Fruits of Chinatown - 01/18/2014

In my weekly shopping trips to Chinatown, I've notice there has been some interesting fruits that are in season recently. These aren't usually found in supermarkets so they're an unusual find. I don't have my camera handy but I found that the iphone do a pretty decent job.  I had to look up some of the names of the fruits I found.  Unfortunately, like a lot of stuff in chinatown, prices are sometimes not posted and I didn't want to ask and just grabbed a shot.
There were plenty of these Rambutans available and people were buying them up. These are one of the coolest looking fruits in my opinion.

I actually smelled these before I saw them. These are supposed to be prized fruits for some, but to others, they smell like a pile of rotting rubbish. I'd sure hate to live next door to a Durian farm!  The ones here look to be at least a couple of pounds each and judging by the price, I really don't know what to think of them.

I saw these and had no idea what they are so I googled and believe these are called Santol and are popular in the Philippines.  I read that they are used in cooking in Thailand.  I  also read that ingesting the seed will perforate your intestine and kill you.. The thought of it makes me not want to give these a try.

I found these Tamarinds sold by the bunch.  I've only had candied ones that someone brought back from Thailand but never tried fresh ones...looks interesting.

I actually bought some of these Dragon Eye fruit.  They were selling for $4.99 per pound and I believe a bunch like this is usually around 2+ lbs and mine came out to be $11(!) so they can be very pricey.  Luckily, the ones I bought were pretty sweet and pretty meaty.

Someone once told me about these.  They're called Sapodilla or Chico in the Philippines. They look like a cross between furless kiwi and potato. I asked the seller how to tell when it's ripe and she said when it feels soft.  I was told these fruits are really tasty so I decided to give it a try.

I got this one with the leaf on it for a better photo effect.  It was hard so I figure it wasn't ripe enough to eat yet.

After a week, one of them got soft and looked ripe enough to eat so I decided to cut it.

I can't compare the taste to any other fruit I've had, but it was really sweet. The texture was like eating apple sauce with a little grittiness and it was pretty good.  This fruit also has a vicious looking seed that I'm sure will also kill you if you ingest it because of that sharp hook in the seed.  I was very careful when eating these, but at least the seed is pretty big. I'll have to wait for the other one to get ripe before I eat it.

A coworker bought an egg fruit a couple of weeks ago.  I tried it and posted about it before but I didn't care for that previous experience because I think I ate it when it wasn't ripe.  This one was mostly yellow and seemed pretty ripe as it was soft and I could also smell the fruit.  I took this w/ the macro mode and it made it look like a small pumpkin.

After it was cut, it look more like a egg yolk so hence the namesake.  The texture was like eating an Okinawan sweet potato but sweeter.