Shanghai restaurant serves elephant dung dessert with crunchy, bread-like texture in $550 combo, sparking controversy on social media.
Canopia restaurant, a rainforest-themed restaurant, has attracted attention with a 15-course menu priced at around $550, including leaves, honey-covered ice cubes, dishes made from insects and, most notably, elephant dung. The two founders - a Chinese and a Frenchman - spent seven years studying the rainforests of Yunnan province, southwest China, to get inspiration for the restaurant's design.
Mixue's Culinary Notes, a food blogger with over 400,000 followers, shared her dining experience at the restaurant on the Xiaohongshu platform on April 7. The blogger said diners enjoyed the appetizer by picking leaves from the pot, dipping them in sauce, and eating them raw. The next dish was ice cubes covered in honey and pollen. The next dish had a black, slime-like texture, emitting the characteristic stench of Rafflesia, a carrion flower famous for its rotting flesh smell.
The controversial item on the menu is a dessert called "flowers stuck in elephant dung" with a base made from real elephant dung that has been sterilized and dried to look and feel like breadcrumbs. It is topped with herbal perfume, fruit jam, pollen and a non-dairy honey cream. Diners have many options for toppings to make their dish different.
However, many diners are not sure whether the elephant dung dessert has been quality tested. According to Chinese food hygiene laws, the ingredients used in the dish must be safe and meet nutritional standards.
The dish has caused heated debate on social media. "None of us in Yunnan eat elephant dung," commented an angry Xiaohongshu user.
Others said the dish was like a test of whether the rich are willing to ignore the objectionable taste of eating strange things to show off their status. However, some people still defended the restaurant's innovative approach to sustainable and environmentally friendly activities.
(According to SCMP)