After our Chocolate Wine Slush, we were invited to try the cheese board, to which some of us hesitantly said "yes", and "perhaps", but Nikki just came out and firmly said, "today is not a day for saying no" and went ahead and ordered. Spurred on by her enthusiasm, I decided to have one too. It's an extra £15, which is quite a lot for the small amounts of cheese you get, but by that point you wouldn't really want much more to eat, anyway. One of the reasons we said yes was just that we didn't want the meal to end, and given an excuse to prolong it, we took it. For my part, this reluctance to leave was as much to do with the pleasure we were all having in each other's company (especially nice as none of us had actually met Chris before), and the relaxed atmosphere in the restaurant, as it was about the food.

Actually, I should say something about the atmosphere, because it was one of the least stuffy restaurants I've ever eaten in. The food is not the only reason that The Fat Duck regularly ends up listed in the top two restaurants in the entire world. The staff were all, as I said before, utterly charming, but also extremely conscientous, appearing non-intrusively whenever needed, and melting away when they weren't. They were happy to wait while the others took photographs, or to join in a discussion about the merits (or lack of them) in blue cheese. Sometimes their French accents almost bordered on caricature and it was a little hard to understand what they were telling us, but since we were all so willing to go along for the ride, it didn't really matter, especially as we were given souvenir menus to take home and peruse at our leisure. Of course, we could have opened the envelopes at the table, to see what each course was as we went along, but they were beautifully sealed (with a proper embossed seal) and it seemed a shame to open them and risk spilling food all over the beautiful paper. Actually, these envelopes are worth mentioning, too. They're made of thick paper which has an almost calfskin-like quality, with a soft pile that makes you want to stroke it, and creates a tactile sensation that has a similar effect to some of the flavours in the dishes. They'd be strangely covetable even if they didn't come replete with the smart black embossed Fat Duck seal on them. Another example of the wonderful attention to detail.

It's hard to pick favourites after all the amazing food we ate — the oak moss, the edible seaside and that intense blackcurrant sorbet being just a few — but the cheese course turned out to be one of my favourites because it was the most communal. We all picked out different cheeses from the extensive selection, and there was much reaching across and around the table in order to share them. My favourite was one of the light goat's cheeses, which had a pretty brown rind that looked almost like tree bark, although it was probably the incredibly gooey yellow one that Chris had chosen which will be the most memorable, even if I didn't like it as much. It was so runny that it looked like homemade custard, and was served on a spoon and oozed all over the plate; very strong in flavour with an umami effect that was a little overwhelming compared to the lightness of most of the cheese I'd chosen. Again, probably one I would have appreciated a bit more if I hadn't already eaten so much rich food.

And even after that, our meal still wasn't finished. We were offered hot beverages from a rather dauntingly full tea menu, studiously avoiding the £35.00 price tag of one tea, although our curiosity was piqued (it's an "aged" tea with a 1970s vintage; one for the tea connoisseur). Nikki chose one of the Puerh teas, but it was brewed too strong for my tastes, so I was glad that I had opted for the Jasmine Pearls Green Tea, blended from Jasmine Dragon Pearls, Dragon Phoenix Pearls and Moli Long Zhu, hand-rolled and then scented with jasmine six times. It had a lovely delicate flavour and a delicious perfume which I found so evocative that I found myself "remembering" places I'd never even been to; cities in the Far East that I've always daydreamed about visiting. This was ehanced by the Mandarin Aerated Chocolate, as the jasmine tea complemented its flavour rather nicely, bringing out the sharp mandarin flavour of the chocolate to wonderful effect. There was also a wonderfully smooth mouthfeel to the chocolate, which was almost like sucking a pebble, or rather like the way you hope a smooth pebble would feel in the mouth, but never does. (What do you mean you've never put a pebble in your mouth?)

The Apple Pie Caramels were quite nice, but mostly remarkable for the fact that their wrappers were edible as well, so you could put the whole thing in your mouth. Which frankly raises the point of them being wrapped in the first place, but oh well, it was clever. The Violet Tartlets were also delicious, benefitting from the same salted caramel flavour that you get with Ladurée macarons, although I unfortunately didn't really notice any of the violet flavour, which was a little disappointing. I think by this point though, I'd actually become a little intoxicated by all the food, all those flavours combining to make me quite tipsy, making me wonder if a shorter tasting menu might actually offer more benefit.

