the Best Bull City Burger: Entering this lottery for Eddie

Kristin Barnaby, a self-described arachnophobe, found a way to overcome what she dreads at a North Carolina burger joint.

"I am going to eat my fear," the 27-year-old said at the Bull City Burger and Brewery, where she tucked in to a hamburger topped with a crunchy full-grown, oven-roasted tarantula and a side of fries.

The tarantula burger was a feature of the restaurant's April exotic meat month, which in the past six years has featured iguana, alligator, camels, python, turtle and various insects.

Tarantulas made their debut after restaurant owner Seth Gross read about how they have become a street food staple in Cambodia, where they are mixed with salt and sugar and cooked.

"I thought this would be a great way to really teach about diversity," Gross said in an interview.

The tarantula burger is not for everyone. Gross gets only 15 of the farmed, organically raised creatures each year, so diners need to be lucky, as well as daring, to get a taste.

"You come in, you fill in a lottery ticket," he said. "If we draw your name, you come and get to eat one."

The lucky winners have up to 48 hours to claim their prize and Gross said none have yet backed out.

And what do tarantulas taste like?

"It reminded me of potato chips," Barnaby said after washing down her first tarantula burger with a glass of water. "I like to eat weird food."

(Reporting by Njuwa Maine; Writing by Peter Szekely; Editing by Scott Malone and Bill Trott)

http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/offbeat/you-want-tarantula-with-that-at-us-burger-joint-its-an-option/ar-AAvZJju?ocid=ientp

Bull City Burger and Brewery in Durham, North Carolina is offering customers the chance to try a tarantula, which is lightly salted and oven baked and used to top one of the restaurant's classic beef patties.

Bull City Burger, which, with the likes of duck fat fries and rye pretzels with beer sauce, already has a fairly interesting menu, said: "People say it tastes most like crab, or other shellfish, sometimes with a bit of a metallic-y taste. BUT, the legs, the body...each bite tastes a bit different."

Guests hoping to try the creature must enter a $30 'tarantula raffle'. Anyone who polishes off the $30 dish gets a t-shirt. Four people have taken on the spider so far.

There are just 18 zebra tarantulas available. The spiders are native to Costa Rica and other parts of Central America. In the wild, they eat grasshoppers and cockroaches and reach a leg span of up to 13cm.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/restaurant-shocks-diners-topping-burger-12355896