If you’ve been looking for a replacement for your 80’s style koosh ball, then this is the fruit for you!
APPEARANCE Rating: ★★★★☆

Fuschia pink ball with dark, soft spikes. There is a translucent eyeball of flesh inside.

AROMA Rating: ★★★★☆

Very mild, subtle sweetness with an earthy undertone.

TEXTURE Rating: ★★½☆☆

Gelatinous, firm and juicy. There is a prominent seed in the middle and the skin of the seed seems to like to stick to the fruit bits, which is annoying.

TASTE Rating: ★★★½☆

Mild and sweet; Reminds me of apples and cotton candy.

OVERALL Overall Rating: ★★★½☆

These are certainly a little bite of adventure. I loved digging my thumbs in to the hairy shells and then popping out the gelatinous globe. My inner adolescent was dying to run out of the house screaming and holding my eye in order to terrify the neighbor kids by popping it in my mouth. But alas, Mr. Maven beat me to it.

FRUIT

Rambutan

VARIETY

Unknown

PEAK

Winter/Summer

ORIGIN

Southeast Asia

GROWN

Unknown

PROVIDED BY

Specialty Produce

NOTES

I only had four of these and for some reason (we’ll call it excitement), I was too impatient to research these prior to eating all of them. Yes, all of them. Had I done so, I would have realized these were slightly past their ideal season (Dec/Jan), which probably explains the slightly dark patches. Nonetheless they were delicious. You can see more cool pictures of them and similar fruit here. As a sidenote, I liked them much better than longan.

WHERE TO GET THEM

When in season, you can buy Rambutan at most asian grocery stores and online here. If you get them online, a small amount will go to support the Fruit Maven. So thanks in advance!