A Twist on Fusion Cooking (2)
Viewing food in totally unexpected ways allows chef Homaro Cantu, Jr. to create startlingly original ways of presenting and reconstituting food

Fusion food
Consider a bizarre yet tasty combination of food and science, of high and low culture, of the comfortable and absurd.Case in point: Surf & Turf, which combines a Hawaiian sea bass with duck. Accompanying the dish is a sketch depicting a sea that morphs into a sky. "And please eat the drawing" a server would say. "It's flavored on the top like a bird and on the bottom like a sea."
Creative, yes, but what Cantu calls creative other people call bonkers. Another meal offers the edible menu, a soy-based concoction withvegetable ink spread out to resemble a soft piece of parchment; synthetic champagne injected into your glass with a giant black medical syringe; and pancakes sizzling on a "griddle" frozen to -273 degrees Fahrenheit. Such were the offering when Moto opened in January 2004.

Diners' delight
Eventually, the restaurant was discovered by food lovers who came to admire Cantu's strange combination of playful experimentation, all-American flavor and haute cuisine. There is, for example, the Donut Soup, an elegant espresso cup containing a few ounces of liquid that tastes exactly like the inside of a Krispy Kreme doughnut, chemical aftertaste and all.

Cantu Designs
Cantu is expanding into a new business, Cantu Designs. He hopes to license such patent pending invention as his replicator, "Cator"the printer that creates "edible surfaces" such as paper flavored like cheesecake. Another invention is his polymer cooking box, which allows food to continue cooking even after it is removed from a heat source.

Vocabulary Focus   

concoction (n) the result of making something, usually food, by adding several different parts together, often in a way that is not planned

Specialized Terms

bonkers (adj) 疯狂的silly, stupid or crazy

parchment (n)羊皮纸a superior paper resembling sheepshin

syringe (n)注射器,洗涤器 a medical instrument used to inject or withdraw fluids

cuisine (n)高级烹饪术 an elaborate and skillful manner of preparing food (french)

polymer (n)聚合体