Molecular Tapas Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo
I will start off by saying that if you ever find yourself headed to Tokyo, you absolutely must make a booking for the Molecular Tapas at the Mandarin Oriental. My husband and I love food and eating and have dined at many top end restaurants in New York, London, and elsewhere, and Molecular Tapas was truly one of best meals we have ever had, and certainly one of the most interesting.
You are not seated in a restaurant for this dinner, but rather at a bar in the lounge. The bar seats a maximum of 8 people, and there are 2 seatings per evening. We watched the two chefs prepare the food right in front of us, all the while chatting with us and explaining what they were doing and what we were eating. The dishes are handed to you over the bar, and cleared from behind you by an assistant, who also replaces your silverware with the appropriate items for each course.
The meal itself comprises around 28 courses, with each course only being 2-3 bites. I find it hard to eat more than 3 courses at a typical restaurant without feeling grossly full. I did not feel that way from this dinner, despite the number of courses.
The food is exciting, inventive and flavourful, replete with many ingredients one would not ordinarily think to combine (strawberries with pesto and parmesan comes to mind). Additionally, familiar ingredients were used in unique ways for completely new taste sensations.
For our dinner there were two chefs. One chef, whose name I unfortunately can not remember, was Japanese and spoke only Japanese. The other chef, Chef Jeff Ramsey, is half-Japanese, half-American, and fluent in both languages. Four of the eight guests at our seating were Japanese, and the Japanese chef spoke to them and described their meals. My husband and I (both American), along with a Russian couple, had our meals described by Chef Ramsey. Chef Ramsey was terrific to chat with and we enjoyed chatting with him all evening not only about the food we were eating, but other restaurants and concepts in food. Ironically he would be heading to our neck of the woods the following week, to defend his “Sushi of the Year 2006” award at Eat-Japan in London. (Just looked in the news and saw that unfortunately he lost his crown, and was first runner up for 2007).
And now, for the food…..we started with a welcoming aperitif. Chef Ramsey is pouring us small glasses of bitter beer with yakult foam. Yakult was described to us as similar to yogurt. It had sweetness to it, and it was whipped up into a froth that sat on the beer. The sweet/bitter combination worked well. (Food is pictured underneath its description.)
Our next two dishes were considered “bar snacks”, to go with the idea that we were having an informal dinner and chat at a bar. Chef Ramsey emphasized that he wanted it to be an interactive experience, with us chatting with him and with the other diners, throughout the evening. Our first bar snack was Crispy Rice snacks flavoured with dried fish and cheese. They tasted way more delicious then they sound! They were packaged in a little cellophane bag, to look like snacks one would get at a bar.
Also – just as a point of reference in the photos. We had glass placemats and our silver coloured menus were slid underneath the placemats so we could read the courses in between eating them. Our menus listed 23 courses, but we had 5 “off the menu” courses. Our next two courses were “off the menu”. The first was Olive Foam. It looked like dish soap bubbles, it tasted like olives. I’m not sure how they did this, but it worked.
After that we had a Salmon Roe and Passion Fruit Slurp. This was served in a small glass tube resting on a base and was meant to be slurped all in one go. The saltiness of the roe combined with the sweet and tart flavour of the passion fruit worked really well. I really liked this dish. It was colourful, too! Definitely one of my favourites!
Next up was Crispy Beets. These are exactly what they sound like. Fine threads of beets crisply fried up into a ball. They had a nice crunch to them and did not taste greasy at all.
Our next dish was Scallop with Pumpkin Sorbet. It was a lovely scallop and some asparagus tips with pumpkin sorbet, spiced with cardamom and ginger. I have forgotten what the foam was flavoured with, but whatever it was, it went well with everything else.
The next dish was called Red. Red was comprised of, what else but red coloured foods. This was strips of beet and watermelon, with a cube of tomato essence soufflé (the white cube in the picture) accompanied by pomegranate seeds and a marjoram leave.
