Molecular cuisine. It's not really my cup of tea. Not unless the orange pekoe is served hot on one side and cold on the other - as it is at the Fat Duck. Then it's fascinating, in a Mad Hatter sort of way.
Delicious? Not always. When I ate at the Fat Duck in 2008, I thought most of the dishes on Heston Blumenthal's 22-course menu (even the fluid-gel tea) had an acrid, chemical aftertaste. Many of them, though cleverly packaged with iPods, cereal boxes and smoking vats of liquid nitrogen, would have been spat out in any other restaurant.
That's exactly what happened at El Bulli, when several of my dining companions gagged, raced to the bathroom and vomited over the edge of the balcony. I'm not exaggerating on that last point. Ferran Adrià does not create a rarefied plate of raw rabbit brain, oyster and sea anemone encased in dill jelly to please anyone's palate: It's meant to shock the senses.
Both men - avant-garde artists, magical stage directors, revolutionary inventors and mad scientists - are masters of the new culinary genre. But are they cooks? To the same extent that Alexander McQueen was a sewer.
Like couture fashion, their temples of molecular gastronomy push the canons of classical cooking through the beakers of modern chemistry, creating foams, gels and salty ice creams that are then knocked off by kitchens around the world and made palatable to the mainstream (à la H&M) in smaller, more familiar-flavoured doses.
Anyone who thinks the trend is dead doesn't eat out very often - at least not in British Columbia, where molecular cuisine is just getting off the ground.
In the past 10 days, I've eaten liquid mango ravioli at Yew Restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel (where bartenders are working on a similar gin bomb for their dirty martini); deconstructed blueberry cheesecake with yogurt spheres at the West Coast Fishing Club on Langara Island; and, finally, puffed foie gras at The Apron in the Westin Wall Centre hotel near Vancouver Airport.
Yes, even at the most out-of-the-way Richmond hotel located in an industrial cul de sac surrounded by auto shops, there is a mid-range restaurant with acid-green furniture, flat-screen TVs and blindingly bright pot lights where one can taste avocado foam dusted in popcorn powder.
"Be careful," the waiter at The Apron warns when presenting the airy amuse-bouche studded with three tiny vegetables - carrot, radish and zucchini - the size of newborn baby fingers. "The powder will fly across the table if you sneeze."
Did it taste good? No, the foam was bitter, the elusive powder merely salty.
But that this type of cutting-edge food - some of it excellent - is being served to business travellers in such an unlikely venue, with no promotion (not even a menu on the website), is something I do find oddly fascinating.
The inventive chef toiling away here in obscurity is Hamid Salimian, an award winner at many international competitions including the 2008 Culinary Olympics, in which he helped Team Canada win four gold medals. He worked at Diva at the Met for five years. And before the Westin Wall Centre opened in January, he was executive chef at the Westin Bear Mountain Golf Resort in Victoria.
On the night I visited, the hotel guests weren't being seduced by his fine-dining molecular creations. Most were dining on - and raving about - thin-crust pizzas and sliders from the lounge menu.
It's a shame they didn't try Mr. Salimian's deconstructed sablefish ($25), with its moist, white meat nearly melting inside a thick, golden crust, accompanied by a puffed and crispy piece of skin on the side.
But as a friend wryly noted, this probably isn't the type of food that business travellers want to eat after a day of flogging widgets in Vancouver.
It certainly isn't the type the floor staff is accustomed to serving.
"Is this scallion purée?" I asked, pointing to a bright green (watery flavoured) swirl. It was served with slow-cooked lamb shanks ($25) that were falling off the bone and a terrific truffle-scented foie gras and sweetbread sausage.
"I believe so," she replied and quickly turned away before I could ask any more questions.
The restaurant doesn't seem at all prepared for sophisticated foodies who may come seeking the chef's interesting creations. Highlights on the pedestrian wine list include E&J Gallo white zinfandel and Barefoot merlot.
When I asked if a tasting menu was available, I was told it was only for VIPs and media and had to be requested in advance. (Interestingly, they changed their policy by the end of the night and explained that, in the future, any customer could pre-order a five-, seven- or nine-course menu for $50, $70 or $90.)
Some of the chef's least experimental dishes were the most flavourful. The Atlantic lobster "globe" ($17) came with two densely packed balls of lobster meat floating in a magnificently rich shellfish broth, further deepened with morel mushrooms (presented as "chanterelles from Saskatchewan").
There were a couple of duds. The puffed foie gras ($16) had the texture of sponge toffee, but tasted like air (i.e. nothing). Though the liquefied port sphere on the side of this dish did burst in the mouth with an explosion of dark, fortified wine.
Why the chef would ruin a perfectly good heirloom tomato salad ($12) by skinning the fresh fruits and dousing them in a puckerishly tart vinegar is beyond me.
But the desserts - stewed apricot tart ($10) and a caramel-salted chocolate bar - were impeccable.
As I mentioned last week, there are some restaurants where you go to eat lots and drink well. There are others where you go to try the new and revolutionary. The Apron definitely falls into the latter category.
And until the restaurant smoothes out its rough edges, your dinner may include a few amusing, albeit unintentional, circus-like pratfalls.
The Apron, 3099 Corvette Way, Richmond, 604-238-2105