Comments on: Taste Test: Dragon fruit

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

White dragon fruit is bland but pink dragon fruit is sweet. What I mean here is the color of its flesh inside. The picture above shows a white dragon fruit.

By: Nycteris

Nycteris — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I wish I could get some of this where I live! It is so beautiful. I have eaten many bags of the dried version (from Trader Joe’s as another commenter mentioned). I didn’t find it bland; I found it to be sweet with a strong dirty/earthy flavor, and the seeds were like kiwi seeds – a little textured nutty crunch.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

try it with french toast and ol’ maple syrup. really. the bland turns to cream soda.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

OK, I tried Dragonfruit, and the best way i can describe it, it is like eating saliva-flavored fruit. It’s in your mouth, but you don’t really taste *anything*. Sure, I got a bad one, sure. Still, the experience was so revolting I will never have another.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

There’s a real good Bacardi Rum with Dragonberry flavoring, it mixes great with Ginger Ale.

By: Becky

Becky — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I love dragon fruit in fruit salads – they tend to pick up the flavors of the other fruits and add an interesting texture. But if you’re thinking of eating it without anything else, don’t bother.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

#5 is correct. The only alcohol to be used in a martini is Gin, with Vermouth optional. Exotic olives should certainly apply!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m an American who lived in Singapore for several years and I LOVE dragon fruit! It is tied with grapefruit as my all-time favorite fruit. I ate a dragonfruit almost every day for breakfast, usually the white ones. They have a mild, sweet flavor and a fantastic crunch! I am craving one right now – but sadly, now I can only eat them when I occasionally find them at an Asian market.

By: lutins

lutins — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Pan fried (very briefly) with pan fried tuna steak is great! It’s like a bland version of melon in flavour/texture so it acts nicely as a foil to the strong tuna.

By: KimberlyClarke

KimberlyClarke — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I too only know the magenta ones from Central America, and I looooove them and am now craving one like mad. I love the taste, it can be subtle/delicate, especially if they are not quite ripe. Of course when you pick them ripe from just outside your front door it does make a big difference. Sigh. (Now back in the UK â€“ brrr.)

Great trick if you do get them ripe and local â€“ and so you will definitely have far more than you can eat fresh â€“ put them in the freezer whole! They donâ€™t freeze solid like an icecube, but more like sorbet â€“ you just cut them in half and tuck in with a spoon, the thick skin is the bowl. Great in smoothies too, and lovely juice (lots of Vit C), especially with some lime added. They also have the most incredible flowers â€“ the huge bud is tightly curled in a spiral, then when it opens itâ€™s white, with a lot of petals making a huge cup the size of a childâ€™s head, and lots of yellow anthers sticking out the middle, plus a central spike, almost like an orchid – and they only open for one night, overnight, so that the bats can pollinate them. If only my Seagate portable hard drive had not started clicking and taken all my photos of Nicaragua (five years) down the pan, I would send you a photo! In Nicalandia theyâ€™re called pithayas (pit eye ya). Oh, doh, Wikipic here: http://bit.ly/btILML

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Tip: It’s tastes sweeter when you sprinkle a tiny bit of salt on it…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

These go really well sliced and served with sliced kiwi.

By: Karnuvap

Karnuvap — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hmmmm scented Febreeze. I thought that Febreeze acted to ‘soak-up’ smells (not mask them) so how would that work then? – surely it should absorb itself?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I love dragon fruit, but when my fiancee ate one in Thailand, it triggered an allergic reaction. Ever since then she can’t eat apples, carrots, cherries, pears, or, of course, dragon fruit.

Has anyone else ever had this happen?

By: glamaFez

glamaFez — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ice Breakers Sours candy (“Tropical Fruit” version) includes “Peach Dragonfruit”. They’re quite addictive.

By: Dewi Morgan

Dewi Morgan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I love dragonfruit. I wouldn’t call the flavour “bland” – I’d call it “subtle”. Nuts, bananas, and many other things we enjoy don’t taste like artificial flavour concentrate. It’s OK not to be overpowering. The texture is also delightful, like icecream laced with poppy seeds. Some people serve it chilled, which emphasises the texture but reduces the flavour. Some people liquidise it and put it in martinis, destroying the both texture and flavour completely. In the end, it’s your call.

If you want a less subtle odor, try the durian fruit. For best effect, leave in your car or by a sunny window, to ripen for a couple of days. This ripening process was so popular in Singapore, there was no room in public transport for passengers! Durians are now banned on all public transport there.

