Is this "deconstruction" trend the culinary arts equivalent to edgy Hollywood movie remakes...

I read the article. I can't imagine how the techniques used would create the "feeling" of it. It's not eggs benedict, it's something else entirely while riding on the name.

the flavors and textures are all there, you eat it and even with your eyes closed you can say 'yes, this is eggs benedict'
no its not a value meal, you can get regular eggs benedict at any brunch spot in any city for a quarter of the price. you can rail on fine dining as a whole, but within those confines that dish fit perfectly. A normal eggs benedict would have been out of place.
Here's another from the same place, you'll see pretenders pretty commonly serve a variation of this 'deconstructed s'mores'

The problem with it is they attempt to "improve" classics by changing textures which were inherent in making the thing classic. For example, I lost all respect for Chang on "Mind of a Chef" when he deconstructed the classic BLT by grinding the bacon to a paste and using tomato jam instead of a vine ripened in season tomato. His "inspiration" was, "The problem with the BLT is the bacon crumbles and falls out blah, blah, blah." The entire besuty of the BLT is the texture plus the epiphany of the freshest produce. Deconstruction of a classic by definition will be inferior. Chang earned the appellation faggot extraordinaire after that little escapade.

I love deconstructed foods. I live in Melbourne.

you know just because one guy deconstructs a BLT doesn't mean all the others cease to exist. Idk I kind of like that idea, I also don't like how the bacon always slides out, and tomato jam is pretty good man.

>sell instant coffee as deconstructed coffee

I'm not railing on fine dining, only on deconstruction.

i guess it's okay if you have really high quality ingredients and want them to be appreciated.

foams always look like spit or the stuff my cat sometimes throws up though.

so go sell me an eggs benedict as part of a 5 course, 150 dollar meal, pre wine pairing

Making a fucking good Eggs Benedict.

Or you could give me sous vide egg flavored pop ice with fried gelatin cubes. apparently.
Or just plop some caviar and micro greens on top of a bog standard Eggs Benedict. I have been to plenty of places that do that.

Ok.
I get that you like deconstructed foods, so do I.
But, living in Melbourne, is there any market for American food? And by that, I don't mean burgers, or any other common expat food. I'm talking chili, etoufee, ciopinno, and other indigenous American foods.

and how would that fit into a very expensive, downtown dinner setting?
The point of these deconstructed dishes isn't to make the best, whatever, while eliminating most of the things that make a classic version. Its to get people laid. These are sexy dishes, its supposed to make you think, and feel something, tug your emotional connection to food. And make a shit load of money selling that. They clearly have to be very good, but you aren't making it gunning for 'best chicken fried steak in the county'.
I'm sure you can make a very good eggs benedict, the classic way. I'm also sure wylie dufrense can make a way better classic eggs benedict than you.
But I'm positive you couldn't make a dish like that, with maybe (big maybe) three dollars of ingredients a plate, and sell it for thirty. And if you did there wouldn't be idiots arguing about its merits 10 years later on an anonymous fast food review review board.

This. wd-50 may have been a labor of love, but it was a very high end one. The entire point was to challenge expectations while at the same time evoking the familiar. It was like an amusement park for people who ate out at good restaurants so often that they were almost jaded to good food done well. When that's your baseline it takes more than that to be something special. You need something that challenges your expectations in an ultimately pleasing way. And Dufrense lived for that shit, which is why he toiled away on Clinton St years past the point where he could have easily just cashed in on his fame.

This hasn't been cool for like ten years. Way to go late adopters

It's just post modernist drivel that fools idiots into thinking their nonsense is profound, thought provoking art.
>look I took all the ingredients to a sandwich but I threw them all over the table, is it still a sandwich????

It's jewish cooking, if anything.

go back to tumblr you horoscope witch

>It's just post modernist drivel that fools idiots into thinking their nonsense is profound, thought provoking art.
It can be that, and in most cases probably is. But the only reason we're even talking about it is because about a decade ago a handful of very talented chefs proved it could be something closer to profound, thought provoking art.

