I spent the last few days in Paris, where I was promoting some running events I co-organize here in my Island. In some free time I had, I took a visit to the local "China Town" (Cartier Chinois), where I was able to find an asian supermarket with plenty of tropical fruits, including fresh Durian, for my surprise. The prices weren't cheap, but some of these are fruits I'm not able to put my hands on that often, so I take some, having tasted 3 for the first time: Durian, Star apple, and a type o Salacca that I think is S. wallichiana.
My first impression on the Durian, was that it doesn't smell that bad as some people says, at least for my nose. However the seeds are quite stinky. The taste at first is quite bizarre, but I liked, at least this variety. It was a mix, of curry, roasted pork, banana and maybe passion fruit; a friend that was with me, also tasted a bit, and had the same opinion about taste. The thing with it, is that the seeds are huge and the flesh isn't that much, but still worth the experience. Saved the seeds to plant, let's see how they're going to develop...
The best surprise for me was the Caimito! I never payed to much attention to this fruit, and for so many times I had the opportunity to buy cheap seeds of this species, and always tought it wouldn't please me; this time as it was just there, and it wasn't that expensive (comparing to others), I decided to get one, and I loved it. Can't descrive the taste, but it was very, very good. Regreted to have bought only one. By the way, it was the green type. Also saved the seeds to plant.
Another that decided to buy, was the Salacca. It was labeled (from the origin) as S. zalacca, but it definitely wasn't that species! I think it is S. wallichiana (it would be great if someone could confirm, or trow the correct ID), and bought it just to compare with S. zalacca, that I tried 2 years ago. I had read the this species was inferior, in almost everything, to S. zalacca, but wanted to have my own opinion, and ended up very happy to had pick that, as for me these are much better than than S. zalacca, only loosing for the size, that is almost half of the other. It is much more Juicier, sweet and has very good perfume; in the other hand is less crunchier. I got most fruits with a single lobe, but also some with 2 lobes and one with 3 lobes. Will plant them separated as I read somewhere that seeds from 3 lobed fruits are more prone to produce female plants.
Also got Sugar apple, and some longans, and these last ones, surprised me because they were a little bit bigger than the ones that I had before (some were almost the size of lychees), but also the seeds were much bigger than the ones that I'm used to eat; also the skin was quite thicker, much more than the 2 other varieties that I already had; and finnaly, another surprise was the size of leaves, as it had one leave with it, and comparing with the leaves from my plants, they are less than half the size.