The Fat Duck is nothing short of amazing. Heston Blumenthal's creations are at once fun, provoking and on a completely different plane of food experiences.
This is not food as you taste it. This is food as you taste, smell, see, think, believe it.
There is something rather scientific about his approach. I can see why he is said to be of the category of molecular gastronomy of whatever that term is called. But what is fascinating is that his approach renders his food nothing short of philosophical. The result is an experience rather like that of watching a Stoppard play - it is thought provoking, yet at the same time, with a tinge of tongue-in-cheek (pun unintended) playfulness. I felt almost like a kid going through a meal of my dreams for the first time.
The full tasting menu ran as follows:
Starter: the nitro-green tea and lime mousse.
It is made from a mousse which has to be expressed onto a spoon before being frozen using liquid nitrogen in front of you. It is made from lime, green tea and vodka and served immediately with a sprinkling of green tea. You are told to pick it up instantly with your fingers gently and eat it.
It cracks softly in your fingers (mine anyway, I wasn't gentle enough) and melts in your mouth, despite having a texture much like a macaroon.
No pictures of this - there wasn't time.
This is swiftly followed by an unnamed amuse bouche of beetroot and orange jelly which came as a plate of two small squares one yellow and another red. You are told to eat the orange one first.
Obviously, you pick up the yellow one, based on common assumptions we pick up without realising that food colourings of citrus flavoured fruits must usually be yellow or orange based.
It tastes nothing like citrus, but instead has a carrot, beetroot flavour.
The mind realises that it has been fooled and is suitably curious now to see what happens next, which indeed is a roller coaster of the unexpected.
Oyster with Passion Fruit Jelly and Lavender. Which smells and tastes like a fresh summer day at the sea side. The crystalline lavender topping it all off when eaten all at once had a lovely crunch, reminiscent of sand under your toes or when you crunch into the sand in an oyster (but nicely flavoured). And the fresh oyster balanced perfectly with the crispness of the passion fruit jelly, which perfectly removed all fishy odours, leaving only a gentle, warm taste in your mouth, much like a fond memory.
This was followed by pommery grain mustard ice cream served with a red cabbage gazpacho poured lukewarm around the ice cream. There was a lot of ices and sorbets in the meal, including one tribute to Mrs Marshall who apparently invented, among other things, the ice cream cone and an ice making machine between 1855 to 1905.
Another experience item followed after - jelly of quail, langoustine cream, parfait of foie gras with oak moss and truffle toast.
You start with a moss film placed on your tongue to let it melt, then sniff a square of oak moss served as a mist, you smell it, not eat it. It made the air smell like you just walked into a forest after a spring rain, and when eating the truffle toast, was reminiscent of the French countryside and countryside hearth cooking. The quail jelly layer coupled that perfectly and you could literally walk right into the loveliest parts of Toulouse right there with the meal. This was Sabine's favourite dish, although again because of time and experience, no photos of the Oak moss were present.
Then followed the famous Snail Porridge. You'd think that this was the strangest dish on the menu, with green porridge and snail but surprisingly it tasted the most normal. It was a warm, savoury concoction of porridge with the crunchy chewiness of snail.
The next one also somewhat warm was the roast foie gras with an almond and cherry theme. It was interesting how the foie gras was set off beautifully with almond. It is just one of those combinations, like many in the meal, that you wouldn't naturally think of and yet once done, goes so perfectly and makes so much sense that you wonder why it was that nobody had ever thought of it.
Following on that - my personal favourite - sardine on toast sorbet. I have no idea how he managed to make it, but it was beautiful. Done in a style reminiscent of something slightly Asian (perhaps due to the fish) it came with marinated daikon and topping the sorbet off were four large fish roe. The sea salad was sprinkled with fried crunchy anchovies, very reminiscent of what my parents used to cook at home and top off on rice.
It strikes you perhaps as a bit odd to have sardine sorbet at first, but when you think about it upon tasting, it makes perfect sense. We eat sushi and sashimi cold anyway, and experience the best of fish dishes with the true flavour coming out at the temperature of the sea. Doesn't it make sense then that it only tastes like somewhat colder sushi?