Or, if you want a less subtle texture, try the kiwano fruit. The texture (slimy, rubbery sacs of mucous), is also memorable. Not subtle: simply ghastly.

By: Ty_MY

Ty_MY — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m from Southeast Asia. This article is really going mislead a lot of people away from great tasting dragonfruit.

The dragonfruit you want, is those that has RED instead of white flesh on the inside. The ones with white flesh usually costs only abt US$0.60, while the red flesh ones usually cost double. They are similar on the outside.

The red ones has a sweet, cane-y taste. The flesh also seems slightly softer (gives more easily to the bite). They also look much prettier when served.

By: Beverly Stayart

Beverly Stayart — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Like watermelon, dragon fruit is mostly water, so it would make a good low calorie snack.

By: Xopher

Xopher — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Well, Dewi, I prefer intense flavors. They don’t taste like artificial flavor concentrate to me. And I quite like bananas, but the DF I had was too bland for me. And I didn’t care for the texture, actually, or maybe it was the combination of the texture and the (lack of) flavor.

Durian is the one that smells like shit and tastes like vomit, right? Or is it the other way around?

By: jenjen

jenjen — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I want to thank all the commenters above for describing how this fruit actually TASTES – texture, what to look for, etc. That’s sort of what I would expect from the *author* of a taste test article, but I guess this is what crowdsourcing is all about.

By: aquaeri

aquaeri — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I thought the ones we’ve bought in shops were kinda bland, but then we discovered a wild-growing cactus near where we live, and we picked them ripe. Gosh, they were yummy.

http://aquaeri.dreamwidth.org/43454.html

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

In Beijing, they sell sticks of skewered, sugar-glazed hawberry (kind of like a tart crabapple), and to mix it up, they’ll throw on some dragonfruit or strawberries as well. The candied dragonfruit are a nice sweet compliment to the sour haws, but on their own, they are boring, boring, boring.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

good quality dragon fruit is actually sweet. i found that most of the dragon fruits available in the market taste, yes, bland. My rule of thumb when picking nice dragon fruit – huge in size (like two standard rice bowl cupped together), heavy and not hard.

By: scifijazznik

scifijazznik — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I picked up a package of dried dragon fruit from Trader Joe’s a few months back. I agree with the assessment that it’s fairly bland-tasting. But it was a pleasant sort of bland and I found myself eating about half the bag while at work. A few hours later I was running to the bathroom with a gnarly case of the squirts. So I assume that, at least when dried, they are a bit like prunes on steroids. It gave a whole new meaning to “ride the dragon.”

By: DeadWriter

DeadWriter — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The ones that I had in Cambodia were amazing, at least at the end of the monsoon season. My description is the crispness of an apple with the taste of a strawberry, that isn’t quite right either. I wouldn’t sully a good dragon fruit with sugar or alcohol, but that’s just my sensibilities. Perhaps it was because they were on not on the sweet side, which is something that I prefer.

I have never found a good one in the US. This isn’t just the memory of a “peek experience”, but the one’s in the U.S. stores are usually kind of small and sad. I did find some fairly good sized ones in a large(st?) Asian supermarket, somewhere in San Francisco.

By: megadem

megadem — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It was not just an airplane food thing… I tried several dragon fruits in Thailand, and they were all mostly tasteless. Although maybe the taste is just bland compared to the appearance of the fruit (which is indeed awesome).

By: randomcat

randomcat — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

No… I’d say durian smells more like old sweat socks. And has the texture of a nice soft squishy tarantula ass.

(insert ‘I just frew up in my mouf a little’ lolkitten)

By: pulsekyst

pulsekyst — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

So I live in France, and I read this post this morning, and found the fruit tonight at my local grocery store, so of course i felt compelled to get it immediately. I ate it with a friend who hates fruits in general, and we both enjoyed it. It was a little bland tasting but the texture and feel would make it a really good basis for a refreshing cocktail (like tamarind can)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve had fresh dragon fruit and, yes, it is pretty bland. It tastes pretty good, though, despite the bland, and is such a terrifically pretty fruit. Wonderful to serve cubed – it looks like little dice.

By: Xopher

Xopher — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I ate some fresh. It was beyond bland; I’d call it almost completely flavorless. Pretty as hell, but tasteless and boring.

Hmm. I think I know some young men I’m going to start calling “Dragonfruit!”