The sequence of 25 course dinner is well designed and thought out carefully, like a well-written composition in music. As an inspiration to the research and project, it is essential to collect this memory of experience; i.e., to get inspired; and to understand more about the possibility and process of creating a flavour that exceeds personal imagination. Here is the summary of the course with short descriptions and pictorial inserts from the Gaggan Anand restaurant experience.
There are various subjects directly related to multisensory experience, and some are not but fascinating to discover from an artistic perspective.
In Gaggan's cuisine, various aspects from his course are related to multisensory experience. One of the main elements in flavour is texture. Gaggan presented various texture qualities in his course, accentuated more than one texture in one plate (multi-textural). On the contrary, some plate was only played with a single texture (mono-textural). For example, in the plate called "Fish in the basket", he played with crispy texture from the nature of the ingredient (shrimp roll) in combination with the crispiness of the in house fish-shaped cracker. Moreover, there were several recipes that he added cultural aspects to the plate served to his customer. Cultural aspects are infiltrated in different dishes, as decoration, ingredients, or materials. For instance, in "Lick it up", he used Indian culture (Indian Holi Festival) as an inspiration and showed it through plate decoration. In "Chicken soup", he used cultural trends like tapioca beads of famous Taiwanese bubbled milk tea as an ingredient. In "Deep Purple" and "Rice", he used Thai culture, including silk and rice farming, as plate materials. From a scientific perspective in multisensory experience, cultural aspects have played an essential role in human perceptions, which affect our hedonic judgement. The visual aspect of the course has a substantial impact on the whole dining experience. In a multisensory perspective, vision has the power to induce and conduct the context of experience. There are multiple usages of visual aspects in flavour perception of Gaggan. For example, he used a blue plate representing the sea to complement the sea urchin from the dish "Japan". A more exciting process in terms of visual aspect was seen in the re-designing of ingredients’ appearance, for example, in the "Autumn Leaves", of which the ingredients were formed by a reconstruction process and re-designed into a leaf shape, which sparked diners' anticipation. Body engagement was one of the most enjoyable parts of the experience at Gaggan. In "Fuck you" and "Yuzu+Mushroom", he used diners' body as a plate for his serving producing an engagement between human and food. In the flavour experience, it is sometimes useful to narrow down the focus to only one or two senses, like in the "Lamb" dish. The tableware that he chose to display the lamb was the most simplistic plate from the whole course to cut out the visual effect. The dish's composition was centralized, as he induced us to only focus on the lamb's flavour.
Away from the multisensory topic, when the course duration is extensive (about 3 hours), the pace and composition of flavour at a contextual level is critical. The collation of the course was thought out perfectly. Gaggan simultaneously alternated hot-cold, spicy-mild, soft-crispy texture to balance our palate. Like a composition of music, a variety of techniques are used. Intrinsically, every dish was memorizing and pleasurable, but the actual value of the Gaggan experience could be seen from a distance. The big picture of the course was an absolute beauty.