>it could be something closer to profound, thought provoking art.
Except to anyone but some retard art major the only thought it provokes is "is it still a sandwich? huh, maybe, moving on." It's asking a question that doesn't fucking matter in the slightest.

I had something that was referred to as deconstructed ketchup and it turned out to be tomato chutney. That's probably the only good instance I can think of.

I've had de-constructed water before, they gave me a plate with a blue balloon full of oxygen and two red balloons on strings full of hydrogen. Really activates the almonds on how to appreciate water I have never drank the same way since

There's nothing thought provoking about it. You know exactly what happened when you see it and when you eat it. Some retards spent hours making overpriced food that tastes like something else, but looks like retarded slop. An unbuilt car just starting on the assembly line is apparently some sort of art form according to this deconstructionist nonsense, and it apparently should cost the buyer a million dollars to purchase this "car" that isn't a car, but has all the fundamental parts of a car.

This argument is more thought provoking than this garbage.

>It's asking a question that doesn't fucking matter in the slightest.
The audience was people who blew lots of money on dining out. The point was to challenge jaded expectations, while giving the diners an experience they would remember.

The point was to make money while sniffing your own farts.

>There's nothing thought provoking about it.
Says you. I doubt you're a member of the target audience for that stuff anyways. You weren't big into fine dining a decade ago, were you?

If you're talking about wd-50 it was very much a labor of love. He could have cashed in several times, but chose not to.

Your analogy is pretty flawed, mostly because you can't drive a deconstructed car. You can still eat a deconstructed sandwich.

>refrains from posting his provoked thoughts on it
probably because they amount to "wow it totally doesn't look like eggs benedict, wow it tastes like eggs benedict"

Underrated

If you go to a pub expecting spectacular shit youll be disappointed. Just stick to stuff they can deep fry. apps and shit

Is there any logical reason why you would fucking say that post is underrated? Has anybody expressed any kind of dissatisfaction or criticism at all against it? Are you delusional? Are you reading replies that are nonexistant? Maybe you come from communities with voting systems, but there is literally no way that you could know what other people think of that post you just replied to here. Maybe it's psychological. Maybe it's your own post you're replying to, like a 12 year old fucktard liking his own facebook posts thinking his swelling autism is going unnoticed. Maybe your self esteem depends on you tricking yourself into thinking someone out there thinks your post is worth something. Or maybe you are just a retard, the worst kind of retard, the one who thinks he's smart, the one who thinks he's the only one to have gotten the joke, to have understood the post. Well, guess what, faggot, that post is under no definition underrated so why don't you do the world a favor and go check out what the bottom of your toilet smells like?

I wasn't expecting amazing, I was expecting pub food and what I got was deconstructed shit that wasn't a pie and where I had to reassemble it anyways.

maybe eggs benedict are not meant to be served as part of a 5 course 150 dollar meal?

Let me put it like this: You know how you can be delighted by a dramatic magic trick, but as soon as you know how it was done it will never delight you again? wd-50 was kind of like that. They delighted customers by serving very high end meals that consistently managed to pleasantly shock and surprise diners. That pleasant shock and surprise was the magic, and they put a lot of work into that for 11 years. But here we are over three years since it ended, and this sort of thing is particularly shocking or surprising anymore. And without that shock and surprise it's like watching a magic trick where you know how it's done - it isn't going to delight you anymore. But for a while there they really did delight a lot of diners, and it wasn't just a stupid gimmick. They put a fuckton of work into creating a dining experience that people really loved. Sure, for much less than what they were charging you could have gotten equally delicious conventional food elsewhere. But that wasn't the point. What you were paying for was that pleasant shock and surprise experience of delicious food in a luxury environment. Looking at a gorgeous dish that looks nothing like eggs Benedict, then tasting it to discover it sure as fuck is, even there seems like no way it could be. Like I said, it was like a magic trick.

