They have a wall or two (sometimes more) of aquariums full of all types of fish and sea creatures.

On one occasion I was taken by a potential new supplier to a high end back alley restaurant. It was like the secret society type places that you hear about, but have doubts that they actually exist. You go through the unmarked door in the alley, up the dark stairway and then into the restaurant. They had some of the usual aquariums, but they also had a number of caged animals. Reptiles, amphibians, and furry little mammals were in the cages. I wasn’t very comfortable with the situation, but rode it out because I didn’t want to cause a scene.

As I’m looking at some of the aquariums on the wall I accidentally bumped a cage on the ground with my foot. There were some snakes in it and the snake on top struck really hard at my foot through the cage but didn’t get me. It was a King Cobra, there were two others in the cage but the other two hardly moved and looked nearly dead. I was stunned that a king cobra would be kept in that flimsy a cage and able to strike a customer. I wasn’t too fond of the snake after he took a shot at me, so I had them make him for our dinner. I picked a couple other fish and left all the furry critters alone. There was one cage that had a few bats in it, but they didn’t have any of those armadillo looking things at this restaurant that I could see.

Quite the eerie experience, and needless to say, enough to persuade me to go with another supplier. Way too shady for my liking.

Here is a picture I snuck of the cobra in his cage, you can click the link to remove the watermark and see the markings on his hood.