If you have been reading these pages for some time, or if you know me personally, you know that I LOVE food. I talk about it, I reminisce about it, I smell it in my sleep – and most of all I love to eat it. Nearly everything I do involves food. It is my lasting memory of every day, and the first thing I think of when I wake up of a morning. I devour magazine articles, recipe books and delicatessen counters. Once I’ve finished lunch, the first thing I think about is dinner, or lunch tomorrow, or the meal I’m going to prepare for so and so next week… This is not to say that I always eat well or wisely, I’m partial to a carb fix or a junk day just like most people, it’s just that I enjoy it so, so much.

On the evening of June 18th, a Friday at 7pm, I had the most incredible food experience to date. It was with Christine. We took the train from London to Maidenhead, which on a direct train takes about 30 minutes, and jumped in a cab for another 5-10 minutes, and arrived at The Fat Duck, in Bray, Berkshire.

We were not the first people there, but close to it – we were so eager. Christine had been reminding me almost monthly for the last year that this was somewhere that she absolutely wanted to go to whilst here in the UK, and I had been reading review after review about the restaurant since Heston (you’ll see we’re on first name basis!) received his third Michelin star in January. To be honest, I was starting to get tired of reading about it, I was at the point where I just read the articles on the diagonal, checking for any wayward comments contrary to all the good stuff I had already heard and was looking forward to.

Anyway, the day had arrived. We got there in one piece, we even stopped into the pub next door for a quick pint for courage, before entering the calm oasis that is the Fat Duck on the High Street, Bray.

First impressions were that it was bigger than expected after seeing various photos. As I said, we were amongst the first arrivals so the staff were lined up to greet us. Both they and the tables looked very neat, very simple. We were shown to our table and presented with menus, which were again, simple and elegant.

After a cursory glance, which was not really necessary, we selected the only real choice for a first time visit, the ‘Menu de degustation‘ along with the accompanying wine selection from the sommelier. This selection meant 10 courses plus amuse-bouches, coffee and chocolates, interspersed with 1 sherry and 7 wines.

All we had to do was sit back, eat and enjoy.

First, we were introduced to our waiter who started the show by dragging what looked like a sideboard over to our table. He returned shortly afterwards with a steaming silver bowl full of liquid nitrogen which he placed on the makeshift sideboard, and some mousse made of green tea, vodka and lime. He sprayed a spoonful of the mixture, which had the consistency of hair mousse, and dropped it into the liquid nitrogen – ‘cooking’ it by spooning the liquid nitrogen over it, all the while talking to us about what he was doing, and why, and the purpose – which was in fact to cleanse our palate. The finished product was like a miniature meringue, about the size of a small plum, which you placed on your tongue, whole, and let it melt in your mouth. Now depending on the finished shape of his drop of mousse, the fitting of this whole meringue in your mouth may or may not have been a problem. Luckily for us, ours were perfect! The mousse just melted in your mouth and you were left with a faint taste of green tea and lime, and a freshness of palate, refreshed and ready to commence the food experience.

Our first plate contained a sliver of each orange and beetroot jelly. The orange jelly tasted vaguely of mushy peas, and the red one of sparkling raspberry candy.

Then we were served a single fresh oyster in it’s shell, dressed with a passionfruit jelly, horseradish cream, lavender and a pepper tuile. Unfortunately I don’t eat oysters. I try, but I just can’t pretend to enjoy them, my body involuntarily rejects the flavour and the texture… but considering where we were, I promised myself to give it an honest shot. I scooped the oyster up in one go, and deposited it in my mouth. In the background I could hear encouragement from Christine – “now just chew” – all the while my body was screaming “reject, reject“. I couldn’t do it – I swallowed the oyster whole with the jelly, and took a big swig of the dainty sherry in front of me to wash it down. Nevermind. According to Christine it was ‘amazing’. Her first orgasm for the evening.

Following the oyster was a spoonful of pommery grain mustard ice cream, red cabbage gazpacho, and brunoise of cucumber. Actually it looked like a miniature egg sitting amongst some bright purple paint. It was divine. The ice-cream really did taste of mustard, but strangely it worked!

Next, served in a bowl the size of a sugar bowl, was pea puree, jelly of quail, langoustine cream and parfait of foie gras. It was like eating a roast dinner in just 3 bites. It was amazing. Imagine a roast dinner, the smell of it cooking in the oven, then imagine putting a little bit of everything on your fork, taking a bite. This is what it tasted like. Exactly.

Served with the courses above was a Sherry, Fino Puerto e Lustau, (Spain) which was not sweet nor sickly like most sherry’s. Just very good.

All of the above courses were small taste sensations only. The next series of courses were the size of small entrees (French restaurant sizes, not American).