Fifteen or sixteen courses is amazing, and all of them were wonderful, but after a while it is quite easy to become almost inured to the new experiences provided by each course, because there is too much to take in; by the time we got to the end of the meal I'd become quite blasé about it all. Don't get me wrong, I had a fantastic time eating all of the courses — obviously, or I wouldn't have written five posts' worth of reviews. I'd happily sit through the same menu again (although perhaps with some substitutions for the salmon and the pigeon — to try other new dishes as much as anything), but I would have been just as happy with a menu that was half as long and half the price. I still would have experienced some amazing dishes the like of which I'll probably never taste again, and I still would have had a lovely time discussing the synaesthetic qualities of all those things, but I don't think I would have become quite so blasé towards the end. Plus, if it was half the length and half the price, I could afford to do it again sooner rather than later! Because I definitely do want to do it again. Only a person who really hates food would say no to five hours of culinary inventiveness designed to evoke memories and debates and interest. And while I can't afford to dine out at the Fat Duck for a while (or anywhere else, really), I can at least dine out on my memories for a while.

This is pt.5 of my Fat Duck restaurant review.
Read all the parts here: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5

It's time for pudding! I love pudding. The dessert section of the menu was rather good, as you'd expect. My favourite dessert was the first one, which was actually two on the same plate; a Bavarois of Lychee and Mango, and a Blackcurrant Sorbet topped with a wafer. The bavarois was deliciously sweet and fruity, made special by the unexpectedly tasty addition of savoury, salted pine nuts and some tiny blackcurrant and peppercorn jellies, which looked innocent enough, but packed a surprisingly fiery punch that gave Nikki a shock, because she was the first to try it. Her face was hilarious, but of course meant that the rest of us weren't as shocked because we were expecting something odd.

As tasty and interesting as the bavarois was, it was the Blackcurrant Sorbet which did it for me. It did it so much for me that I suspect it's going to be one of those things I end up randomly craving for the rest of my life — in fact it's making my mouth water just typing this. And I don't even like blackcurrant all that much. I don't hate it, it's just not a flavour I specifically seek out at all. Mind you, when I was a toddler I was addicted to Ribena (my mum tells me I refused to have anything else put in my bottle), so this taste for blackcurrant flavour isn't really anything new, although I've never tasted anything so intensely blackcurranty before, except maybe some blackcurrant wine, once. It wasn't just the flavour, it was the way it was so cold as well. Of course it was cold, it was a sorbet. But it was quite a solid, dense sorbet, without feeling packed full of ice the way most sorbets are. The coldness was why the intense flavour was so surprising, because colder temperatures tend to dull flavours. I can only imagine how intense the flavour was before it was frozen!

And then there was the delicate flake, garnishing the sorbet, which appeared to have the flavour of roasted beetroot, and was again an unlikely flavour to find so perfectly accompanying something unexpected. Marvellous.

After this, I was ready for anything again, and what we got was the first course of the famous "breakfast" part of the menu. Again, I got disappointed here, but this time it was because I realised that the meal had reached its final section and was coming to an end.

The Parsnip Cereal with Parsnip Milk was quite fun, and tasty as well. It was probably the only dish I could imagine being succssful in a mass market, and not just because it came packaged in its own little box. It was a fun way to mess with standard conventions again, demonstrating with playful irony that food doesn't have to be put into little boxes — in this case, the little box that says parsnips aren't dessert food, even though they can be sweet enough.

And then it was the dish that the Heston-haters love to pick on, the one which causes people to call him Dr Frankenfood and all the rest. This is the dish that everyone else most wants to try, and well they should, because it's a lot of fun, as much as anything. Out came the nitro-cooker again, as we sat in awe and watched as the waitress cracked a couple of eggs and we watched the already-beaten mixture run into the pan. Later, we speculated on how they managed to get the mixture into the eggs, summising that they must be injected with a hypodermic needle. I already suspected this, and being sat closest to the waitress I tried hard to keep an eye out for clues, but I suspect that there really is magic involved — Magic Circle kind of magic, anyway. It's the perfect environment for plenty of deflection and sleight of hand, as most people would be too entranced by the nitrogen swirling around to notice anything else.

Before we ate our egg-and-bacon ice-cream, we were given one of the other trademark gimmicks, the tea that's hot and cold at the same time. From discussions with friends, I'd already worked out how this was done, so I wasn't too surprised by its arrival. It is a slightly odd sensation to have both hot and cold in your mouth at the same time, but not really any different to the simultaneous hot and cold you get with, say, a fresh-out-of-the-oven crumble served a la mode. Different flavours and textures, though, obviously. Nikki had trouble getting her head around it, but I find myself wondering if that's because she's more of a tea drinker than I am, so she has stronger expectations of what tea should feel like.