After Red we moved on to Tommy Thai. This was a take-off on the Thai soup Tom Yum Goong, which is how the name was derived. Instead of a soup, we had a roll. The clear wrap for the roll was made of what would have been the broth if this were a bowl of soup. Inside the roll there were prawns and some cilantro, I think. Other things in the dish were avocado, mushrooms, mini crispy shrimp (to be eaten whole), dried coconut powder and crushed peanuts. There were many ingredients so I may have left something out.
In keeping with the high concept nature of the meal, the next dish was Strawberry and Pesto Spaghetti. Sounds basic enough, right? Wrong. This spaghetti was made with no flour or eggs, just parmesan cheese and water! The parmesan cheese was melted down and mixed with water. It was then put into a narrow tube and allowed to solidify. High pressure air was used to shoot the “pasta” strands out of the tube. It had the exact texture and consistency of normal spaghetti, but with an excellent parmesan flavour. The salty parmesan paired with the fresh pesto flavour and the sweetness from the strawberries was an excellent combination. While we ate we were given a little demonstration, showing us how the “pasta” was released from the tube.
Our tenth dish was called Scampi, Almond, Grapefruit. This was a prawn in almond milk froth, with a grilled wedge of grapefruit - another excellent pairing of flavours.
Next up was, according to the menu, Warm Sizzling Beef. However, this was no ordinary beef. This beef was slow cooked at a very low temperature (I think 53C) for around 24 hours, in a vacuum sealed tube. The gas was let out of the tube, and the beef came out in a long, sizzling tube. It was quickly sliced and plated, still sizzling from the gas, bubbles popping out, served with a balsamic reduction and some olive oil. Possibly something else I don’t recall. I don’t eat beef, but my husband said it was really good.
While eating the beef, we got a demonstration in how our next dish was prepared. Carrot juice was dripped from syringes into a solution of water and calcium something or other (sorry, can’t remember exactly what the solution was…) which cause a chemical reaction to occur that forms a little skin around the carrot juice, so that it became little balls with liquid inside. It was the consistency of caviar. So, it’s no surprise that our next dish was called Carrot Caviar. The texture was just like caviar, and the taste was very fresh, like that of a baby carrot. It had a mellow sweetness lacking in most ordinary supermarket carrots.
Next up was another “off the menu” dish. It was a cold tomato gazpacho with watermelon. Nothing so unusual about that, right? Well, the fancy stuff was in the garnish. Olive oil was squirted into liquid nitrogen, where it became instantly frozen and it was then crushed into a powder by the chefs. This powder garnished the dish. When eaten, it melted back into olive oil as you know it, delicately blending with the other flavours.
Our next dishes jumped around a bit – they were not served in the exact order as stated on the menu. It didn’t really matter to us – every dish was like an exciting little surprise, as the menu descriptions were really just the tip of the iceberg.
On the menu this dish was called Secreta de Cerdo. This translates to something like Secret of the Pig. What it is referencing, is some special secret part of a pig. What part, I can not remember. There was a long description given, but I was not paying close enough attention, mainly because it was not directed at me. Neither I nor my husband eats pork, so after explaining the Secreta de Cerdo to the other couples, Chef Ramsey told us we would be having duck that was prepared in a similar way to the Secreta de Cerdo. The duck was steaming under its glass cover, and was served with a port wine reduction.
The next dish was another one of my favourites from the meal. You will see a pattern in that it combines sweet and salty – which is a top combination for me. Unagi, Pineapple, Miso was torched eel (Japanese word for eel is unagi) layered with pineapple slices. It had a delicate sauce with soy sauce and miso, and lay on a bed of avocado puree with chilli and a slice of grapefruit. This is a variation on the dish with which Chef Ramsey won his 2006 Sushi of the Year title. It was ridiculously good.
