El Bulli The Best Restaurant In The World

 The success of El Bulli (E-mail:[email protected]) rest on the principle of “Molecular and Physical Gastronomy,” which began in 1988 when two scientists, Hungarian physicist Nicolas Kurti and French physical chemist Hervé This, studied the science behind traditional cooking methods with fellow scientists and professional cooks in a series of workshops in Italy.

It evolved into the scientific discipline called Molecular Gastronomy which involves “the study of physical and chemical processes that occur in cooking.” Wikipedia provides the best example of this principle; when you boil an egg for three to six minutes, it produces a soft yolk and 6 to 8 minutes, a medium yolk. What happens if you boil an egg at 63 ºC for 15 minutes? It will always yield a yolk that is soft. All my beloved readers know this. Not that they are chefs but at least at one point in their lives they have boiled an egg!

Masters in the technique of boiling dozens of eggs at a time are the poultry farmers in Bantayan Island. Your favorite food columnist used to work as a veterinary salesman; welcome dinks was one case of beer (24 bottles), one planggana of hard boiled eggs (24) and a sack full of a shell fish called bali-ad (a bi-valve, flesh is coin-size and inside lives a tiny crab!) to be charcoal broiled. Forget about account receivables from this smart folks.

In the International Workshops of Molecular and Physical Gastronomy, topics such as “Chemical Reactions in Cooking,” “Physical aspects of food/liquid interaction” and “Solubility problems, dispersion, texture/flavors relationship” are discussed. I understand that many of my beloved readers have much difficulty in chemistry, physics and mathematics. Preferable activities were dating, drinking and computer gaming. But the science of food advances specially with a team like El Bulli led by Ferran Adrià, working in their high tech laboratory at elBullitaller to invent new dishes and plates for the incoming year.

Part Two shows the Dishes and Desserts classified according to the El Bulli system. I have chosen seven dishes and seven desserts which I hope would represent the philosophy behind the best restaurant in the world. Labels of the food photos are self explanatory; everyone has eaten a marshmallow but when it shaped like surgical gloves, you say “wow” but the mind remembers it is still a marshmallow.

When it’s called ‘gran creu negra’ and “spiral,” problem gyud, research na pud. The black cross is “an outsize cross of smeared black sesame paste with chocolate-lime sorbet and chocolate cake” while the spiral is a “swirl of black sesame crunch, dehydrated raspberries and lime gelatine, with a quenelle of coconut ice cream.”

No Reservations’ Anthony Bourdain says that “things rarely as they appear. There is surprise, confusion, astonishment. There is a sense of wonder. It registers flavours in the tongue in distinct sequence; first shock, disorientation and comforting reassurance.”

There is a dessert called “honey Filipino cookies.” Maybe a Filipino works in elBullitaller or it drew inspiration from the Cebuano recycled bread called “bahug-bahug.” I wonder how Food Magician Ferran Adrià would reinvent the Filipino lechon. Perhaps in the near future, I can finally experience, ahem, El Bulli restaurant that “boldly goes where no kitchen has gone before.”