About food

I don’t like pretentious foodies who think that a dark chocolate, citrus infused pigeon is a good idea!

I have a strict policy, I DO NOT eat at restaurants that serve saffron anything, or have the words “Balsamic reduction” on their menu. I find this kind of cooking disdainfully avant-garde. Yes, yes, I’m a pleb. I have the palette of a Neanderthal. I like baked potato and steak, or a simple tomato based pasta. I do not appreciate food like this:

Ahi Tuna Nicoise: A deconstructed Nicoise salad, with duck-fat fried potato at the bottom of the tuna, quail eggs cooked at 3 different temperatures for three hours (WHY?) with picketed shallots and a white anchovy romesco sause.

I want to draw your attention to this website, about AnQi restaurant. http://stuffycheaks.blogspot.com/2011/02/16-course-molecular-gastronomy-tasting.html

It shows a 16 course molecular-gastronomy-tasting menu (I’ll come back to that molecular gastronomy part in a paragraph or two). After reading through their menu, I feel I need to ask the chef a few questions:

1.     What in the name of normalcy is a sweet & sour tangerine veil?

2.     What, pray tell, is bacon dust?

3.     And who on this holy earth mixes compressed watermelon, mango 'egg yolk' and dehydrated capers?

Would you eat this?

Is this the whole meal?

As promised, lets take a look at that phrase, “Molecular Gastronomy”. What an elitist, pretentious wank! Here, they describe this new way of cooking as a “whole new emotional and sensory experience”, serving dishes such as crab ice cream and snail porridge. If I was served snail porridge, I guarantee I’d definitely have a whole new emotional experience (it wouldn’t be good)! Other treats include Smoked eel, blood orange “zest”, black radish, and chicken skin. And what’s with all these “inverted commas”? What do they mean?

I have another strict restaurant policy; I also don’t eat at restaurants called, “The singing avocado” or “The blue orange”. Names like this just confuse me. No, I eat at simple restaurants, ones with self- explanatory names, like “the Meat Company”, “The Punjab chicken King” or “Jimmy’s killer prawns”. No confusion there! You know exactly what you’re getting. And you can be sure their menu’s do not boast Smoked Reindeer, smothered in a Spicy emulsion of fois gras and jasmine infused rice, floating gracefully down a babbling brook of balsamic reduction, shrouded in a veil of tart strawberry foam, nestled in a pillow of aromatic anchovy soufflé and sprinkled with a fine pork rind dust. 

 

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