CENTRAL DISTRICT, Hong Kong Island – Usually when encountering snakes, people back away, keen to stay at a safe distance. But this time proved different. Everyone eagerly reached forward, chopsticks in hand.

The occasion was an annual snake-meat dinner, exclusively for residents of the outlying Lamma Island, organized by the District Council, subsidized by the government and held recently at a difficult-to-find restaurant in the Central Business District on Hong Kong Island. Tickets cost HK$130 each, a bargain for an eight-course feast with several snake dishes (two in soup form), plus snake wine, eel meat (snakes of the sea, presumably), pigeon (identifiable by the cooked heads) and much more.

Twelve stools surrounded each table. Within moments, every seat had a person perched on it – altogether about 150 folks nearly all Chinese. Some took a ferry ride to Central especially for the unusual meal. Others arrived from their city workplaces. They filled an entire floor in the remarkably unadorned restaurant specializing in snake meat.

A sense of eager expectation filled the room. Then wine flowed, food arrived and everyone turned very busy.

Supposedly, snake meals have a healthy warming influence ideal in cold weather. “During winter the snakes don’t carry poison,” proclaimed one person.

“What?” asked a dubious dining companion, digging into plates and bowls at the same table. “Are you saying that if I’m bitten by a cobra now that I won’t be poisoned?”

Suffice to say that once cooked, the snakes posed no threat. Indications were that the bits of snake meat, of several varieties, some dark, some light, floating in the soup or mixed with vegetables, had been frozen and imported from southern China.

“It was pretty tasty, not too tough,” said one enthusiastic diner, who often has worked as a food critic. “Fortunately, there were no snake teeth in the dishes, but lots of tiny bones. The snake wine was pretty nice too!”

The countless bones, more delicate than fish-bones, even included spines. Did the snake meat resemble chicken? No, it tasted entirely different, neither delicious, nor repulsive.

Plenty of guessing arose due to the presence of other meats too.

“Is this part snake-meat?”

“No, that looks more like pork.”

After an hour, the feast abruptly ended. As Lamma Islanders always do, these diners, once their bellies filled, began to fidget and ponder the ferry schedule. When a few people stood, ready to stroll back to the ferry pier, so did everyone else. (The restaurant managers like to push customers briskly out too.)

These serpent-devouring diners must hope that the poisonous snakes seen when out walking on Lamma never learn about the yearly snake dinner. No one wants slithery retribution.


A snake's long, rounded
shape remains discernible.


Slurp it up! Snake soup tastes good, but
mainly due to the non-serpent ingredients.



Bits of snake, plus other meat and
vegetables, have visual appeal.


Remarkably unadorned, the snake-meat restaurant
stashes plenty of extra veggies within easy reach.

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