Pleasure principle: Food, music, sex and drugs

January 17, 2011

Listening to thrilling music causes the release of dopamine, the “pleasure” neurotransmitter, in the same way that great food, sex and drugs causes the brain to react. In fact, the more chills you experience, the more dopamine is released says the study from The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University.

Speaking of good food, I just realized that I never posted about the incredible meal I had in August at Momofuku Ko even though I promised to. Here’s the reason: there must be something to this study here about the chills you experience from eating great food, because I swear I must’ve been so high off of the dinner that my memory’s failing me.

I do recall at 10AM every day in the week before our trip, we each logged onto the Momofuku site to try to get us a precious two seats for dinner. It took about as much effort as running a half-marathon but we managed to snag a coveted reservation.

After that, though, things get a little fuzzy. See, at Ko, they have a “no photos” policy, so I don’t have any visual cues to jog my brain. I did the best I could to make notes on my cell phone during dinner, but right now it just looks like jibberish (Case in point: does “cabbagegoose tongue herb bc oyster” mean anything to you? Nope? Me neither). 

My jumbled notes may be partly due to the wine we were also enjoying with dinner, but I think it had more to do with the chefs’  gloriously detailed descriptions of the many courses we enjoyed.

For example, when I fell in love with the granules of black sesame rolled into balls so they resembled blueberries in our dessert, I asked the chef about them and I swear the process to make these bits of black sesame garnishing the dessert was about as long as a PhD thesis.

I’m currently (finally!) reading the Momofuku cookbook, and learning how David Chang’s become David Chang. Flipping through the book, I was beyond thrilled (like more than shoppers-at-the-Barneys-Warehouse-Sale thrilled) to see the recipe for one of the dishes we ate that night in the cookbook.

The soft-cooked hen egg with caviar, onions & potato is one of the best freakin’ things I’ve ever eaten. Ever.

The delicate, absolutely perfect smokiness of the soft-cooked egg (made by soaking the eggs in water they’ve cold-smoked). The caviar (that usually makes me somewhat squeamish) that was so good I made sure I didn’t miss any tiny bit of it. The darling fingerling potato chips adding just the right the saltiness and crunch to the other soft ingredients on the plate. Nevermind that the dish was a work of art visually, too, so pretty I almost didn’t want to ruin it by digging in.

Le sigh.

I can only say it was perfection on a plate.

Would I return to Ko?

Hell yeah. Even though our meal cost us about as much as our flight and hotel stay, and I could spend that kinda money on a great pair of shoes (so you know I seriously love this place!).

I think I’m addicted.

P.S. Did I mention that one course was a mountain of light, melt-in-your-mouth shaved foie gras?

P.P.S. I’m in NYC later this week for work, but I’m making it my mission to get myself over to Momofuku Noodle Bar.

(Image (top): A Little Wit)

Filed under: Diet,Healthy Swellness,Random Swellness,Swellbeing