As for the egg-and-bacon ice-cream, I didn't notice much of a bacon flavour, but the scrambled egg was quite strong. Actually, it was quite delicate, but it was more distinct than the bacon. I think the trouble was that the pain perdu must have been over-soaked in caramel, because it was sickeningly sweet, which really spoiled the overall effect and flavour of everything else because it was far too overwhelming. I read a few reviews with interest yesterday, and noticed that we'd lost another item on the tasting menu, a sharp-flavoured tea jelly, which sounded like the perfect antidote to the sickliness of the bread. So, in the end, I was amused and delighted by the spectacle and disappointed by the flavour, because one of the original component parts was missing. This is interesting to note because the menu is changing in July and I wonder if they're going to put some things back.

I thought that was going to be the last dish on the set menu (having lost count), but we had more to come. The next thing on the menu was interesting, more for the discussion of flavours it sparked off, than for the dish itself. It was a Chocolate Wine Slush served with Millionaire Shortbread and a little card with some information about its origins. There was no real reason why this particular course should come with background information if the previous ones didn't, and in fact it made me wish that the others had, because of course we were curious about them. It also wasn't as interesting a piece of ephemera as the pamphlet that came with a dish that had been on the previous menu. The dish itself was okay, largely because the slush had an intriguingly familiar flavour that none of us could identify until I realised that its appearance reminded me somewhat of a blackberry milkshake, at which point I made the leap and recognised that it had a blackberry-like flavour, too. But it was Billy who noticed that I said blackberry-like, and pointed out that was different to blackberry-flavoured, and that got me wondering about some of my reactions to flavours based on their appearances in previous courses.

This one was mostly remarkable as a talking point, as I mentioned, prompting a conversation about unlikely flavours that work well together. Things like strawberries with black pepper, or cheese and marmalade. This prompted Chris to suggest apple pie with a slice of sharp cheddar melted on top (a dish I know my friend Jen also enjoys), and Billy to suggest McDonald's fries dipped into McDonald's strawberry milkshake, the latter of which made Nikki squeal, "you're going to get us thrown out, talking like that!" But actually, I think St. Heston would approve of such experimentation. Hey, if it works, why not, right? Bizarrely enough, on Sunday evening one of my friends on Facebook sent me an invite to a ridiculous group entitled "McDonald's fries dipped in chocolate shake is the yummiest thing ever!!". Who'd have thought this discussion was actually a zeitgeist?¹ (No, I didn't join.)

And that's all the desserts, but it's not the end of the meal. Tune in for part five soon.

¹Even more disturbingly, when trying to find the link to that group, I discocvered that there is a whole raft of these groups on FB. Maybe they all ought to consolidate.

This is pt.4 of my Fat Duck restaurant review.
Read all the parts here: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5

Where were we? Oh yes, we'd reached the Roast Foie Gras with Almond Fluid Gel, Cherry and Chamomile. This was an amazingly complex dish, rich and full of flavour. Even the delicate wafers garnishing the top packed a knockout punch of flavour into a tiny space, but none of the flavours overwhelmed the others, they only offered a perfect complement to each other. The brilliant red of the gooseberry sauce was beautiful to look at, and also had the added fun of trying to discern what flavours we could recognise. As it was red, we were all suggesting things like cranberry and raspberry; gooseberries didn't occur to us at first because they are green. I don't know what was in the sauce to make it red though. This was one dish where we were glad to have bread to wipe up every last morsel; in fact it was all I could do to stop myself from just licking the plate when I'd finished.

And still the delights kept coming. The next dish was The Sound of The Sea, one of the more famously gimmicky ones, coming complete with iPods tucked into huge conch shells. It was the only dish where were weren't told what was in it until after we'd experienced it — and "experience" is the only word that can describe it. Yes, the iPod aspect is gimmicky, but it enhanced the overall experience of the dish. It made me realise how things have changed, though, as I sat listening to the mp3 of seagulls calling to each other over the waves. A few years ago, that would have been a naggingly romantic sound to me, reminding me of all those happy days I've spent visiting the seaside. These days, though, there are gulls nesting in my street, in the middle of London, and hearing their calls is no longer quite so evocative of the seaside so much as it reminds me of sleepless nights when the seagulls and the foxes vie for attention. The other problem is that with earphones in, conversation at our table died, leaving me a bit frustrated when I wanted to talk about the food, because all I got in response was the other three pointing at their ears and shrugging, to tell me that they couldn't hear me.