The next dish was a replacement for something on the menu that was not available. It was to have been Manchego and Apple, but there was a problem with either one of the ingredients, or a piece of equipment used for that dish. Instead we got a Foie Gras Cappuccino. Now, I am not really a foie gras eater. And I’m not really a cappuccino drinker. So I was prepared not to like this. Surprisingly, I liked it. A lot. It was a warm and mellow base, topped with cold sweet corn froth. Something about the different flavours and temperatures worked really well. Maybe it’s that same salty/sweet combo I have referenced before?
Next up was an item that was also not on the menu. This was more of a palate cleanser/refresher than an actual dish. It was a rhubarb frozen disc. We were told to slide it off the dish into our mouths. It was definitely refreshing and had a nice flavour.
Juicy Lamb was the title of our next dish. Juicy it was! I tried just a tiny bite, as I am not a meat eater. I gave the rest of mine to my husband, who didn’t mind one little bit. Oh, did I forget to mention that he doesn’t like eel, so after tasting his eel dish, he handed me the rest? I think the switch worked out perfectly for both of us! The lamb was served with a green puree. It was very tasty, but we are in disagreement as to its composition. Pistachios were definitely in there. I was under the impression there were some green beans as well. My husband thinks there weren’t any green beans, but rather some type of Asian nut that when pureed in this manner, tastes sort of like green beans. Given the inventive nature of this meal, that’s definitely possible.
The next dish was another palate cleanser, and was also not on the menu. It had a very big lead-up, which must be shown pictorial. The dish, by the way, was called The Emperor’s New Mojito. One of the bartenders was called in to assist with the preparation of this cocktail. First she mixed the drinks:
Then she poured the drinks:
No, it’s not your eyes. That’s really what the drink looked like:
An empty glass. Oh, but what did it taste like? A mojito, of course! When I took a sip from the stainless steel straw, something cold and mojito tasting burst into my mouth. Very cool. Both meanings.
After that it was time for some Miso Soup, which is always served or eaten near the end of a Japanese meal. Our Miso Soup was not your average soup, which of course you have realized by now. Instead it was deconstructed Miso Soup. The soup broth and tofu balls were separately encased, in the manner of the carrot juice in the carrot caviar dish. There was a sprinkling of seaweed dust on the top. We were told to slurp the whole thing at once and let the flavours combine in our mouths. Yes, it did taste like miso soup!
It was time to start on our desserts, and what better way to start, than with a refreshing, palate cleansing Blue Hawaii? Two of the ingredients were Curacao liquor and dried milk (using the same method used to create the olive oil powder). I’m not sure what, if any, other ingredients were in it. We had to eat this dish one at a time, as it was important to eat it at just the right moment. We were told to spoon it into our mouths quickly, and chew it. It was cold, it was crunchy, it fizzled in my mouth, and it made smoke blow out everyone’s nose while they were eating it! Interesting flavour, lots of fun to watch people eating it.
The Russian man, eating in a cloud of smoke!
Me, a couple of bites in (the smoke diminishes as you go, but the other shots were too blurred).
Our first true dessert was Blueberries and Laurel. This consisted of Laurel ice cream (Laurel is also known as Bay Leaf), with blueberry sponge, blueberry sauce, the largest blueberry I have ever seen, cut in half (then again, there are many larger than life fruits in Japan) and French Toast croutons. The croutons were my favourite part, but I did like the entire dish.
The next five courses were served all at once, in a pretty wooden stand with many levels.
Photographed in the order in which I chose to eat them….we had NY Cheesecake, which was a ball of cheesecake breaded with sweet crumbs. This was probably my favourite from the “dessert rack.”
Raspberry and Black Pepper, which was a handmade marshmallow flavoured with, (what else?) raspberry and black pepper. I don’t love pepper, so could have done without that element. I do love marshmallows, though, so without the pepper it would have been perfect.
Simply called Cappuccino on the menu, this was actually cappuccino flavoured cotton candy. I love cotton candy. I don’t love cappuccino. Overall, this one was just ok for me. I would have preferred having the texture married to a different flavour.
