Chef's speciality !

While food for survival has to be modestly content at the bottom of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the enriched quality of the experience of eating definitely shoots for the highest level. I have never been a fast-food person, but equally less are my experiences with eating at really fancy restaurants. When I am invited to one of these, I definitely need an invitation as I would never go to such a place all alone, I usually end up getting lost in confusion. The confusion starts with "what's good to wear?" This is not for so much for myself, as much it is with the consideration of not embarrassing my host. Once in the restaurant, the mannerisms of the waiters bowl me over. First thing is the warm reception leading up to the dining table, full of a knifes and forks of all sizes, enough of weapons to rob a person. I never know which one to use for what. Then following this warm reception is the kindling of the romance on the table by lighting a candle. Ok, ok, just in case one got lost in the ambience and the dinner this romance resurfaces at the end as an additional 3 to 5 euros at the end of the bill for the table cloth and the candle.

But none of this really disturbs me much. I am a bold man, or at least until I see the menu card. The names of the dishes can be get really exotic to the point of hiding about their true identity. And then, on top of it, given the extraordinary culinary skills of the Chefs, the menu card might flaunt them by add what is called "Chef's speciality" to the list.

"If you really want the most authentic experience of this restaurant, you better pick this one", so thought a very wise friend of mine when he was at a fancy Italian restaurant in town not too far from Venice.

He had to pick between "polenta e manzo (polenta and beef)" or "mi sorprende (surprise me)". He decided to be a little adventurous and chose the "surprise me" option. From a pan of sauce with a huge fire under it delivered hot at the table to a plant brought all the way with its roots and, even better with the pot - nothing would have surprised him as much as the delivered dish "polenta e manzo" did. That's right the surprise was that there was no surprise. Clever ha??

Then there was a time when I went for an interview in New York. With the process going the whole day, this corporate was generous enough to offer me a lunch, with one of their team members who would show me the local experience. Although the thought that I could possibly be judged at the time of eating was a little disconcerting, I decided to shed my inhibitions at lunch, and eat to last for the rest of the day. Great. I was taken to the fancy restaurant which was recently opened by one of the famous Chefs in New York. Excellent. But after ordering two main courses - one a 100 ml of soup barely enough to wet your mouth, and the other a salad with 4 small cabbage leaves, one beetroot of the size of an egg, two walnuts and a cashew, I really wondered if quality was that much more important than quantity. I did not know the answer for it, but with the gut feeling that felt pride was over rated, I finished up all the crumbs of bread given to my interviewer.

The most recent one in my list of experiences is a dinner at an Italian Zen restaurant in Milano. "Italian Zen? Well, let's give it a shot." I was optimistic. The names of the dishes sounded like poetry, even better like ancient eastern wisdom. As one of my friends usually remarks, the distribution of the Chef's creativity between cooking and naming might be a little unbalanced in such cases. The usual suspects "Reaching equilibrium, natural state, tranquility, awakening, enlightenment .. " took the names of about 29 out of the 30 dishes, while the special spot was reserved for the dish called "waiting for Obama". He might be the Messiah with the power to change the current socio-economic situation, but does that entitle him for that one spot in the 30 dishes? May be yes. But I decided to put an end not just to the economic crisis, but to all the problems of humanity in general, and gave a greedy shot at the dish called "enlightenment". It was a very delicious soup of polenta, zucca, with fried artichokes, and the unlisted ingredient "a little bit of magic." Then I recalled the waiter and asked for the menu to check again what all went into it. In fact, "magic" was mentioned, not in words but in numbers, as the price of this high quality, very small sized dish which managed to whet my apetite for a real meal ! And then I also happened to notice the comment on the last page of the menu " .. the most important part of dining experience is the feeling the food leaves you with after you finish eating."

Anyways, finally I began to see the Zen aspect of the restaurant. I am not enlightened I am still my stupid old self, but they definitely filled me with nothingness.