I fucking hate when people use chemical glassware for stuff like food and drink. Fuck outta here faggots, stick to your mason jars and keep your hands off my glassware.

awww... super kitty. I had a main coon near that size. He lived to be 23 and scared the shit out of my dogs. Miss you buddy.

Thats a bobcat

Pure bred Main coons are pretty different from a normal house cat. Anyway, kitties are kitties.

> pretends chemists don't regularly abuse lab equipment for food&drinks.

There are a few American style restaurants in Melbourne, theyre pretty average though and incredibly overpriced. There is a really good Philly Cheesesteak place here though

>coffee is not a chemical
THE STATE OF YOU LMAO

Underrated

To be fair, you have to be extremely knowledgeable and experienced with a dish before you can competently meddle with its fundamentals. Ferran Adria probably cooked hundreds of plates of paella before getting the idea of making a version with Rice Krispies.

Some nicer BBQ places, or more the pubs that have invested their kitchen in doing proper USA style smoking have some Southern style stuff, but from what I've seen I don't think there's much in the way of proper Cajun or anything.

Fucking 'boutique' burgers. Jesus Christ are they popping up like fucking cockroaches. All I'd love is a few more midrange places that do a slightly less fancy but just as fresh alternative. Saddest thing is, BK and McD's here is hardly cheaper than these places.
Also I'm only speaking for what I know in the inner north-west. Its a fucking big city and classy startups are often heading further and further out.

Most unfunny response I have ever seen.

>Fucking 'boutique' burgers. Jesus Christ are they popping up like fucking cockroaches
This was like, late 2000s early 2010s, at least in the US, that fad is dead, dead, dead. Are you Australian?

Oh, nevermind I am too stupid to read the thread. Sorry, also put another shrimp on the barbie for me

Reddit tier argument. Food is a combination of different flavors and by splitting up these flavors you can understand the complete dish in a better way.

Deconstructed food is the fucking worst. I've never gotten it myself but the last time I've seen it ordered was when my family went out to eat and my aunt ordered a deconstructed beef wellington. Everyone else got food that looked like something out of Monster Hunter and she gets a dinky piece of meat topped with a puff pastry and sauce dribbled around it.

It was prolly a clever idea and done well the first few times but there is no reason for it to be a "thing".
Now people just think they are good cooks because they can "deconstruct" something. That or they think they are classy for eating it.

why are you spewing random things that no one said?

Very underrated post!

Well said. The whole things that got labeled as Modernist was really just a bunch of chefs asking "Why not?" with regard to dishes, techniques and ingredients. Some of the things they came up with got played out really quick, like foam, deconstructed dishes and excessive use of agar agar or liquid nitrogen. But just because these things prompt eyerolls now doesn't mean they weren't used to great effect by some talented chefs a decade ago.

You do realize you don't have to pay for anything you aren't happy with, right? Like if nobody told you that that was what it was going to be, then they can't force you to pay for it.

looks like that breakfast meal that Mulan ate

Deconstruction is basically an avant garde way of creating and presenting a dish. The basic premise is to get people to think about things in a different way. I can see the appeal when it's done well, but even then I see why a lot of people hate it. Most people think of food as a craft at best, and I am inclined to agree, but I stop way short of hating everything and anyone trying to inject artistry into food for the sake of artistry. Molecular gastronomy, that is one that I am closer to hating outright just for the namesake, despite the fact that I think a few neat things came out of it.

too beta to complain really.

>Most people think of food as a craft at best
That's because most food is craft. Artistry only becomes a part of it at the very high end. Which makes sense. When you're at the level of restaurant where it's a given that the food will be delicious you have to provide more than just that to get people to ooh and ah over your tasting menu that clocks in at $400 per person. That's where the artistry comes in. And because the cost of entry is so high the average person will never experience it. That's where the sour grapes come from, leading many to just write off the idea as pretentious because it's something they'll never afford.