The Saffron Chocolate Torte was rich with dark chocolate and saffron in a sugar dome. Can you go wrong with chocolate? Not really. Ever.
Vanilla Gummy was a vanilla flavoured gummy textured gel in a wrapper made of potato starch. You eat it all at once, wrapper and all. Interesting and different.
Our last course was one that is always on the menu. It is simply called Fruit Course. We were given a plate with strawberries and wedges of lemons, limes, oranges and grapefruit. We were told to just take a small taste of each type of fruit on the plate, so we would know they were real and had not been tampered with in any way!
They tasted like…..strawberries, lemons, limes, oranges, and grapefruit. (What were you expecting?!)
Then we were each given a “Miracle Fruit.”
Chef Ramsey put an hourglass shaped timer on the bar and we were instructed to chew, but not to swallow, the Miracle Fruit, for a full minute, allowing it to move around to all parts of our mouth and tongue. After the minute was up, we spit out our Miracle Fruits and were told to taste our fruit again. WOW! The strawberries tasted sweeter, and even more impressive, the citrus fruits lost their puckering tartness and had a real sweet and pure flavour to them. Apparently the Miracle Fruit has some type of protein in it that coats tastes buds in a manner as to prevent you from tasting bitterness for about an hour. This allows you to eat the citrus and taste the sweetness that is normally overpowered by the tart bitterness. It was fun, it was unusual, it was a perfect way to end the meal.
We had one last course, of course. The chefs prepared us for this course by telling us we might not like it, but we had to have it. They lifted up mini toy guns and BANG! out came our bills, landing right in front of each couple! It was kind of silly, but sort of funny, and went along with the whimsical nature of the evening. The damage? Not as bad as you might expect. The meal was 12,000 Yen per person. I think this is inclusive of tax & service, but I honestly can’t recall. 12,000yen is approximately $100pp. I would have paid double without even blinking, for such an amazing experience.
I will start off by saying that if you ever find yourself headed to Tokyo, you absolutely must make a booking for the Molecular Tapas at the Mandarin Oriental. My husband and I love food and eating and have dined at many top end restaurants in New York, London, and elsewhere, and Molecular Tapas was truly one of best meals we have ever had, and certainly one of the most interesting.
You are not seated in a restaurant for this dinner, but rather at a bar in the lounge. The bar seats a maximum of 8 people, and there are 2 seatings per evening. We watched the two chefs prepare the food right in front of us, all the while chatting with us and explaining what they were doing and what we were eating. The dishes are handed to you over the bar, and cleared from behind you by an assistant, who also replaces your silverware with the appropriate items for each course.
The meal itself comprises around 28 courses, with each course only being 2-3 bites. I find it hard to eat more than 3 courses at a typical restaurant without feeling grossly full. I did not feel that way from this dinner, despite the number of courses.
The food is exciting, inventive and flavourful, replete with many ingredients one would not ordinarily think to combine (strawberries with pesto and parmesan comes to mind). Additionally, familiar ingredients were used in unique ways for completely new taste sensations.
For our dinner there were two chefs. One chef, whose name I unfortunately can not remember, was Japanese and spoke only Japanese. The other chef, Chef Jeff Ramsey, is half-Japanese, half-American, and fluent in both languages. Four of the eight guests at our seating were Japanese, and the Japanese chef spoke to them and described their meals. My husband and I (both American), along with a Russian couple, had our meals described by Chef Ramsey. Chef Ramsey was terrific to chat with and we enjoyed chatting with him all evening not only about the food we were eating, but other restaurants and concepts in food. Ironically he would be heading to our neck of the woods the following week, to defend his “Sushi of the Year 2006” award at Eat-Japan in London. (Just looked in the news and saw that unfortunately he lost his crown, and was first runner up for 2007).
