What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Is there a God? I wouldn’t know. I live for the here and now, by which I don’t mean I plan for the weekend, but that I can only rely on this moment right here. So when I found myself at Edo, (meaning estuary, also the former name for Tokyo), ITC Gardenia Bangalore for their “Japan Debate on a Plate”, I was well pleased with my philosophy du jour, because the here and now tasted sublime and I came away with the answer to at least one of the above questions, yes, there is a God, a culinary God at least.
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- The seaweed swirl
At Edo, that would be Resident Chef Fumio Kikuta who got a helping hand from visiting Chef Vikramjit Roy and Raveen Misra, Regional Brand Ambassador, SEA Portfolio Markets and Emerging Asia who served up whisky-based cocktails that went over my philistine head but which, I was told by connoisseurs at the table, “tasted as smooth as butter”.
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- salmon art
I was too immersed in my Salmon with confit melon and miso cream cheese, bubuarare and smoked corn mash to pay too much attention to the Green Tea whisky complete with Johnnie Walker and seaweed flourish except to admire the way it looked (yes, Superficial is my middle name), and by the time the Edamame soup, sansho crisp and foie gras foam arrived at the table, I couldn’t have told you the name of my lunch companion. Not because I was imbibing freely but because I had never tasted something so delicate and inspiring. Can there be anything worse than tasting a spoonful of what looks like a science experiment and finding it tastes like one, too? The soup looked like an artist had laboured over it in both terms and Mmm, it was good.
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sea bass takes a swim
The Chilean sea bass with tamari teriyaki and organic vegetables and jalapenos maceration followed by a dessert of Johnnie Walker XR 21 poached pear carpaccio and yuzu probiotic yoghurt ice was tantalising and refreshing. What an ode to the imagination some meals can be. I don’t know about you but to me, Food can often answer all existential queries.
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Sheba Thayil is a journalist and writer. She was born in Bombay, brought up in Hong Kong, and exiled to Bangalore. While editing, writing and working in varied places like The Economic Times, Gulf Daily News, New Indian Express andCosmopolitan, it is the movies and books, she says, that have always sustained her. She blogs at http://shebathayil.blogspot.com/