#46: Molecular Gastronomy

At the risk of sounding lame, I think I can thank Top Chef for bringing the slightly awkward “molecular gastronomy” phrase into my foodcabulary. Along with other key pieces of knowledge like sous vides (cooking meat sealed in a bag in water) and coagulated myglobin (the white foam that comes out of salmon if cooked too fast), Top Chef taught me molecular gastronomy is when chefs pour liquid nitrogen on food… well I’m sure it’s slightly more complicated than that.

My first experience eating this type of food was actually in Madrid at a restaurant called La Terraza (sample menu here).

The dining room has an Alice and Wonderland feel to it, as does the food (picture lots of courses that look like those beads you dissolve in your bath tub), some of it outstanding and some of it plain weird. I had the luck of dining there this past December for my dad’s 60^th birthday and some of the standouts included tempura’ed trout roe, a light as air bread crisp with olive oil butter that came in what looked like a mini toothpaste tube, and well… cant really remember what else (the courses are small and the wine pours were big).

Food is like sport, and so when it is this fun and creative the entertainment is endless. That’s why for this past birthday I chose to eat at WD – 50, probably the most known spot in the city for this type of food. The owner/founder of it Wylie Durfresne has gained some fame with frequent appearances on Top Chef, so it was both surprising and refreshing to still see him back in the kitchen monitoring the show. The difficult part about writing about this food: It is exactly the opposite of what it sounds like. For example the foie-lafel (picture all the same things a falafel has, except instead of chickpeas there are balls of foie) sounds gross, but it was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. The everything bagel with cream sounds odd on a dinner tasting menu (also above), but the ice cream bagel with smoked salmon threads and crispy cream cheese was just right in the meal. Ironically, what really sealed the deal for me with this place was that the main dish was a fabulously cooked and seasoned lamb, showing that in addition to all the powders and foams, this is just a solid place... c’mon, what’s this blog without the occasional cheesy pun?).

On a final note, you may noticed I attempted a fancier image and text layout for this post... with dismal results. I could not figure out how to make it look right, but when I got to the point that I was trying to edit html code I figured, screw it, you wouldn't look down on me for awkwardly formatted blogging...right?).