And now, for the food…..we started with a welcoming aperitif. Chef Ramsey is pouring us small glasses of bitter beer with yakult foam. Yakult was described to us as similar to yogurt. It had sweetness to it, and it was whipped up into a froth that sat on the beer. The sweet/bitter combination worked well. (Food is pictured underneath its description.)
Our next two dishes were considered “bar snacks”, to go with the idea that we were having an informal dinner and chat at a bar. Chef Ramsey emphasized that he wanted it to be an interactive experience, with us chatting with him and with the other diners, throughout the evening. Our first bar snack was Crispy Rice snacks flavoured with dried fish and cheese. They tasted way more delicious then they sound! They were packaged in a little cellophane bag, to look like snacks one would get at a bar.
Also – just as a point of reference in the photos. We had glass placemats and our silver coloured menus were slid underneath the placemats so we could read the courses in between eating them. Our menus listed 23 courses, but we had 5 “off the menu” courses. Our next two courses were “off the menu”. The first was Olive Foam. It looked like dish soap bubbles, it tasted like olives. I’m not sure how they did this, but it worked.
After that we had a Salmon Roe and Passion Fruit Slurp. This was served in a small glass tube resting on a base and was meant to be slurped all in one go. The saltiness of the roe combined with the sweet and tart flavour of the passion fruit worked really well. I really liked this dish. It was colourful, too! Definitely one of my favourites!
Next up was Crispy Beets. These are exactly what they sound like. Fine threads of beets crisply fried up into a ball. They had a nice crunch to them and did not taste greasy at all.
Our next dish was Scallop with Pumpkin Sorbet. It was a lovely scallop and some asparagus tips with pumpkin sorbet, spiced with cardamom and ginger. I have forgotten what the foam was flavoured with, but whatever it was, it went well with everything else.
The next dish was called Red. Red was comprised of, what else but red coloured foods. This was strips of beet and watermelon, with a cube of tomato essence soufflé (the white cube in the picture) accompanied by pomegranate seeds and a marjoram leave.
After Red we moved on to Tommy Thai. This was a take-off on the Thai soup Tom Yum Goong, which is how the name was derived. Instead of a soup, we had a roll. The clear wrap for the roll was made of what would have been the broth if this were a bowl of soup. Inside the roll there were prawns and some cilantro, I think. Other things in the dish were avocado, mushrooms, mini crispy shrimp (to be eaten whole), dried coconut powder and crushed peanuts. There were many ingredients so I may have left something out.
In keeping with the high concept nature of the meal, the next dish was Strawberry and Pesto Spaghetti. Sounds basic enough, right? Wrong. This spaghetti was made with no flour or eggs, just parmesan cheese and water! The parmesan cheese was melted down and mixed with water. It was then put into a narrow tube and allowed to solidify. High pressure air was used to shoot the “pasta” strands out of the tube. It had the exact texture and consistency of normal spaghetti, but with an excellent parmesan flavour. The salty parmesan paired with the fresh pesto flavour and the sweetness from the strawberries was an excellent combination. While we ate we were given a little demonstration, showing us how the “pasta” was released from the tube.
Our tenth dish was called Scampi, Almond, Grapefruit. This was a prawn in almond milk froth, with a grilled wedge of grapefruit - another excellent pairing of flavours.
Next up was, according to the menu, Warm Sizzling Beef. However, this was no ordinary beef. This beef was slow cooked at a very low temperature (I think 53C) for around 24 hours, in a vacuum sealed tube. The gas was let out of the tube, and the beef came out in a long, sizzling tube. It was quickly sliced and plated, still sizzling from the gas, bubbles popping out, served with a balsamic reduction and some olive oil. Possibly something else I don’t recall. I don’t eat beef, but my husband said it was really good.
