Mmm. It tastes like cheesecake,' a lunch companion enthuses. It is not the response a group of tourists in China are expecting after the adventurous diner bites into a brown larva that looks more like faeces.
We are sitting in the back room of the Three Brothers Scorpion Restaurant in Xian, Shaanxi province, having asked our hosts to treat us to a local restaurant rather than the usual tourist haunts.
We had imagined bowls of noodles, served Muslim style, or platefuls of dumplings with exotic fillings. Instead, we are about to make great demands on our digestive systems and expand our definitions of what constitutes food.
Insects are not the 'normal' food served in Xian: they are a delicacy. The five-year-old scorpion restaurant is - not surprisingly - the only one of its kind in the city.
The cheesecake remark helps soothe any frayed nerves in the room and teases us out of our reluctance to experience the unusual fare. We take turns biting into the crunchy shell of the larvae, then swallow the yellow, powder-like filling.
I close my eyes to make the experience more palatable but my stomach lurches with the first bite.
Larvae taste nothing like cheesecake; they taste like, well . . . insects.
What seems absurd is that such revolting food is prepared with great attention to aesthetics: larvae are served on a bed of sliced tomatoes; the beanworms on cucumbers; the deep-fried maggots with coloured shrimp chips; and the deep-fried scorpions with maraschino cherries on the side.
Scorpions top shrimp toast like a decoration, or come rolled in sesame - the only dish where the insect itself cannot be discerned.
Ants are sprinkled atop boiled eggs, june bugs are presented in a crispy bowl of deep-fried noodles, grasshoppers are served on a bed of eggs. The delicacies come relatively cheap. It costs five yuan (about HK$4.50) for a deep-fried scorpion, two yuan for a larva, and two yuan for a beanworm. Maggots come at 26 yuan a dish. Scorpion wine costs 86 yuan per bottle.
Liu Kaijin, the owner, enters after each course is served, espousing the nutrients the insects provide. One is said to turn your hair darker, another is good for getting rid of pimples.
He allays concerns about dirt and diseases, explaining there are 10 steps to cleaning the scorpions for consumption.
'It takes three years for them to grow. They are fed, allowed to excrete waste, then put in containers under a weak light to neutralise the poison in the tail,' he says.
The final dish - live scorpions - causes squeamishness and discomfort and we turn to our waitress for words of reassurance.
Li Yongli, 19, obligingly steps forward to give us a demonstration.
Grasping the scorpion's tail between her chopsticks, she dips its head into a home-made paste to blind it, bites off the tail and sucks on it for three seconds, then swallows the rest of the writhing body.
We applaud her bravado before voicing our disgust.
'I felt the same originally, but I eat them every day now for demonstrations,' says Ms Li, who has worked at the restaurant for two years.
Ms Li's demonstration inspires two of my companions - both pimple-free - to try the scorpions in one final act of bravery.
Both women get as far as biting off the tail before giving up.
Wendy Kan was a guest of Dragonair and the Hyatt Regency Xian
