Oven-baked tarantula on Bardo bizarre foods dinner menu

We’ve been touting the pleasures and wisdom of eating dessert first here over the past couple of days, but something has come up.

Eating dessert first seems like a fine idea . . . unless dessert is an oven-baked Cambodian tarantula.

Never mind that Bardo Executive Chef Edward Storey plans to top it with sweet hoisin sauce.

So why not then eat dinner in order, you suggest. That way, I might not have room for that tarantula dessert. Great idea, unless the first course is Leaf-Cutter Ant and Spring Green Salad with Toasted Weaver Ant Eggs and Blood Orange Vinaigrette.

There will be no where to hide during “Bite Back,” a bizarre foods dinner taking place March 15 at Bardo Edibles and Elixirs on 21st Street in Norfolk. Storey, the restaurant’s new executive chef, has planned this dinner as a way to introduce himself to diners, but mostly to have a little fun and mix things up a bit.

Storey’s roots are in Southern cooking, and his regular offerings tend more toward the mainstream. But for this dinner, he’s been searching the globe for foods us flatlanders might otherwise never meet.

Slow-braised sweet and spicy chicken feet, anyone? Or Rocky Mountain oysters with pan gravy and toast points? How about Kill It and Grill it Black Emperor Scorpion? (They are now housed in a terrarium near the restaurant’s open kitchen and that’s Storey in the picture holding one.)

If you are game for this, make your reservation now. (I will be there, and am currently working up my culinary courage. Storey reports that yes, the tarantula is hairy. And yes, I’m wincing as I write this.)

The cost is $64.88 per person, tax and gratuity not included. Reservations required. Call (757) 6BARDO2. the restaurant is located at 430 W. 21st Street in the Ghent section of Norfolk.

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