"Emu! Croc! Roo! Are you game?"

One of our first weeks in Australia, we went to the Queen Victoria Night Market for a little souvenir shopping (unfortunately the colder weather has ended this but we can still enjoy the day market!).  We’d only been to the market during the day and had figured the night market would just be more of the same.  Some of the other Loyola students in our group had been before though and recommended it for shopping and dinner at the food stands so we trusted their judgement and followed them to the train. 

Expecting only a few options (the market had to be smaller at night right?) we walked into the market and were immediately greeted by row upon row of brightly coloured stands with signs claiming delicacies from all over the world.  This one had Dutch pancakes. That one had Korean twisted potatoes (these are really good).  There were so many options we didn’t know what to choose.  

Feeling a little overwhelmed, we each grabbed a cup of sangria and kept wandering through the endless maze looking for our dinner until we passed a stand with a mustard yellow sign that proclaimed in bold black letters “Emu! Croc! Roo!  Are you game?”

 Kangaroos, crocodiles and emus.  What do they have in common?  Apparently they’re all “authentic Australian food” (yep thats right food).  We looked up at the sign for Banjo’s barbecue again.  People ate kangaroos here?  As skeptical as we were we couldn’t help but be a little curious.  Dividing into groups of two we stepped up to the stand and, after saying a mental apology to the kangaroos we’d seen at the zoo the other week, ordered a few Great Australian Bites to share (this platter had samples of all three).  

The platters we’d been handed didn’t look any different from food we’d eaten before but knowing what it really was, we were a little hesitant to taste it (I should note that I am a very picky eater--although Australia is slowly trying to change that).  Nevertheless we’d paid for it and we were strangely curious.  What would it taste like?  We were about to find out...but first we needed to find a table.  Apparently everyone else at the market had recently become hungry too and all the tables were packed.  After wandering the rows of tables looking for empty chairs (any empty chairs) we managed to find enough seats by splitting into the groups of two we’d ordered with.

By this time we were famished and could no longer wait to get our first taste of some authentic Australian food.  Dividing our small platter in two so there we could each taste all three Bianca and I came up with our game plan: Emu, then croc, saving the roo for last.  Cutting off a small piece of our emu sausages we took a quick picture to commemorate the moment, did a cheers with our forks and took a tentative bite…It tasted like any other sausage.  Encouraged by the familiar taste, we moved onto the crocodile nuggets to find that they tasted almost like a saltier chicken, except the texture was more like calamari (not going to lie that one was a little weird).  

Finally it was time for kangaroo burger.  After cutting the patty in half, it was more pictures (and a sip of sangria to cleanse the palate) before cautiously raising our forks to our mouths and taking a bite.  I’m not going to lie, the kangaroo was a little disappointing but the disappointment didn’t last long.  I’d been hoping it would be awful, something I could easily say I would never in a million years eat again, but it was delicious.  It tasted just like steak (and yes I have eaten it again since then--it was just too good to resist).