While eating the beef, we got a demonstration in how our next dish was prepared. Carrot juice was dripped from syringes into a solution of water and calcium something or other (sorry, can’t remember exactly what the solution was…) which cause a chemical reaction to occur that forms a little skin around the carrot juice, so that it became little balls with liquid inside. It was the consistency of caviar. So, it’s no surprise that our next dish was called Carrot Caviar. The texture was just like caviar, and the taste was very fresh, like that of a baby carrot. It had a mellow sweetness lacking in most ordinary supermarket carrots.
Next up was another “off the menu” dish. It was a cold tomato gazpacho with watermelon. Nothing so unusual about that, right? Well, the fancy stuff was in the garnish. Olive oil was squirted into liquid nitrogen, where it became instantly frozen and it was then crushed into a powder by the chefs. This powder garnished the dish. When eaten, it melted back into olive oil as you know it, delicately blending with the other flavours.
Our next dishes jumped around a bit – they were not served in the exact order as stated on the menu. It didn’t really matter to us – every dish was like an exciting little surprise, as the menu descriptions were really just the tip of the iceberg.
On the menu this dish was called Secreta de Cerdo. This translates to something like Secret of the Pig. What it is referencing, is some special secret part of a pig. What part, I can not remember. There was a long description given, but I was not paying close enough attention, mainly because it was not directed at me. Neither I nor my husband eats pork, so after explaining the Secreta de Cerdo to the other couples, Chef Ramsey told us we would be having duck that was prepared in a similar way to the Secreta de Cerdo. The duck was steaming under its glass cover, and was served with a port wine reduction.
The next dish was another one of my favourites from the meal. You will see a pattern in that it combines sweet and salty – which is a top combination for me. Unagi, Pineapple, Miso was torched eel (Japanese word for eel is unagi) layered with pineapple slices. It had a delicate sauce with soy sauce and miso, and lay on a bed of avocado puree with chilli and a slice of grapefruit. This is a variation on the dish with which Chef Ramsey won his 2006 Sushi of the Year title. It was ridiculously good.
The next dish was a replacement for something on the menu that was not available. It was to have been Manchego and Apple, but there was a problem with either one of the ingredients, or a piece of equipment used for that dish. Instead we got a Foie Gras Cappuccino. Now, I am not really a foie gras eater. And I’m not really a cappuccino drinker. So I was prepared not to like this. Surprisingly, I liked it. A lot. It was a warm and mellow base, topped with cold sweet corn froth. Something about the different flavours and temperatures worked really well. Maybe it’s that same salty/sweet combo I have referenced before?
Next up was an item that was also not on the menu. This was more of a palate cleanser/refresher than an actual dish. It was a rhubarb frozen disc. We were told to slide it off the dish into our mouths. It was definitely refreshing and had a nice flavour.
Juicy Lamb was the title of our next dish. Juicy it was! I tried just a tiny bite, as I am not a meat eater. I gave the rest of mine to my husband, who didn’t mind one little bit. Oh, did I forget to mention that he doesn’t like eel, so after tasting his eel dish, he handed me the rest? I think the switch worked out perfectly for both of us! The lamb was served with a green puree. It was very tasty, but we are in disagreement as to its composition. Pistachios were definitely in there. I was under the impression there were some green beans as well. My husband thinks there weren’t any green beans, but rather some type of Asian nut that when pureed in this manner, tastes sort of like green beans. Given the inventive nature of this meal, that’s definitely possible.
The next dish was another palate cleanser, and was also not on the menu. It had a very big lead-up, which must be shown pictorial. The dish, by the way, was called The Emperor’s New Mojito. One of the bartenders was called in to assist with the preparation of this cocktail. First she mixed the drinks:
Then she poured the drinks:
No, it’s not your eyes. That’s really what the drink looked like:
An empty glass. Oh, but what did it taste like? A mojito, of course! When I took a sip from the stainless steel straw, something cold and mojito tasting burst into my mouth. Very cool. Both meanings.
