For a brief overview on the restaurant, check out the Lamb Cheeks entry.
Brains. This was our quest. This was our White Castle in the never-before told story: Chris and Maryann go to eat Brains. This was the end of our months of planning. A reward for our time spent in the biomedical sciences.
The human brain has a neuron count of about 100 billion. What does this have to do with food? Well neurons are supported by another class of cells--glia--which are 10 to 50 times more numerous. A major subset (I think somewhere around 50%) of these glia are oligodendrocytes. These cells wrap the shafts of neurons with a fatty sheath of myelin, aiding transmission along the axon. The white that you see in a slice of brain (the white matter) is white because of these glia. That said, brains are composed of mostly fat. Which makes them delicious.
Oh and for those worried about it, diseases contracted through eating lamb brains are rare. Cow brains are another matter entirely.
Taste:
Looks a lot like a fried white fish. Taste-wise, think tofu, but slightly firmer. And very fatty, for the reasons I mentioned above. We spoke to Ali about how these were prepared. He basically said that they sliced up the brains, lightly breaded them, and fried/braised them. Simple enough I suppose. He serves them with a familiar set of unnameable spices and some peppers to balance out the textures.
Reflections:
Worth it. Definitely worth the trip over, just for the experience itself. The brains were quite good, and as I said, very reminiscent of tofu. I have to say though that after the third or fourth piece the fat really gets to you. Sort of like having too much mayonnaise on your sandwich--you just get tired of that fatty taste.
I'd do it again.