So for the half the duration of this dish, I sat with only one earphone in. This still managed to be reminscent of seaside holidays because, as the chatter in the rest of the restaurant mingled with the waves and the gulls, it reminded me of passersby in places like Brighton and Seaton and St. Ives. Even though it might not have been quite what was intended, I liked the way it encouraged use of other senses, and the way it made me wonder about other aural and oral pairings of sounds and food.

But never mind all that, what about the food? Well, it was rather remarkable, and rather beautiful. It was presented to look exactly like a tiny piece of coastline, with sea foam curling onto white sand, scattered with some sea plants. It was elegantly sculptural and almost seemed a shame to eat, but at the same time it was incredibly enticing and I couldn't wait to get my fork stuck in. Nikki started with the sea foam, which made her pull a face as she said, "it tastes just like the North Sea!" To which Billy replied, half in jest, "I think you'll find it's the Sussex coastline, actually."

The combination of flavours in the foam — seaweed stock, clam broth and salt — really did make an incredibly convincing recreation of the sea. It was a bit off-putting because it reminded me of swallowing too much sea water, but it was actually really delicious as well. The sand was grainy with a slightly biscuitty taste, and scattered with a few things to add flavour — samphire, grilled eels, Japanese seaweed. Combined with the foam it very powerfully evoked days of sitting on quiet beaches, watching the waves and doodling in the sand. Absolutely remarkable.

Perhaps it was inevitable that anything after that would seem like a bit of a let down, but I must confess I was disappointed by the following dish; Salmon Poached in Liquorice Gel, with artichokes, golden trout roe, vanilla mayonnaise and olive oil. It looked very pretty, somewhat resembling a corset, as Chris pointed out, but I found the overall eating experience disappointing.

I love salmon, and unlike many people I actually really like liquorice, so I was hoping to love this one, but I didn't. I couldn't even discern the licorice, and although the salmon was cooked well and tasty enough, that was all it was, as it was nothing remarkable or memorable, like any of the other things we'd tried. At another, lesser restaurant that would have been perfectly okay, but in an exciting meal like this, I found myself wanting something else instead. (If I ever go again, maybe I'll try a substitution.) There was too much mayonnaise, which was on the sweet side and ended up overpowering the flavour of the whole dish, and I really would have preferred more artichoke than the two small pieces that were there. Up until then, the small size of any dish's element hadn't mattered, but in this dish it felt like a distinct disadvantage, because I found myself chasing the one flavour in the dish that I really liked, and being unable to capture it as I'd already finished it off. This was some sort of citrus seasoning on the artichoke, which kept wafting a tantalising scent under my nose, but I'd already eaten the two small pieces of artichoke by the time Chris had tracked down where it was coming from, and it was too late for me to savour the flavour anymore. Instead, I just had the frustrating and tantalising experience of trying to capture a memory of something I'd not even properly experienced.

The next dish after that one was a little disappointing, too, especially after the way it was presented on beautifully elegant silver-glazed plates that reflected any surrounding colour, making each one look unique (I really wanted to take mine home), and the pretty meat knives with bee handles (I wanted to take those home, too). I think at that point, after the slight over-sweetness of the mayonnaise, what I really needed was a good palate cleanser, one that was more effective than my wine, which had already subtly changed flavour due to all the other flavours I'd ingested (deliciously, mind you). Instead of a cleanser, what I got was an even richer dish to enjoy, a Ballottine of Anjou Pigeon with Black Pudding and a rich sauce. This was all delicious but overwhelming, as it had a particularly strong umami flavour that was very reminiscent of Marmite and, same as with Marmite itself, a little goes a long way. I'm one of those odd people who can take or leave Marmite — I like it but I can easily live without it — but this was too much, and I had a bit of a struggle to finish it off. Thankfully I kept a piece of shallot to the end, and its sharp sweet flavour managed to cut some of the overpowering richness of this dish a little. I think if I hadn't had the previous dish, I would have been fine, but after the richness of the mayonnaise in the salmon dish, it was too much richness for me.

As a result, I was quite glad for the Pine Sherbet¹ Fountain, although it didn't taste especially pine-like to me. Actually, it tasted just like the sherbet dip-dabs of my youth, which was quite fun. I was a bit disappointed not to get a more sophisticated, not to mention unusual, flavour though.

And that's where I'm going to leave part three. Join me for dessert in part four!

¹Note for Americans, when we say sherbet we mean sherbet. When you say sherbet, you're talking about sorbet (Well, kind of. And it's not sherbert, either.

