said so, my agent will be pumpin’ gas the next day, beeyatch! Hollah!!
I know, I know, but I suppose this is the new media age where stuff like this happens and you have to grin and bare it.
Then there’re the spoofs. Spoofs! Send ups. Parodies. Whatever you want to call them, there are lots of them poking fun at Snakes on a Plane albeit good-naturedly. You can view many of them on Snakes on a Plane's official website. Some of them are wacky, but most are more like, um, Lame on a Plane.
On the other hand, not all of this Snakes on a Plane business is wacky or harmless. Because of recent terroristic events I noticed that airport security is banning almost all liquids from being brought on by hand or in carry-on luggage—these items can be anything from shampoos to Slurpees. However, nowhere on that extensive list do I see snakes. It is so obvious that terrorists get their ideas from movies. Just look at Star Wars. The rebels aka the terrorists fly spaceships to the Death Star (the Death Star here represents democracy) and try to blow it up. Some of the rebels actually crash into the Death Star doing very little damage, however that’s all Osama needed for inspiration. Snakes on a Plane doesn’t even require a terrorist to connect any dots—zero imagination. The instructions are in the title of the movie for chrissake! Get snakes on board a plane and terrorize freedom lovers. How simple.
I can’t believe the irony either. Terrorists hate Hollywood and yet they totally steal ideas for their terroristic plots from Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger films. The ultimate irony would be terrorists using snakes to take down a plane that has Snakes on a Plane as its in-flight movie. TSA needs to be on the look out for suspicious snakes rather than “no tears baby shampoos”. Besides who would want to see a movie called Herbal Essences on a Plane?
My way of pissing off the terrorists is eating snakes. If you aren't with that, then you're against freedom.
However, tracking down a restaurant in Southern California that serves snakes was going to be tough. It seemed more like a job for MI5, but they’re a tad preoccupied right now. So I did the next best thing and fired off a quick query at Chowhound's So Cal forum. In a few hours I was directed to Phong Dinh Restaurant in Rosemead, California (about fifteen minutes east of Downtown LA).
Phong Dinh is a Vietnamese restaurant, sort of. It actually serves up more of a convoluted fusion of Vietnamese and Chinese cuisines, crossing between borders whenever it feels like it and, most of the time, without any papers. Further, Phong Dinh’s menu offers many things that aren’t typically Vietnamese and even some that aren’t typically Chinese—which is saying a lot because the Chinese eat everything. On top of that, the menu reads like an inventory list for a small zoo.
Welcome to the jungle.
When I first scouted Phong Dinh the only thing I wanted to find on the menu was snake because I wanted to call the article Snakes on a Plate because I thought it would be wacky. I did find snakes on a plate, but I also found…
Rabbit on a plate.
Squab on a plate.
Quail on a plate.
Venison on a plate.
Goat on a plate.
Boar on a plate.
Eel on a plate.
Frog legs on a plate.
Snails on a plate.
Ark shells(?) on a plate.
Alligator on a plate.
Ostrich on a plate.
Kangaroo on a plate.
Fox on a plate.
What. No rhinoceros?
Anyway, I could hardly believe it. A tear ran down my greasy cheek. I had found the Holy Grail of exotic cuisine. I simply wanted to hug the menu. I wanted to dance and buy the biggest goose in the butcher shop for the Cratchits. I was aglow with creepy culinary joy. I would’ve pinched myself if the waitstaff had better things to do than just stare at me. Then a waitress approached and asked me if I wanted to order take-out. She recommended the chicken fried-rice.
When I returned a few days later, about one week prior to Snake on a Plane’s U.S. release, I was so excited I almost forgot my digital camera and notepad. I did forget the address but fortunately Phong Dinh sits on a major boulevard and is easy to spot thanks to the green neon light framing its sign. Phong Dinh “Famous Baked Fish” the sign boasts. I laughed to myself. That’s not all you’ll be famous for. Not after I get through with you, Phong Dinh, if that really is your name.
I prepared myself for this place all week. Nobody could sidetrack me. A waiter came to the table. He tells me that the “famous baked fish” is very good. Even before he could finish his pathetic pitch for the house special, I interrupted him and asked, nicely, which snake plate he would recommend. His face grimaced a little. He contemplated and then qualified his answer by saying, “If you like snake, then you might like charbroiled grounded snake in grape leaves (Ran Luong La Lot).” I ordered it even though it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for because the snake was ground. How menacing is a ground snake? I may as well be eating ground turkey. So I improvised—sometimes you just have to. I inquired about the eel. You know, eel. Kinda snake-ish. Serpentine, I believe is the word. Also I asked if the eel was presented whole. The waiter quickly got my drift and immediately suggested the “eel with lemon grass and chili” (Luon Xao Xa Ot). I ordered that too.
Charbroiled, grounded snake in rolled "lot" leaves.
The first dish delivered was the charbroiled, grounded snake in grape leaves craziness. Was this a Vietnamese, Chinese, Greek wedding of an entrée? How was this fusion fused together? The ground snake meat was tightly stuffed into grape leaf packets. The accoutrement dressing up this dish were slivers of marinated carrots and daikon, a mole hill of vermicelli rice noodles, some raw bean sprouts and crushed peanuts. Grab a grape leaf packet of snake and little bit of everything else, roll it up in a micro thin sheet of rice noodle wrap, dip it into the tamarind-nuoc mam sauce and eat.
Shredded snake.
I almost choked on the snake. The flavors were overpowering. I wasn’t sure if it was the venom (kidding) or the sour-bitter grape leaves or the heavy-handed dose of black pepper combined with too much lemon grass which was mixed in with the ground snake or the thought of Snakes on a Plane potentially choking badly on the opening weekend. New Line Cinema better hope the movie doesn’t choke that way they can do the sequel…
Eels on a Ship.
Eel with lemon grass & chili.
On this night, however, what followed snakes on a plate was eel on a plate. And there would be no mistaking the creature from which this feast came. Far from being ground or charbroiled, the eel arrived dramatically coiled around itself, even though it was cut into bite-sized segments. Presentation was everything with this dish, but, unfortunately, it was the only thing. The kitchen proved again to be seasoning and spice happy and virtually obliterated any of the eel’s natural flavors by overseasoning. It was like eating stalks of lemon grass weaved together to resemble an eel. Or, perhaps, the eel, before getting to my plate, subsisted on a diet of lemon grass and nothing else.
Phong Dinh had real potential to be the Holy Grail of Deep End Dining, if it could only tame the wild side of its menu by chilling out on the spices. Finally, sort of like Snakes on a Plane’s elusive genre, this meal played out to be both terrifying and comical at the same time.
I've always wondered if they would cover news of an airplane crash on the special in-airport TV news channels... so I also wonder, would they show "Snakes on a Plane" as an in-flight movie? (while serving eel in the first class cabin, of course! :^)
Posted by: Anonymous | Aug 19, 2006 at 10:04 PM