Palatesex
Apologies for the diversion, but today I am becoming 'palatesex.co.uk'... after having an incredible lunch at the Fat Duck restaurant.
For those who don't know, The Fat Duck was voted best restaurant in the world in 2005 (and came runner-up last year), thanks to Heston Blumenthal's 'Molecular Gastronomy' approach to cooking. The kitchen is as much a laboratory as a kitchen, and results in remarkable signature dishes like Snail Porridge, and Bacon & Egg ice cream.
The restaurant is just a few miles down the road from me, and after half-talking about it for a couple of years my mum & I finally decided to head down for a little lunch-time snacking. We're both pretty adventurous eaters & this place certainly appealed to our intrepid tastebuds.
Of course, being our first visit, we were obliged to sample the famous 'taster menu'... an 18-course spectacular featuring an astonishing array of flavours, textures and aromas... many hugely unexpected.
Allow me to bore you with the details.
The meal began with a 'Palate Cleanser'. Which naturally in the Fat Duck requires a large quantity of Liquid Nitrogen! At our table, a meringue mix of Egg White, Lime, Vodka and Green Tea was sprayed onto a spoon from an aerosol - before being dunked for a minute in a smoking bowl of liquid nitrogen (at -196 degrees celsius!).
Gingerly picking up the resulting meringe, and putting it in my mouth, resulted in an explosion of refreshing flavour unlike anything i've experienced. Fresh saliva bubbled on my tongue, awaiting the first dish... which like all the others arrived swiftly.
So first up were these two little squares of jelly... one orange and one beetroot.
The first surprise was that the orange jelly tasted overwhelmingly of.... beetroot. While the red square had an unmistakable orange tang. Apparently the flavourings are derived from Blood Oranges and Orange Beetroot... just to keep you on your toes. A very tasty way to kick things off, swiftly followed by Oyster, Passion fruit Jelly & Lavender. An oyster (in its shell) sitting on a bed of sea salt, with a delicious passion fruit 'jus'. Every oyster i've had previously has been accompanied by a splash of tabasco and a wide open mouth, so it was great to savour the flavour by slowly eating it with a knife & fork.
Following the Oyster was Grain Mustard Ice Cream with Red Cabbage Gazpacho, one of the nicest things we ate.
The mustard ice cream was sensational, and complimented the powerful cabbage soup perfectly.
You know those listerine strips that stick to the roof of your mouth? Well the next course began with one of those... except moss flavoured. This was presented on a bed of steaming moss to accompany some Truffle Toast.
I must admit the accompanying 'soup' derived from pea, langoustines & foie gras wasn't one of my favourite dishes. The kind of overpowering flavours beloved by poncey restaurants... and an aftertaste of guilt caused by eating foie gras and not particularly enjoying it.
Next was the famous Snail Porridge. The appearance of which wasn't quite how i'd expected. Rather than a white sludge with bits of snail in, the porridge was a vivid green. And after my first experience of snails I have to conclude that they're rather tasty. I'm not about to go digging in the garden, but like most peculiar things i've eaten (ants; locusts; guinea pig & snake for example) they were well nice. I didn't find that the 'Joselito Ham and Shaved Fennel' added too much, but overall it was a surprisingly tasty treat.
So then to yet more Foie Gras. I don't understand the infatuation certain restaurants have with it, particularly since the flavour doesn't for me warrant the undoubted suffering it causes the Goose. However to my shame I didn't become a consciencious objector here. I thought i'd better try some really good Roast Foie Gras before deciding if it's worth boycotting. Well it was OK. Nothing I can't live without though. Save the Goose!
For The Sound of The Sea we were issued with mini-ipod shuffles, whose seaside sounds were intended to prepare us for a dish of Tapioca (sand), Seafood & Seaweed (kelp) & foamed shellfish juice (surf). It was fantastic. A beatiful seafood dish, although I was rather distracted by trying to work out how the hell you charge a mini-ipod, and where to plug in your USB cable.
This is my mum getting down to "the sound of the sea"!