This is pt.3 of my Fat Duck restaurant review.
Read all the parts here: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5

It's almost a shame that the opening dish of the Fat Duck tasting menu is already so famous, because the familiarity of the idea almost made it disappointing. I think it would have been more exciting if I hadn't been expecting to see it at the start, but it was still a lot of fun to watch the waitress poaching a spoonful of mousse in a tub of nitrogen, because who doesn't like to watch nitrogen smoking away? (I was disappointed that the nitrogen cooker disappeared after that first course, anyway, because it's so much fun to watch.)

However, it has to be said that knowing what to expect visually still doesn't prepare you for the uncommon sensation of eating a frozen meringue filled with the fresh flavours of matcha and lime, especially when the vapours come out of your nose. To enhance the flavours, the waitress spritzed a mist of oil over the table, which provided an incredibly intense burst of lime that was absolutely delicious, adding to the sensation of the flavours already shooting up your nose to hit the back of your throat¹. We were already at a loss for words to describe our experience; as Nikki said, "that didn't taste as green as I was expecting." I thought it tasted very green, but it was a sharp, bright green, conjuring up images of young bamboo in white rooms, rather than the verdant green of a lawn. How much of this sort of association was down to the colours of the food was a subject for quite a bit of discussion over the course of the day — the rest of the meal was to be as synaesthetic as the opener, with many of our descriptions conjuring up colours or textures rather than flavours.

After our perfectly-formed palate cleanser, we were offered bread and unpasteurised butter. I never get tired of eating really good bread with really good butter (yes, that is part of why I'm such a fatty) and these were both pretty good. We soon cottoned on that the bread would be offered around whenever there was a dish that might potentially need some sopping up, and so took advantage of every slice offered — all except for Billy, who made the mistake of saying he was okay for bread and then had his bread plate taken away. Lesson learned; always say yes to the bread at a tasting menu.

The first proper dish of the day, Pommery Grain Mustard Ice-cream with Red Cabbage Gazpacho, was a small but beautifully formed delight, with a gorgeously coloured gazpacho splashed over a bullet-shaped portion of ice cream, swimming in the huge expanse of an elegant white plate. It's probably one of those dishes that causes people to harp on about Heston Blumenthal's mad scientist cooking, because of most people's associations of what ice-cream should taste like. Ice-cream is a dessert dish, isn't it? It shouldn't be savoury, right? Except, what rule is there to say that something made with cream and frozen shouldn't be savoury? What rule says that frozen cream has to have sugar added to it? This was something I'd been wondering myself recently, so it was great to actually taste what a savoury ice-cream could be like. If I was the kind of person who made their own ice-cream, I would be encouraged to experiment with all sorts of flavours after this. All the flavours of the dish were as perfectly formed as the way it was presented, with the sharpness of the gazpacho perfectly offsetting the mild heat of the mustard. Although I would never have thought to serve ice-cream in any sort of dressing (rum and chocolate sauce doesn't count), the textures were well suited, too, with the velvety creaminess mingling nicely with the thin liquid. The proportions were perfect, just enough to tantalise the tastebuds for the next course, without sating the appetite too much.

The next course was something rather special, and in fact I might even go so far as to say magical, at least in appearance. In the middle of our table was placed a smallish box, covered in a bed of oak moss. On this bed of oak moss sat some little plastic packets for each of us. So far, so pretty, so potentially pretentious. Except that the oak moss wasn't just there to enhance the visual presentation of the dish. In each little packet was a thin film to melt in our mouths, on the same principle as a breath-freshener, only this one was flavoured with oak moss, too. As we placed them on our tongue, water was poured onto the box of oak moss in the middle of our table, which released the dry ice hidden underneath. Suddenly our table was enveloped in a beautiful swirling mist, and the taste of oak moss in our mouths was enhanced by the subtle scent of the oak moss on the table, all to further enhance the even more subtle flavour of oak moss to be discovered on our truffle toast (truffles are found under oak trees).

And this was only one magical part of the course, because we still had the other half of it. This was served in a funny little tilted cup that strongly resembled Aarnio's Ball Chair, prompting me to say that it really needed a little white cat and someone plotting evil for it to be properly complete — but I'm not sure what they could have added to an already wonderfully complex dish. Inside the cup were layers of flavours; a Parfait of Foie Gras, Cream of Langoustine, Quail Jelly and, unexpectedly, a bright green pea purée right at the bottom. The combination of flavours was quite intense, and reminded me suddenly and surprisingly of sitting in the dining room at my great aunt's house; a place I've not seen since she died in 1993. Odd. Especially as I never ate foie gras, langoustine or quail at her house — but a nice memory alI didn't want the course to end, because sitting in that swirling and roiling mist of oak moss was utterly enchanting.

