My first meal at Alinea was in 2009. At that time there were two menus: a smaller, more focused 12-course tasting and a 24-course "grand tour" of the restaurant's cuisine. I overall really enjoyed my first meal quite a bit, though I thought it lacked focus and the kitchen was heavy-handed with the sugar. Since that time the two menus have been combined into a single 18-course tasting which I think is intended to bring focus and tell more of a story. While the dining room still felt icy, the service warmed up, a little. Our waiter seemed genuinely friendly, cracking jokes and making us smile throughout the meal. Once in a while, however, someone else from the kitchen brought our food and seemed a bit more distant and, well, self-satisfied. I think we got really lucky, our waiter was great.

Molecular gastronomy, or avant-garde cuisine, challenges the way diners interact with food. The meal becomes as much about the experience as it does about the flavor. The challenge is to create a unique and exciting experience without sacrificing the taste. Alinea was my first domestic experience with molecular gastronomy where the dishes were not only fun and exciting, but they tasted great, too. Our menu, titled the "grand tour," consisted of 24-courses each overlaid with grey orbs of varying opacity to indicate intensity, portion size and sweetness. The color of the orb indicated the dish's intensity: darker meant more intense. The position of the orb indicated the dish's sweetness: to the left meant savory, to the right meant sweet. The size of the orb represented the size of the plate: bigger orb, more food. We were given not a menu for the evening's food, but a guide to help us with pace.