To cap off our anniversary, the Hubs and I went to the Fat Duck for the first time. We've resisted it for years and finally decided to take the step. After all the hype, it wouldn't have been unexpected if the meal had been a let down. It wasn't. We opted for the tasting menu, which will soon be the only option there. The menu takes four and a half hours to get through but those hours are filled with showmanship and fun.


The tasting menu has three seperate wine options, beginning at £90 and topping at £195. Given the excesses of the night before (meatfest at Gaucho Grill), we decided to share one of the wine pairings, and went for the £90 choice because we weren't sure if we would be able to hold it down. Had the financial sector been stronger and the bonus what legends are made of, we would have probably opted for the mid and top end choices - there were lovely looking Puligny Montrachet and Saint Emillion options. Still, there are no regrets because the choice we'd made had some really interesting, strong choices. There were three in particular (the sake, a pinot gris and an exceptionally soft St Emillion) that we'd love to get our hands on, if only the Fat Duck hadn't taken the entire UK allocation (harumph). I always find wine difficult with tasting menus because of the twisting flavours, and tend to fall back on albarino/pinot gris/rioja blanc and stellenbosch/pinot noir/tempranillo combinations (hmm. The French aren't winning here, weird). Still, although the wine was a huge feature for us, and I had a bonding experience with the sommelier-with-a-great-ass over the superior qualities of the Qupe Marsanne, the food was defining.

The Fat Duck brand is prevalent, and you can sense it everywhere. The staff ferried dishes on engraved trays, the menus are large embossed tomes, and the wine list was a deadly weapon in a myriad of ways. The brand is on everything apart from the crockery, cutlery and (Riedel glassware. Even the soap is branded. Still, it is important, I think, since the spirit of the brand drives everything in the restaurant. When we arrived there was a card on the table inviting us to recount nostalgia foods from our youth (rice and ketchup anyone?), which got us in the mood. Bread was simple, just a chewy sourdough style white and a simple brown. Even more rustic was the unpasteurised butter, which (dissapointingly) tasted like butter.

The first introduction was geared towards the expectation - cooked at the table in liquid nitrogen, a lime and green tea mousse that came dusted in matcha. The idea was to put the whole thing in your mouth at once and just let it melt. The sensation was like that of a dry ice-cream and I had 2 problems with it. The first was that it was a little bit too large, so I struggled to get it in my mouth (particularly since my hangover meant I had supreme gag reflex). The second was that it did that slightly unpleasant thing of sticking to my tongue in the dry-ice sort of way. It was only for a split second but it left an awkward impression. It tasted more like lime than green tea, which dissapointed me a little, but it was interesting and inoffensive.

The second introduction was a pommery mustard ice cream with a red cabbage gazpacho. This was nice enough, and a good introduction because it was approachable. The third course was another visual spectacle - the jelly of quail, parfait of foie gras, oak moss and truffle toast featuring more liquid nitro (they must have cornered the market here). This was delicious. Worryingly though, we were starting to fill up, and the meal hadn't even started.

The first course was the infamous snail porridge. I'd always imagined that this would be porridge like we had for breakfast back in the days where carbohydrates were an acceptable start to the day. In fact, it was an al dente version, with a thin pesto in the place of milk. The snails came topped with a crunchy saurkraut and the combinations were excellent. This was the second best course ever for the Hubs and I (a theme to continue).

The second course was more foie gras. Yum. It came the way we love it, almost a half-inch thick, pink in the middle and melt in the mouth. It was served with a crab biscuit and a gooseberry puree. There was a moment where I realised that the Hubs had finished his without trying it with the wine. I gallantly considered offering him a slice of mine so he could. It was gallant, generous and giving. I kept my thought to myself and ate it all. Hey, it's the thought that counts.

The third course was the infamous "Sound of the Sea", the most obvious example of mood-dining we had. An ipod was served in a conch that played sea sounds including sea gull (ick) and waves. The dish was quite a spectacle as well, edible "sand" with sashimi and a soy foam. Fourth up was poached salmon with an extraordinary vanilla mayonaisse, artichoke and grapefruit. Fifth was the Anjou pigeon, which I normally dislike for being too tough. This was butter-knife tender and served with black pudding sauce. The sauce was a worrying concept (what, had the blood not congealed?), and the texture of chocolate sauce.

It was at this point that we hit dessert, sort of. The warm-up (cool down?) was a pine flavoured sherbet. The first dessert was a mango and douglas fir mousse that came with a spritz of pine scent. Then, strangely, it was time for breakfast. Boxes of "Fat Duck Cereal" were presented with a jug of milk - freeze-dried parsley cereal. Then another infamous dish - the bacon and egg ice-cream. This was another spectacle, involving our favourite waiter of the day "cooking" the scramble at our table. The "egg" tasted of smoked bacon and was served on the loveliest french toast I'd ever had.

The next stage of dessert was something sweet. The most promising of combinations. Something surely sent by the Gods. Chocolate wine slush.

Y U M

The meal more than lived up to expectations. The bill was on the Earth's side of astronomical, but we had been there for 5 hours and loved every second.

Oh. How did I forget? We managed to coerce the kitchen into giving us an extra course, the BFG. My all time favourite cake. This one was not particularly challenging in light of everything we'd had already. Just a measly squirt of kirsch perfume. It was probably the most perfect cake I'd ever had.