So, having dispatched the seven (?) starters, it was time for the mains. Salmon Poached with Liquorice and Best End of Lamb. The lamb in particular was incredible. I assume it had been roasted in the same way as Heston Blumenthal's notorious roast beef... roasted at a very low temperature for 20 hours of more. The texture was remarkable, and the cut seemed to have been hugged by the oven rather than blasted with heat. The roast potato accompanying the dish, which was around the size of a pound coin, provided some amusement, but the lamb will live long in the memory.
To begin the desserts was a cup of Hot and Cold Iced Tea. Which bizarrely and somehow defying the laws of physics, was freezing cold on the left of the glass and scorching hot on the right. With no mixing of the two temperatures in the middle. The tea was slightly viscous, which I suspect was its secret. But still very strange to slurp down a hot and cold drink from the same glass!
Here you see me enjoying Mrs Marshall's Hilarious Margaret Cornet (not entirely its correct title), and a Douglas Fir flavoured Sherbert Fountain.
and after a couple more deserts...
began the 'breakfast menu'. Starting with parsnip flake cereal with parsnip milk.
before the famous nitro-scrambled egg and bacon ice cream was prepared at our table. An egg had somehow been scrambled in its shell, and infused with bacon flavour. This was then cracked into a pan and mixed with more liquid nitrogen to create ice cream... served on some sweetened French toast, and washed down with some jellied ice tea. Yum!
An indication of the strange gastronomic hotbed that this village has become, came as we left the restaurant and ran into Michel Roux outside... heading down to his own Michelin Starred joint down the road. In fact there are only three restuarants in the UK with three stars, and two are in Bray (population, I dunno.. 1000?):
Anyway sorry if that bored you to tears, but it was a pretty interesting lunch.. and since it's my blog i'll write about what I want! The meal, as you'd expect, wasn't cheap! (£150 incl. service & wine); but it's not often a meal will stick in the memory for quite so long. I actually thought it was very good value for what you get served up. Had my bank balance agreed I would have gone for the wine taster menu that accompanies the the banquet, but that's £95 in itself (or £295 for the more expensive selection!) so since I was bankrupting myself anyway I thought i'd give that a miss & stick to the £9 a glass plonk! (which was delicious itself).
Treat yourself (or preferably someone else) sometime. It's well worth it!
For those who don't know, The Fat Duck was voted best restaurant in the world in 2005 (and came runner-up last year), thanks to Heston Blumenthal's 'Molecular Gastronomy' approach to cooking. The kitchen is as much a laboratory as a kitchen, and results in remarkable signature dishes like Snail Porridge, and Bacon & Egg ice cream.
The restaurant is just a few miles down the road from me, and after half-talking about it for a couple of years my mum & I finally decided to head down for a little lunch-time snacking. We're both pretty adventurous eaters & this place certainly appealed to our intrepid tastebuds.
Of course, being our first visit, we were obliged to sample the famous 'taster menu'... an 18-course spectacular featuring an astonishing array of flavours, textures and aromas... many hugely unexpected.
Allow me to bore you with the details.
The meal began with a 'Palate Cleanser'. Which naturally in the Fat Duck requires a large quantity of Liquid Nitrogen! At our table, a meringue mix of Egg White, Lime, Vodka and Green Tea was sprayed onto a spoon from an aerosol - before being dunked for a minute in a smoking bowl of liquid nitrogen (at -196 degrees celsius!).
Gingerly picking up the resulting meringe, and putting it in my mouth, resulted in an explosion of refreshing flavour unlike anything i've experienced. Fresh saliva bubbled on my tongue, awaiting the first dish... which like all the others arrived swiftly.
So first up were these two little squares of jelly... one orange and one beetroot.
The first surprise was that the orange jelly tasted overwhelmingly of.... beetroot. While the red square had an unmistakable orange tang. Apparently the flavourings are derived from Blood Oranges and Orange Beetroot... just to keep you on your toes. A very tasty way to kick things off, swiftly followed by Oyster, Passion fruit Jelly & Lavender. An oyster (in its shell) sitting on a bed of sea salt, with a delicious passion fruit 'jus'. Every oyster i've had previously has been accompanied by a splash of tabasco and a wide open mouth, so it was great to savour the flavour by slowly eating it with a knife & fork.
Following the Oyster was Grain Mustard Ice Cream with Red Cabbage Gazpacho, one of the nicest things we ate.
The mustard ice cream was sensational, and complimented the powerful cabbage soup perfectly.