After that it was time for some Miso Soup, which is always served or eaten near the end of a Japanese meal. Our Miso Soup was not your average soup, which of course you have realized by now. Instead it was deconstructed Miso Soup. The soup broth and tofu balls were separately encased, in the manner of the carrot juice in the carrot caviar dish. There was a sprinkling of seaweed dust on the top. We were told to slurp the whole thing at once and let the flavours combine in our mouths. Yes, it did taste like miso soup!
It was time to start on our desserts, and what better way to start, than with a refreshing, palate cleansing Blue Hawaii? Two of the ingredients were Curacao liquor and dried milk (using the same method used to create the olive oil powder). I’m not sure what, if any, other ingredients were in it. We had to eat this dish one at a time, as it was important to eat it at just the right moment. We were told to spoon it into our mouths quickly, and chew it. It was cold, it was crunchy, it fizzled in my mouth, and it made smoke blow out everyone’s nose while they were eating it! Interesting flavour, lots of fun to watch people eating it.
The Russian man, eating in a cloud of smoke!
Me, a couple of bites in (the smoke diminishes as you go, but the other shots were too blurred).
Our first true dessert was Blueberries and Laurel. This consisted of Laurel ice cream (Laurel is also known as Bay Leaf), with blueberry sponge, blueberry sauce, the largest blueberry I have ever seen, cut in half (then again, there are many larger than life fruits in Japan) and French Toast croutons. The croutons were my favourite part, but I did like the entire dish.
The next five courses were served all at once, in a pretty wooden stand with many levels.
Photographed in the order in which I chose to eat them….we had NY Cheesecake, which was a ball of cheesecake breaded with sweet crumbs. This was probably my favourite from the “dessert rack.”
Raspberry and Black Pepper, which was a handmade marshmallow flavoured with, (what else?) raspberry and black pepper. I don’t love pepper, so could have done without that element. I do love marshmallows, though, so without the pepper it would have been perfect.
Simply called Cappuccino on the menu, this was actually cappuccino flavoured cotton candy. I love cotton candy. I don’t love cappuccino. Overall, this one was just ok for me. I would have preferred having the texture married to a different flavour.
The Saffron Chocolate Torte was rich with dark chocolate and saffron in a sugar dome. Can you go wrong with chocolate? Not really. Ever.
Vanilla Gummy was a vanilla flavoured gummy textured gel in a wrapper made of potato starch. You eat it all at once, wrapper and all. Interesting and different.
Our last course was one that is always on the menu. It is simply called Fruit Course. We were given a plate with strawberries and wedges of lemons, limes, oranges and grapefruit. We were told to just take a small taste of each type of fruit on the plate, so we would know they were real and had not been tampered with in any way!
They tasted like…..strawberries, lemons, limes, oranges, and grapefruit. (What were you expecting?!)
Then we were each given a “Miracle Fruit.”
Chef Ramsey put an hourglass shaped timer on the bar and we were instructed to chew, but not to swallow, the Miracle Fruit, for a full minute, allowing it to move around to all parts of our mouth and tongue. After the minute was up, we spit out our Miracle Fruits and were told to taste our fruit again. WOW! The strawberries tasted sweeter, and even more impressive, the citrus fruits lost their puckering tartness and had a real sweet and pure flavour to them. Apparently the Miracle Fruit has some type of protein in it that coats tastes buds in a manner as to prevent you from tasting bitterness for about an hour. This allows you to eat the citrus and taste the sweetness that is normally overpowered by the tart bitterness. It was fun, it was unusual, it was a perfect way to end the meal.
We had one last course, of course. The chefs prepared us for this course by telling us we might not like it, but we had to have it. They lifted up mini toy guns and BANG! out came our bills, landing right in front of each couple! It was kind of silly, but sort of funny, and went along with the whimsical nature of the evening. The damage? Not as bad as you might expect. The meal was 12,000 Yen per person. I think this is inclusive of tax & service, but I honestly can’t recall. 12,000yen is approximately $100pp. I would have paid double without even blinking, for such an amazing experience.
