The best part is the thorax.

Mission (partially) accomplished.  By "mission (partially) accomplished" I mean I ate a bug.  However, as a very astute friend of mine pointed out, I did not eat bugs (multiple types), so I will consider this a partial accomplishment.  Allow me to regale you with the story.  Last night, while walking from dinner at Cabbages & Condoms (more on this later) en route to Bed Supper Club for "international models night" (complete with $100 bottle service and a Latin DJ), we passed a street stall selling a variety of fried bugs.  An opportunity had presented itself, and I was compelled to seize it.  For $2, I purchased a bag full of fried grasshoppers (which I kept calling crickets until some of the more bug-familiar people on the trip alerted me to my error). 

Stall:

My bugs:

After the vendor doused them with some kind of spray (fish sauce?) and salt-like thing (salt?), the grasshoppers were mine to dig into.  And dig in I did.  How was it, you ask?  Well, I'll tell you.  For my first bug, I ate each of the pieces separately, so I could really savor the experience. The legs were very crispy, like little fried strands of tarot.  Or wood.  The head was hard and crunchy, and tasted like...crunch.  The best part was definitely the thorax - it was juicier and more flavorful than the rest, although the skin (what do you call a bug's skin?) was a little hard to chew.  I blame the wings.  Overall, the grasshopper tasted like a piece of oily cardboard, with an almost pleasing salty aftertaste from the sauces.  Not too bad.  I'll gladly try another.  I plowed through 3-4 bugs before convincing my friends to try them.  Props to Syreeta and Ross for their bravery, and a big thank you for joining me in my culinary adventures (if you can call it that).

To those of you who have made it this far, here's a treat: a photo of  a condom Santa.  Cabbages & Condoms, a rec from a friend who was in Bangkok last summer, was a real experience.  The food was good (they had our leaf snack, which we of course ordered), but the atmosphere was excellent.  The restaurant was established in part to provide funding for the Population and Community Development Association in Thailand, and a portion of the proceeds from the gift shop and restaurants go to family planning organizations.  The whole place is decorated in condoms and packets of birth control pills, and they give condoms instead of mints at the end of the meal.  Definitely a fun, unique, must-see tourist trap.

Condom Santa:

Condom light fixture:

Condom users:

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty successful evening.  Free condoms and fried grasshoppers - what more could a girl want?