You know those listerine strips that stick to the roof of your mouth? Well the next course began with one of those... except moss flavoured. This was presented on a bed of steaming moss to accompany some Truffle Toast.
I must admit the accompanying 'soup' derived from pea, langoustines & foie gras wasn't one of my favourite dishes. The kind of overpowering flavours beloved by poncey restaurants... and an aftertaste of guilt caused by eating foie gras and not particularly enjoying it.
Next was the famous Snail Porridge. The appearance of which wasn't quite how i'd expected. Rather than a white sludge with bits of snail in, the porridge was a vivid green. And after my first experience of snails I have to conclude that they're rather tasty. I'm not about to go digging in the garden, but like most peculiar things i've eaten (ants; locusts; guinea pig & snake for example) they were well nice. I didn't find that the 'Joselito Ham and Shaved Fennel' added too much, but overall it was a surprisingly tasty treat.
So then to yet more Foie Gras. I don't understand the infatuation certain restaurants have with it, particularly since the flavour doesn't for me warrant the undoubted suffering it causes the Goose. However to my shame I didn't become a consciencious objector here. I thought i'd better try some really good Roast Foie Gras before deciding if it's worth boycotting. Well it was OK. Nothing I can't live without though. Save the Goose!
For The Sound of The Sea we were issued with mini-ipod shuffles, whose seaside sounds were intended to prepare us for a dish of Tapioca (sand), Seafood & Seaweed (kelp) & foamed shellfish juice (surf). It was fantastic. A beatiful seafood dish, although I was rather distracted by trying to work out how the hell you charge a mini-ipod, and where to plug in your USB cable.
This is my mum getting down to "the sound of the sea"!
So, having dispatched the seven (?) starters, it was time for the mains. Salmon Poached with Liquorice and Best End of Lamb. The lamb in particular was incredible. I assume it had been roasted in the same way as Heston Blumenthal's notorious roast beef... roasted at a very low temperature for 20 hours of more. The texture was remarkable, and the cut seemed to have been hugged by the oven rather than blasted with heat. The roast potato accompanying the dish, which was around the size of a pound coin, provided some amusement, but the lamb will live long in the memory.
To begin the desserts was a cup of Hot and Cold Iced Tea. Which bizarrely and somehow defying the laws of physics, was freezing cold on the left of the glass and scorching hot on the right. With no mixing of the two temperatures in the middle. The tea was slightly viscous, which I suspect was its secret. But still very strange to slurp down a hot and cold drink from the same glass!
Here you see me enjoying Mrs Marshall's Hilarious Margaret Cornet (not entirely its correct title), and a Douglas Fir flavoured Sherbert Fountain.
and after a couple more deserts...
began the 'breakfast menu'. Starting with parsnip flake cereal with parsnip milk.
before the famous nitro-scrambled egg and bacon ice cream was prepared at our table. An egg had somehow been scrambled in its shell, and infused with bacon flavour. This was then cracked into a pan and mixed with more liquid nitrogen to create ice cream... served on some sweetened French toast, and washed down with some jellied ice tea. Yum!
An indication of the strange gastronomic hotbed that this village has become, came as we left the restaurant and ran into Michel Roux outside... heading down to his own Michelin Starred joint down the road. In fact there are only three restuarants in the UK with three stars, and two are in Bray (population, I dunno.. 1000?):
| The three three-Michelin-star restaurants in the UK | |
| | The Fat Duck, Bray, Berkshire |
| | Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, Chelsea, London |
| The Waterside Inn, Bray, Berkshire | |
Anyway sorry if that bored you to tears, but it was a pretty interesting lunch.. and since it's my blog i'll write about what I want! The meal, as you'd expect, wasn't cheap! (£150 incl. service & wine); but it's not often a meal will stick in the memory for quite so long. I actually thought it was very good value for what you get served up. Had my bank balance agreed I would have gone for the wine taster menu that accompanies the the banquet, but that's £95 in itself (or £295 for the more expensive selection!) so since I was bankrupting myself anyway I thought i'd give that a miss & stick to the £9 a glass plonk! (which was delicious itself).
Treat yourself (or preferably someone else) sometime. It's well worth it!
posted by headphonesex @ 11:16 PM
