If your idea of extreme food is a double cheeseburger with extra onions and ketchup at Mickey D's, leave now. New Jersey, with a dining diversity matched only by New York City and Los Angeles, is home to a dizzying variety of restaurants, many only too willing to push the culinary envelope. "Authentic'' Chinese restaurants are the first place to start, with sliced pig ears, bovine stomach and similarly icky-sounding dishes dotting the menu. Our list of outrageous foods goes well beyond that, though, with camel burgers, brain tacos, ox tongue, python hot dogs and guinea pig empanada among the tasty offerings on N.J. restaurant menus. Yes, guinea pig empanada. No, it doesn't taste like chicken. And spicy fish intestine soup. And did someone say fried muskrat? Put down that boring tuna salad or chicken sandwich, it's time to take a walk on the N.J. dining wild side. What's in the photo? That would be special bovine stomach. So so good. More on it later.
Peter Genovese | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Camel burger, Dark Side of the Moo, Jersey City
"Dark Side of the Moo'' is a perfect name for Tyrone Green's food truck/storefront. Green left his bank job to become the state's leading purveyor of exotic burgers and sausages. His truck is a familiar sight at food festivals, and there is also a Jersey City storefront. You can get a regular old cheeseburger at Dark Side of the Moo, but why would you do that with camel, yak and kangaroo burgers on the menu? What does camel taste like? A bit like beef, with a hint of lamb. Best day to enjoy it? I'd say Wednesday. It is, after all, hump day.
Alex Remnick I The Star-Ledger
Boiled blood curd, Soho Shabu-Shabu, Edison
You can't top authentic Chinese restaurants for culinary derring-do.
Thumbs Up in Edison loved to push the envelope; it is now Soho Shabu-Shabu (a Chinese-Japanese hot pot dish), and many of the out-there dishes remain, like boiled blood curd, quail eggs, pork intestines and beef throat.
Amanda Marzullo I NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Heart Attack Burger, Ducktown Tavern, Atlantic City
No Jersey bar food is more aptly named.
Ducktown Tavern, at the corner of Atlantic and Georgia in Atlantic City, never closes, and your arteries may close for good after downing the infamous Heart Attack Burger. It's a
teetering tower of cholesterol craziness - mozzarella sticks, corn nuggets, onion rings, fries, poppers, bacon, burger, and one "potato boat'' squeezed somehow inside a brioche bun.
Peter Genovese | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Brain taco (cesos), Taqueria Brenda Lee, Passaic
Don't go looking for brain, tongue and head tacos at your local strip mall Mexican restaurant. Head (sorry) instead to down-home taquerias in such places as Dover, Passaic and New Brunswick, where every part of the animal in question can end up in a taco. So what about that brain taco? Looks kinda like cauliflower, tastes like an agreeable soft mush.