However, even though it did have to end, it was only to move onto the next exciting culinary experience; the famous Snail Porridge (or the infamous Snail Porridge as some naysayers would rather have you believe. I find it interesting that the naysayers, the Heston-haters, are always people who've never eaten any of his food). Like many people, I'd never eaten snails before, because the idea of eating them when you see them uncooked is understandably not all that enticing. Cooked, however, they look more like cooked mushrooms, of which I am fond. They seemed to have a similar texture to mushrooms, too, but with a slightly meatier taste. This may have been down to the flavour of the ham permeating the dish, but it's interesting to note that although I did recognise the ham taste, I didn't immediately connect its familiarity to the thing that produced it, until I saw it listed on the menu later. (This mental disconnect between recognised flavour and the thing that produced it was a phenomenon that we all experienced at regular intervals during the meal, so I will come back to it.)

When I say that this dish was good peasant fare, I don't mean that negatively. I mean that it was hearty and comforting, made with simple ingredients, but solid with flavour. The one thing I really remember about this dish was saying to Nikki, "now, this one really does taste green." And it did, even though now that I'm sitting here recalling it I can remember how the ham flavour came through when I was eating; at the time I was eating it I didn't register the porky-pinkness that ham usually suggests. It's probably because the dish was very green, to look at. As I said before, how much of the flavours we found were down to the colour of the food we were eating?²

I have to say at this point that I was disappointed to discover that the edible Stroop test was no longer on the menu when we were there, because it seemed likely to be the perfect example of colour influencing flavour, and I would have loved to try it. (Take two items of like consistency but different flavour, give them colours that suggest the opposite of what their flavours are, e.g. beetroot and orange jellies coloured orange and red respectively. Confused? Well, yes.)

In fact, since I started looking things up to write these posts, I've noticed that there were a number of dishes missing from our tasting menu. No oyster with passionfruit jelly and lavender, no sardine-on-toast ice-cream with mackerel and daikon — although that has been replaced by something which does seem more special. However, I'm not going to talk about that one yet, because there was another dish that came first. But I think this post is long enough now, so it's time to take a break before I start part three.

¹I actually had a preview of this dish before the rest of the table; on the way back from the toilet, I was hit by the most amazing waft of lime trailing up the stairs before I even knew what it was. Most of the other tables at the restaurant were also working through the tasting menu, and every time that initial palate-cleansing starter course occurred I was able to take huge great sniffs to fill my nostrils with that wonderfully intense lime mist. I wish I could have some to spray in my flat. Heston Blumentahl should market it as room freshener; I'd buy loads!

²Interesting aside; I just looked up "flavour" on my computer's dictionary, to discover its secondary meaning: "2: Physics: a quantized property of quarks that differentiates them into at least six varieties (up, down, charmed, strange, top, bottom). Compare with color ." So I compared it with "colour" and learned: "5: Physics: a quantized property of quarks which can take three values (designated blue, green, and red) for each flavor." And now I wonder how to find out more about this sort of thing without melting my brain too much. Can anyone recommend a good primer in about this stuff that doesn't require any prior scientific knowledge to understand?

This is pt.2 of my Fat Duck restaurant review.
Read all the parts here: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5

In case any of you were wondering about that thing I tweeted on Sunday, no, I haven't suddenly converted to Catholicism. I'm still hampered by a personal lack of faith as far as mystical entities with omnipotent powers are concerned, so that's not likely to be happening any time soon. As a matter of fact, I tend to have a lack of faith in most things, but there's one area that I've never lost my faith in, and that's food, glorious food. In particular, when other people cook it spectacularly well (thus saving me the hassle), and have the creativity to combine unexpected flavours in successful ways (thus surprising me pleasantly).

So, as some of you may have discerned from Monday's hint, I had lunch at the Fat Duck on Sunday. And yes, it was fantastic.

I'd been wanting to go ever since I read Alasdair's review a few years ago, but it was always just something to include on a dream list, and nothing I'd ever considered seriously planning for. I wasn't alone in this, as several friends always said the same thing, usually after watching Fat Duck proprietor Heston Blumenthal on telly (although not in my case, as I've never actually seen him on telly — I don't have a telly). I've lost count of the number of times his name came up in conversation, prompting the immediate response, "I must try the tasting menu at the Fat Duck one day!" followed by hearty agreement in every direction. Nothing ever happened, but I was content to dream.

