The weirdest foods from restaurants around the world

Bugs and insects are one of the foods we have the hardest time getting our heads around, but did you know that some scientists believe they could be the food of the future? The human population is growing and the demand for nutritious food is growing too, so could bugs be the answer?

Insects are packed full of protein and micronutrients like iron and zinc, they need less space to breed than livestock and produce lower levels of greenhouse gasses. Even René Redzepi, chef at Noma, a restaurant regularly ranked #1 in the world, is on board.

From one Michelin star chef to another; Britain's very own Heston Blumenthal. He's famous all over the world for his weird and wacky culinary creations, including snail porridge which he serves to customers in his restaurant the Ivy, a notorious celebrity hotspot.

It's far from his only weird dish, though; others he's served up over the years include an ice cream curry made using coronation chicken and liquid nitrogen, a fish-eye cocktail and an edible billiards table. He must be doing something right because the Ivy is one seriously pricey joint.

Surprisingly the next dish on our tour of the world's oddest dishes is served in many variants across Africa and the Middle East. It's called Isi ewu or goat's head soup in Nigeria, and a version using sheep's head and called Pacha is served as a traditional Iraqi dish. In both versions, the entire head is typically cooked whole and the brain and eyeballs are often considered delicacies to be saved for honoured guests. 

In the Philippines, a favourite snack is known as Balut, or the 'treat with feet.' Well, might you be wary, because Balut is, in fact, a fertilised egg, buried in the ground for several weeks until an embryo has begun to develop. Once enough time has passed, the egg is boiled up the foetus and all and eaten in the shell. Are you feeling queasy yet?

The North American dish of prairie oysters, also known as rocky mountain oysters, sounds innocent enough at first - but beneath their crispy batter lies a dark secret. These are no oysters, but are in fact bull's testicles, hammered flat, tossed in flour and deep fried.

The last item on our gastro tour is so out there, so weird and wonderful that it made headlines on its debut in Hong Kong. The dish in question is shrimp seasoned with ants... and the ants are still alive. Even stranger, one critic described the shrimp as being so recently dead that it was still twitching.

From eyeballs to testicles, we humans really will try anything. Has this article inspired you to broaden your culinary horizons?