“Few aromas and flavors are as piercingly arid, earthy, complex and ripe as the compelling durian. If it were possible to actually smell acid with a bad attitude, it seems this would be the form it would take. The putrid invitation durian dispels into the air seems to be quite counter to its taste, which is in another mad direction all together. The texture is akin to smooth, non-juicy grapefruit, which is disarming and unexpected. Then flavors unload and bombard the palate with fury: roasted garlic, pulpy green apple and a rush of gamey, sinewy acidity that seems unnatural. Your brain goes into alert mode, raising your blood pressure, before you settle down and get the complexities of rotting vegetable and other unmentionables. Thankfully, more benign flavors are in the background, with unripe pear, rock melon and lush peach all competing to show themselves in what will be one of the toughest assaults of flavor your palate will ever undergo.”