The experience of numerous cultures in food makes certain experiences seem "odd" to some, and seem "normal" to others. However, in his experiments, Heston Blumenthal seems to take on the cultural experience of food right on its head by questioning and trying to get to the root of how we experience food - almost as if to question if there is not a universal framework upon which, with the right context, we come to approach and appreciate food.
Salmon Poached with Liquorice followed. This seemed to me to taste, in texture and experience almost like how it would feel like to have eaten chewing gum if it was a complete meal. It was a sensory melange of taste and texture exploding in your mouth all at once.
Another warm dish - the poached breast of Anjou pigeon pancetta. This was strong and gamey, but the pigeon had never been more tender as it was done medium-rare. It came with pistachio and quatre epices and topped off with a sauce that can be said to be more like foam than sauce.
Again, another play on textures and a combination of the senses coming in. The fluffy air of the foam combined with the tenderness of pigeon and the crunch of roasted pancetta in a mouthful was heavenly.
After this is dessert. By this time, 2 hours and fifteen minutes have passed and we are two thirds the way of what was expected to be a 3.5 hour meal. We've passed two acts which were clearly defined nearly in thirds, each taking about an hour - the first is the teaser, a series of light meals full of taste in interesting combinations to whet and tease the tastebuds. Then the bulk of mains served like the heavy meats of operas. And then now, the unexpected close - dessert, served like a play of fantasy, where things are not what they should logically be.
To follow, as a palate cleanser - hot and cold tea. This is a hot and cold earl grey simply named and served with the specific instructions to drink it only from the side of the glass that is facing you. A simple, clear, somewhat larger than normal shot glass with a O, + and - at the base of the glass. It puzzles you.
And you take a sip. Hot to the left and cold to the right flow on your tongue. It is a delightful tease, another amuse bouche that truly amused more than your tongue.
How was it done? The right (cold) tea is not 100% liquid, there is a texture closer to a very very light jelly that forms it. How it was done was that a divider was placed in the middle of the glass, to which on the left was placed hot/warm tea, and to the right, cold tea jelly with a different density. The divider was then removed very carefully leaving a glass with tea and no visible difference between the two temperatures. As the densities are different the two do not mix or diffuse into one another. Of course, the reminder that you drink the tea only from the side served to you, since otherwise, the effect would be completely lost.
Simple, but utterly fascinating and amazing. What genius thought of that must definitely have played long and hard with his food! The cleverness of this dish made it one of my favourite.
After the temperature transition caused by the tea (again, brilliant) dessert is served cold with a cornet following - Mrs Marshall's Margaret Cornet. It comes with a little booklet explaining the life and times of Mrs Marshall and her contributions to the cooking world. You read this as you take one of these cornets from a plate and enjoy it like a kid.
Then another amuse bouche of a pine sherbet fountain ensures. it is a small package - a pine twig placed on some white, sharp sour powder which you lick off the pine.
Mango and Douglas Fir Puree follows. After the pine, you are prepared to eat trees and do not realise it in the next dish. It is brilliant, light, classic but probably the best dessert one can have.
What follows is a carrot and orange tuile (served as a light sheet on a toothpick as a lollypop) and beetroot jelly. The beetroot is sour sharp and makes you feel like a kid eating candy.
Then it's time for breakfast says the waiter who comes by your table with a "good morning". You're already in this fantasy wonderland of make believe where anything can happen.
She explains that we have "run out of gas" and serves you scrambled egg ice cream frozen on the spot with liquid nitrogen after cracking open her special creamy eggs into the pan on a plate of pain perdu topped with frozen, carpaccio sliced bacon.
It is served with earl grey tea jelly - again the delicious earl grey, this time made to resemble egg whites in texture and appearance.
Optional tea follows, marking the end of the meal and goodbyes are accompanied by whisky wine gums and violet tartelet.
3.5 hours and £135 later - one experiences the ordinary in an extraordinary way. Who could have imagined that food, just simple food, could be such a voyage into discovery? It is an inquisition, into the very atoms of what makes life up and our experiences - taste, sound, sight, touch, sensation. Having broken them down into composite bits and then reconstructed them into novel and provoking pieces - I'm not quite sure what to call this delight that Heston Blumenthal has created, whether it is science, or art.
No comments:
Post a Comment