Restaurant Serves Live Shrimp Covered In Ants As The Start To A 3-Hour-Long Feast

Many people around the world love shrimp, but it takes a real dedicated palate to appreciate live jumbo shrimp covered in little black ants.

In order to experience this unique dish, you would have to travel to Tokyo and visit a pop-up version of Noma, Rene Redzepi’s vision of a successful version of his Noma in Copenhagen, according to Bizarre World News.

The big shrimp covered with a sprinkle of ants is just the start to a three-hour meal. Fifteen courses are elegantly prepared for customers who love to eat over-the-top and imaginative dishes.

The twitching shrimp and army of ants meal for the bold, brave, and hungry costs about $339, or 40,200 yen, per person.

Tejal Rao, a review writer for Bloomberg Business, described the dish in vivid detail.

“…the raw, pristine shrimp in front of me is so recently dead that its brain has yet to telegraph this information to the rest of its body. For now it’s all twitching muscle and whirring antennae.”

Even though she was shocked by the sight of the food, she described the taste as “shockingly good.”

Rao described the shrimp as having “soft and yielding tail meat, exceptionally bright and sweet, slightly sticky, with some high, sharp, throat-warming stuff going on.”

Apparently the ants are not served to shock people, but they are served because they have a citrus-like taste which serves as a touch of a sour note, like lemon. When chilled, the ants do not move as quickly, so you do not have to worry about them getting away from you.

The rest of the meal went by with superior service and amazing Japanese food. While there were no more live shrimp trying to crawl away from the table, more ants were served later in the meal. Rao described her whole experience in an emoji note.

“It goes from terrifying to beautiful, like the ocean after a storm,” Roa described.

The live shrimp and ants will be served twice a day from January 9 to February 14 at the Mandarin Oriental as an experiment in Japanese technique and tradition.

If you love shrimp so fresh that it is still moving and want to try something new (like ants), get to Tokyo soon before time runs out.

[Images via Satoshi Nagare/Noma via Bloomberg]