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| - It is very, very hard to pull off molecular gastronomy without coming across as a poseur or an amateur. Unfortunately, XO tries hard but does not achieve the gold.
At its core, molecular gastronomy is offering the guest an experience, versus food. The truth is that XO lacks the resources to make this happen. They are using a finite group of people to try to do what New York City or L.A. restaurants do with three times the staff. The result is that there are problems.
For example, my salmon was a good piece of salmon. Like most other restaurants today, the salmon was dumped into a sous vide cooker, and was done perfectly. While most restaurants would have crisped the outside in a skillet in order to accomplish a nice golden crust on the fish, the molecular genius decided that this was not necessary. Instead of a crisp fish crust, they would serve perfectly crispy side vegetables to take the place of the crust. Brilliant! Except the desired crispness never materialized.
Instead, I got fish jello.
The staff wants to do well. Really. And they are absolutely attentive. But this kind of dish cannot be accomplished without doubling the kitchen staff.
Similar stories could be told about every course, for every diner. My suggestion for the person in charge of creative control is this: it is better to do very little, perfectly, than to be ambitious, but fall short of gold.
For 450 Canadian you might do better elsewhere. A perfect steak frites might be a better formula than a fish that someone meditated upon and served with tea steam.
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