A couple of months ago, Nikki told me she'd decided to organise a trip to Bray, and asked if I wanted to go. Of course, I immediately said yes without even thinking about it. Hadn't I been daydreaming about this very thing for a couple of years? Later on, it started to sink in just how much I'd committed to spend on a single afternoon, and I started wondering if I'd made the right decision. If I was going to spend all that money on eating posh food, wouldn't it be more cost-effective to eat out at several restaurants instead of just one meal? Wouldn't I just be paying for all the hype, and how could it possibly live up to all the hype anyway? It's a lot of cash to drop on a single meal, and what if it had been built up so much in my head that I came away disappointed?

These are the thoughts you're all probably having about the idea of trying the tasting menu at the Fat Duck, too. They're not unreasonable thoughts to be having, especially in our current financial climate. However, at a length of fifteen courses, the tasting menu is the equivelent of several three- or four-course meals in other places, anyway. And, as Nikki pointed out, at a length of fifteen courses, it breaks down to less than a tenner per course, which is no more than you'd pay in most restaurants, and in fact quite a lot cheaper than you'd be expected to pay in some gastropubs. But how many gastropubs have three Michelin stars? How many have any Michelin stars? And how many gastropubs successfully do such amazing and inventive things with their food, or leave you thinking so much about the process and culture of what it is you're doing when you sit down for a meal?

So, yeah. It's expensive, but it's actually not that expensive when you start to break it down. Where it gets expensive is the same area it always gets expensive: the additionals, like drinks. Fortunately, Billy decided to take one for the team, and order the matched wine menu as well (this comes in three price ranges, the cheapest one of which is just shy of a ton). The rest of us — me, Nikki and Chris — opted for a single glass of wine each, plus plenty of sparkling mineral water¹, and the opportunity to pass Billy's glass around whenever a new wine came along (thanks to Billy's generosity in being willing and keen to share). I won't be able to offer you any tasting notes on the wines, but I will say that they all seemed very well chosen, with each course getting a completely different drink that not only complemented the food of that particular course, but often complemented the food in the next course too, and were also delicious on their own. A regular source of amusement was also the ongoing change of glass size, with some being regular, some smaller, and one being almost the size of my head.

On the recommendation of the charmingly French² and always-smiling sommelier, I chose from their massive wine list a glass of 2007 Chateauneuf du Pape from Domaine de Beaurenard (in a normal-sized glass), a deliciously light and crisp white which complemented all the dishes very well. Nikki and Chris opted for a 2004 Pinot Gris from Rolly Gassmann, which was a slightly more full-bodied wine, but also sweeter, so I was glad to have chosen the wine I did, as its light crispness was a good palate³ cleanser between courses.

Speaking of palate cleansers, this is going to be a long post to read through if I don't break it down into more manageable chunks, so I'll take this opportunity take a break there and let you do the same before we move onto the meal itself. See you back here soon…!

¹I'm so used to ordering tap water in restaurants, because I hate the way they gouge you on the cost of mineral water that tastes exactly the same as stuff from a tap, that I almost said, "no tap water is fine" out of habit! But it wouldn't have been sparkling, which is not something I ever drink except in posh restaurants, so that was nice. Although five or six bottles of the stuff can add up…

²In fact, all of the staff were charmingly French, something I'd read about but forgotten.

³Petty annoyance. Yes, that's spelled palate not palette or pallet. People get that wrong all the time!

This is pt.1 of my Fat Duck restaurant review.
Read all the parts here: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5

I'm not really a fan of Annie Leibovitz's photos (I don't always like the way they're lit, and find that they tend to lack a certain spontaneity), but I like this quote from her: "The camera makes you forget you're there. It's not like you are hiding but you forget, you are just looking so much."

This quote came via Ward Jenkins, who recently posted some great pages from his sketchbook, and shared some nice insights on his creativity:

"When I draw and sketch people and places around me, I lose myself in the process. Even though I have a certain knowledge of how to start each sketch or drawing, it's still a surprise to me how it turns out. [...] I'm constantly surprised by the results I see on each page, each drawing. [...] Even though I might approach each drawing differently, I know that my overall style comes through, creating an overall artistic signature, or 'voice', that can't be denied. The end result might look similar to the viewer, but, I know personally, I took the 'road less traveled', and that my artistic journey was one of newness and wonder with each page, each drawing."

