Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Lunch at The Fat Duck, part 1.
I've eaten Heston Blumenthal's food at The Hind's Head, and at Bray Marina when he was still chef there, but I've never been to The Fat Duck. As part of the engagement celebrations the GF treated me to a very special Sunday lunch. We both plumped (literally) for the 15 course tasting menu, which for reasons of time and space, needs a couple of posts.
The menu opens with "something to clear the palette", a Nitro-Green Tea and Lime Mousse. The waitress brought out a silver tray, silver jug, silver Isi whip, and silver ice bucket. She filled the bucket with liquid nitrogen, and then used it to "fry" a gel of green tea, lime and vodka. You are instructed to eat it in one bite with your fingers. As it goes into your mouth it vaporises, so steam comes out of your nose. I was so shocked by the explosion that I barely noticed the taste.
Oyster, Passion Fruit Jelly, Horseradish Cream and Lavender was exactly the sort of stunning melee of flavours you expect in the home of molecular gastronomy. The oyster floats in the jelly, and the oyster shell is lined with horseradish.
The little dishes continued, with Pommery Grain Mustard Ice Cream and Red Cabbage Gazpacho. The tasting menu is overloaded with ice cream, but disallowing the famous bacon and egg ice cream, this was the only savoury one. Full marks for another fabulous fusion, in a very unusual form.
Our favourite dish among the opening volley, both for technical wizardry and depth of flavour was Jelly of Quail, Langoustine Cream and Parfait of Foie Gras. It comes in very distinct layers of pea soup gel, gamey quail aspic, and unctuous langoustine and foie gras. It was vv satisfying visually to dig into, and tasted magnificent from top to bottom.
We were well into the swing of things after the four starters, and we hadn't even tackled any of the Fat Duck "classics". More to come in part 2.
The menu opens with "something to clear the palette", a Nitro-Green Tea and Lime Mousse. The waitress brought out a silver tray, silver jug, silver Isi whip, and silver ice bucket. She filled the bucket with liquid nitrogen, and then used it to "fry" a gel of green tea, lime and vodka. You are instructed to eat it in one bite with your fingers. As it goes into your mouth it vaporises, so steam comes out of your nose. I was so shocked by the explosion that I barely noticed the taste.
Oyster, Passion Fruit Jelly, Horseradish Cream and Lavender was exactly the sort of stunning melee of flavours you expect in the home of molecular gastronomy. The oyster floats in the jelly, and the oyster shell is lined with horseradish.
The little dishes continued, with Pommery Grain Mustard Ice Cream and Red Cabbage Gazpacho. The tasting menu is overloaded with ice cream, but disallowing the famous bacon and egg ice cream, this was the only savoury one. Full marks for another fabulous fusion, in a very unusual form.
Our favourite dish among the opening volley, both for technical wizardry and depth of flavour was Jelly of Quail, Langoustine Cream and Parfait of Foie Gras. It comes in very distinct layers of pea soup gel, gamey quail aspic, and unctuous langoustine and foie gras. It was vv satisfying visually to dig into, and tasted magnificent from top to bottom.
We were well into the swing of things after the four starters, and we hadn't even tackled any of the Fat Duck "classics". More to come in part 2.
Tags: fatduck, moleculargastronomy,
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