The first was snail porridge with jabugo ham and shaved fennel. This was served in the centre of a large beautiful white plate. A ladle full of bright green porridge that tasted of parsley and cheese, with the consistency of porridge, topped with shavings of ham and the liquorice tasting fennel. It was very good. The wine accompanying this course was a 2001 Gruner Veltliner Loibner Berg F.X. Pichler (Austria). It was a remarkably fresh wine, almost sparkling, that purposely refreshed your palate after each sip.

Next was roast foie gras, served with grilled chamomile on the top, almond mousse, a cherry reduction and a tiny bit of sherry jelly. Now if you like roasted foie gras, then this would be to die for. For Christine it was orgasm number 2. For me, I did my best. I ate around the edge assisted by my fresh brown bread – but I did end up surreptitiously passing most of the fois gras to Christine for her to enjoy. Its just one of those things that I can eat in small quantities only, and despite this dish being around the times of the entrees, it was quite a generous helping. Alongside the dish were tiny whole almonds ostensibly as decoration. At least we thought they were almonds. As you bite into them, there is a moment of fright as the texture gives way to the feeling that you’ve just bitten into a clove of garlic, but then the taste of almonds gushes through your mouth, and the relief floods in. Remarkable really. Almonds with the texture of garlic. The foie gras was served with a 2002 Chateauneuf du Pape Blanc, Domaine de la Janasse (Rhone Valley).

Course number 7, sardines on white toast sorbet, served with a ballotine of mackerel, marinated dycon and salmon eggs. The sorbet was incredible really – tasting of sardines on white toast. Strange but good. The mackerel was excellent, about the size of a Californian roll, served with slivers of ginger and the salmon eggs. It was accompanied with a very simple yet fruity 2002 Soave Classico Pieropan (Italy).

Now I have to say that by this stage we were having a ball, with the general consensus that this experience was the equivalent of Toque x 20. We had had 3 glasses of wine and a glass of sherry, not to mention our pre-dinner drinks next door and I was off in search of the ladies room. We had become quite chatty with the wait staff, most of them being French, and were getting what we believed was exceptional service and perhaps a little additional charm because of their delight in the Quebec accent. Whilst I was away checking out the powder room (which was very simple, with lots of natural elements) our main waiter Eric sidled over to Christine to ask if there was something we had forgotten to mention, motioning towards my notepad and pen left at my chair. Christine assured him that “no, no! we were not writing a review” and left it at that. He graciously returned with a printed copy of our menu, perhaps so that I would put my pen and notebook away, which, thanks to him is the reason that I am getting the names of all these wines correct, despite having drunk them all, and ensuring that I don’t have to try and figure out my increasingly degrading scrawl…

Our next course was salmon poached with liquorice, served with a vanilla mayonnaise, asparagus, pink grapefruit and “Manni” olive oil. The salmon was barely cooked, just warm, encased in a liquorice wrap and the vanilla mayo tasted like melted vanilla ice-cream. This dish was served with a 2000 Dolcetto d’alba Cigliuti (Italy). Although a red, the Italian wine was a good match to the salmon as it was quite light with very little tannin.

Course number 9 was sweetbread cooked in salt and crusted with hay and bee pollen, along with cockles a la plancha, parsnip puree and choux pontou. The sweetbreads tasted kind of like chicken. Now if you know what sweetbreads really are, and you’re not particularly fond of offal, then chicken is a great way to think of them, otherwise yes, you’re eating edible glands of young animals. They were lightly fried, surrounded by a volaille reduction and served with a parsnip puree that was so light it was like eating a cloud, and cabbage topped with a sharp lemon & thyme foam. The 2001 Santenay 1er Cur Comme, R. Belland (Burgundy) gave a good contrast to the plate, and again was light on the tannin.

At this point, we thought we were coming to the end of our meal and entertainment (oops, education!). A series of ‘amuse-bouches’ were to follow. The first was a disc of white chocolate topped with caviar. This sounds strange, but was a perfect match. It appears that the reason it blends so well is that both the white chocolate and the caviar have the same sodium content. Interesting huh?

Following this was a tiny ice-cream cone, named (I’m not sure why) ‘Mrs Marshall’s Margaret cornet’. It was a tiny ice-cream cone made out of a spring roll wrapper and filled with a small spoonful of vanilla ice-cream on top, and underneath with ginger and orange sorbet. Perhaps 3 mouthfuls at most.

Then we received a shot glass filled with pine sherbet powder and a vanilla bean to eat it with. Now if you were not born in Britain (or Australia) and you don’t remember sucking sherbet off liquorice sticks then this would be a little lost on you, but if you were, and you do, then this was sooo cool! I felt like a little kid again!

Next came dessert. Starting with a mango and Douglas fir puree, served with bavarois of lychee and mango, blackcurrant and green peppercorn jelly and a blackcurrant sorbet (and from my notes there was also pinenuts in there somewhere). Despite this not being the most memorable of desserts, the 2001 Goldackerl Beerenauslese, Willi Opitz (Austria) served with it, was fabulous.