I don't entirely lose myself in the process of photographing in the same way that Ward describes himself doing when drawing (and the same way other people have mentioned doing), but I do find that properly looking at things — and for things — sets off a chain reaction of finding even more things to look at. It's a simple fact: the more you become aware of your environment, the more of it there is to be aware of. (Shilpa has a recent post on colour and serendipity which illustrates this to great effect.)

People who wield cameras on a frequent basis might relate to this experiential way of seeing, but it's often inexplicable behaviour to those who don't. Friends who don't experience it often get confused and even a little annoyed by the way I might suddenly stop in the middle of the street, or run off around a hidden corner when I've spotted something that they had not only not seen, but can't understand why I would want to capture anyway. As they see me crouching into an awkward pose, or rearranging sauce bottles on a cafe table, the reaction is often along the lines of, "is there anything you don't photograph?" The tone of voice is often one of surprise, and even slight disgust, as the subjects I am usually most fond of are those that most people would consider "boring" — but that is what I like most about those subjects.

Even other photographers have had a similar reaction, as they wonder why I would bother with such inconsequential details. Ironically, this reaction has often come from those people who cannot experience a single thing (particularly social gatherings) without taking a photograph of it. Sometimes those people are so busy shooting that they aren't actually looking, and I can understand why other people get annoyed with them. There's a certain detachment, of holding everything at arm's length by hiding behind a camera; eternally being the observer but never the participant.

I think my approach is different. I like to focus on things that are usually overlooked or considered unworthy of attention because they are too mediocre to even consider — things like brick walls and sauce bottles, cracks in the pavement, paint splashes on concrete — not to keep life at arm's length, but to treasure the tiny details that people take for granted and show that they are worthy of not being forgotten.

It's interesting to me to find new ways of looking at these things in order to bring out their attractive qualities; whether it be the colours or the shapes or the textures, or a combination of all three. Of course, even though such subjects may be an unlikely focus to the casual observer, they've been done to death by other photographers — and therein lies the other challenge: how to make such images look fresh and new, and imbued with your own personality. This can be much harder to achieve with a camera than it is with a pencil; everyone can develop an idiosyncratic drawing style, but a camera is designed to ostensibly be impartial. Of course it isn't impartial; for one thing, what I consider to be attractive qualities is entirely subjective and will differ from the person standing next to me (which is presumably why I get these questions in the first place), but it's surprising how often one photographer will frame the same subject in exactly the same way as another, without having been aware of the first (as I unintentionally did in the pictures linked in this paragraph); whereas a pair of people drawing the same thing will usually come up with different illustration styles (in life drawing sessions, for example).

"I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste." -Marcel Duchamp

This second quote Ward mentions in his post is a good reminder not to get too complacent in one's work, too, and is one I've seen espoused by a number of creative people I admire. Rian Hughes said something similar in a recent interview¹:

"Sometimes I’ll purposefully set myself up to work against familiar approaches, just to make things difficult and interesting. [...] I’ll probably find a way to make the technology do something other than what it was intended for."

This attitude is also prevalent amongst a large number of the geeks that I know; the ones who hack stuff to create new and wonderful things. It's something I often admire in others but don't try nearly as often as I should myself: I need to be reminded that it's good to leave my comfort zone once in a while. Unfortunately, it's not something I find easy to do (obviously, it's a comfort zone and moving out of it is, well, not comfortable), and I think it's something I'll continue to resist until I have some external encouragement. As it is, I can only be envious of those who seemingly manage to do it so easily, apparently even without the safety-net of a support network to encourage them. I'm not confident enough to do without a support network, but I'm also not good at asking for help from others, either. It's a stupidly self-destructive habit; whilst outwardly it may seem like I'm being resolutely independent, really I'm just muddling through and not always successfully. It's important to have a constructive response from your peers; in particular, that those people whose work you respect and admire also notice and appreciate your own efforts, especially when you make the effort to try something new.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with all this actually. Just some ideas I needed to get out of my head. I suppose having done so, it would be good to know what other people think. That would be in keeping with what I said in the last paragraph, after all.

¹I've had that link bookmarked for ages and kept forgetting to post it; it's worth a read, if only for the fact that he's finally made an announcement about his upcoming return to comics (whoo!) — news which I've been sitting on but desperate to share ever since he told me about it nine months ago! And I've been looking forward to his two books on design for almost a year; he had the run of the IPC magazine archives for his source material, and I can't wait to see the results (especially as at the moment there's almost nothing about them online).