I once saw a chemistry professor using a burette like a straw

i went to a party and chemists were making slushies out of pure ethanol and liquid nitrogen

>Artistry only becomes a part of it at the very high end.
I disagree. Art isn't always good art. There's plenty of terribly conceptualized and terribly executed art all the way up to high-end stuff that not as many people will argue about artistic value because they associate that with the same as how much the restaurant can charge for the plate.

And a whole lot of food that most wouldn't consider a craft. Craftsmen can create some of the finest tools and buildings, sometimes including a lot of expression in their craft. Some people put that in a category of art on its own. Meanwhile the majority of things are mass produced or tossed together in a useful way sort of stuff. Of course, there's always the Andy Warhol types who will sell you some Campbell's soup or a video of himself eating a burger and call it art. The same can be said for food, IMO.

wholesome post

>Andy Warhol types who will sell you some Campbell's soup or a video of himself eating a burger and call it art. The same can be said for food, IMO.
Agreed. But I don't think the so-called modernists were doing the "It's art because I say it is" thing. They were working very hard to provide a fresh take on the dining out experience by doing things no one had done before. In addition to a lot of artistic plating many of the dishes were presented and eaten with elements of performance art. It was dining out as entertainment, with the chefs working hard to create dishes that challenged your expectations in a pleasureful way. Tings that tasted familiar but looked like something else, or nothing you'd eaten before. Remember this was going down in a very exclusive niche market - restaurants with tasting menus, where the concept is you fork over a large sum of money for the chef to impress you over many courses. This was not aimed at the mainstream - it wasn't meant to just be a nice dinner out. The people who went to these places were there because they wanted that experience from that chef. And he wanted them to remember it for years, regardless of how many good restaurants they ate at before or after.
>not as many people will argue about artistic value because they associate that with the same as how much the restaurant can charge for the plate.
I don't really think the chefs who did this thought of themselves as artists, just serious modern chefs running tasting menu driven places. At the time I wouldn't have considered them artists, either. But now looking back they were putting a lot of elements of art into their meals in ways no one had done before with the purpose of challenging assumptions. And that kinda is art. I'm glad it's over now, because people did get all precious about it, which was annoying. But I think guys like Dufrense, Adria and Achatz made food that demanded appreciation on an artistic level.

I think that's exactly what dadaists were doing, and what quite a few of the modern artists were doing. Modernist chefs, perhaps not, yet I think many of them just hopped on the bandwagon. I don't really fault them for that, nor do I disparage any of them for that alone. It's just not my thing in general, and I think there are a lot of hacks and pretentious people, even pretentious hacks who get away with being considered legitimate. Molecular gastronomy is a beast of its own kind within modernist cooking.
I wasn't associating all expensive restaurants with art. I think a lot of people will tend to associate art with the most expensive places because that is what is generally referred to as high end, and many people associate artistic value with monetary value, even in the art world.

>It's just not my thing in general
I hear you. If I were in the tax bracket that allowed me to regularly eat at places with tasting menus I doubt I'd be posting here. Pretty much anything that requires a lot of highly skilled labor to produce is going to be pretty much only for the elites, and I'm not one of them.
>I think there are a lot of hacks and pretentious people, even pretentious hacks who get away with being considered legitimate
Probably. But at a certain level it gets tough to tell who is who. And that's because it got so arty, which pretty much upended the standards one would normally apply to restaurants. Art is tough because there are no objective criteria for making judgments about it. Take a guy like Jackson Pollack. Unsuccessful drunken painter for a good chunk of his career. Then he stops doing anything that resembles actual painting and becomes a sensation. Is that just because rich people liked it, or was he doing something cooler than I can tell? Don't know. I'm not in the art world, so none of that shit is for me. But I'm not gonna call it pretentious just because I don't get it.

I mean, you're exactly on point, so I don't see the point of this thread. It's uninspired in nearly every way but there's still going to be people that speak of it like it's avant garde.