We received next a lollipop. It was a lollipop made from an orange and carrot tuile, too delicate to suck on like a regular lollipop, it did come on a stick and was just perfectly sticky. This was followed by a beetroot jelly that tasted of candy covered in sugar, and a basil flan in a shortbread biscuit which was to die for.

Next was macerated mara des bois, ice-cream with a raspberry coulis served with a black olive puree, and pistachio scrambled egg mousse which tasted of cracker jack popcorn, with a salted pistachio perched on top. Definitely one of the highlights of the evening. This was ideally accompanied by a 2000 Pansal del Calas Celler de Capcanes (Spain).

Now normally 10 courses plus would be enough to fill me, and indeed, if I was honest it was. However, this particular evening M. Blumenthal’s most famous creation, the bacon & egg ice-cream, was not on the tasting menu. So, encouraged by our 8 glasses of wine, we went ahead and ordered the infamous dish saying “we can’t possibly leave without trying it!“. No truer statement had been uttered. The wait staff were thrilled, surprised, but thrilled. Jokes about us having spent the evening with them, and now joining them for breakfast abounded… our waiter Eric, started to get that worried ‘are they, or aren’t they’ look about him again – we reassured him, we weren’t…

The table was cleaned off, crumbs dusted, bread plate removed, and the show recommenced. This time, the sommelier appeared offering us a glass of Banyul on the house to accompany our ‘breakfast’. Next we received a cereal bowl, and in it, a small box (reminiscent of those individual cereal boxes you get when you travel) with the Fat Duck logo, and a jug of milk. The idea was that you serve yourself cereal made of parsnip chips. They were good, they did indeed taste of breakfast cereal, something like Crunchy Nut cornflakes from Kellogg’s. We shared one box between us, and snuck the second into Christine’s handbag, which we later gave to Gabriel as our contribution to his Fathers Day breakfast on the following Sunday morning.

The cereal cleared away, the drum rolls, and out comes the bacon and egg icecream, french toast and strawberry jam, and a dollop of caramel topped with mushrooms. This was very good. Very very good. Bacon and egg icecream sounds weird, and actually it is a little, it tastes just like bacon and eggs, only better, because instead of the greasy heavy taste afterwards, you have a cool and light taste from the ice-cream to leave on your palate. The french toast was good, the syrup was almost crystallised giving it a toffee kind of taste, and the dark caramel tasted so much like mushrooms in butter that it was hard to tell it apart. The only part of the breakfast that was not a clear winner was the ice-tea jelly, but that may just have been because we were now full to the brim!

A mouthful of rose tart in praline was the last thing offered before our waiter returned to ask us about coffee or tea.

We declined the beverage citing no possible space and instead just asked for the bill and for someone to book us a cab to take us back to the train, as walking when this full, was clearly out of the question.

What arrived was the bill, confirmation of the cab and surprisingly, more food! 4 chocolates each. Of course we found space. You had to find space, there was no way I was not going to taste hand-made chocolates from Heston Blumenthal after such a magnificent meal (even if we did do the – take a bite, and put the rest back – thingy). These 4 chocolates were responsible for Christine’s last and final orgasm of the evening. The first was filled with a truffle mix tasting of leather, the second tasting of oak, the third tasting of pine and the last of mint. They would have been even better with coffee, but as I already told you, there was just no space left.

What a wonderful evening. Truly excellent. There were so many people to thank. Eric our delightful waiter, the new but knowledgeable sommelier, the kitchen, M. Blumenthal himself and of course Christine for her company. It was fabulous. Definitely the highlight of my trip. In fact probably the most amazing meal I have ever enjoyed. It truly is much more than a meal in a restaurant. In fact it is nothing like a meal in a restaurant, it was an evening’s entertainment.

Then, to top it all off, we were invited into the kitchen to meet the chef himself. Heston Blumenthal. We were like two schoolgirls, albeit tipsy schoolgirls, we were falling over ourselves trying to explain how much we enjoyed our evening. He was young, full of energy and delightfully British, down to earth with an air of accomplishment. He was sincerely interested (or so he appeared) in where we were from, and what we had visited in our travels and in London. He made us feel privileged by sharing with us his ideas for a launch he was working on with Vivienne Westwood in Barcelona, which had it not been cancelled at the last minute, would surely have been something quite spectacular! We chatted for what felt like at least 20 minutes, then were whisked away to our waiting cab and on to the train station.

The return train ride was spent marvelling over the whole evening, amidst cry’s of “better than meeting Brad Pitt“, “better than meeting Prince“, “I bet Michelle would even say better than meeting Jamie Oliver!” etc…. so much so, that just before we arrived in London, the gentleman sitting beside us, excused himself and asked “just where was it you went for dinner, ladies – it sounds like I should try it!“.

� and the answer to that is: “The Fat Duck. And yes, you really should!“