Tabasco sauce tasting like hot jelly donut glaze? Lemons tasting like sweet candy? That is exacly what someone wrote in the New York Times about miracle fruit, which is also the reason why I had to try it.
I finally tried miracle fruit last month, and I've been meaning to write about it ever since.
It all started one day when I decided to clean out my inbox. In doing so, I found an old email from CK telling me about a wacky fruit he had read about that transforms your taste buds such that everything sour will taste sweet. Not only that, it seemed as though people were throwing 'taste tripping' parties to try out this so called miracle fruit. You pay a cover charge to eat the stuff, and when the properties in your mouth change, you go nuts tasting all sorts of different foods.
I originally tried buying the miracle fruit plant, but I just didn't have the patience to be put on a waiting list for 9 months. My next option was to buy the individual berries, but several companies told me that they probably wouldn't be able to clear Canadian customs in time for the berry to be eaten. Once picked off the tree, a miracle fruit berry must be consumed within 4 days for it to keep its properties.
By this point, I had already told people that I was going to throw a miracle fruit party, so I was seriously crunched for time. I would have put it off but I was meeting up with people who were flying in from the States. In the end, I opted for the fruit tablets, which apparently is quite fresh, and is used in a lot of taste tripping parties I have read about. It is simply the extract mixed with corn starch.
Ok...so now for the juicy details. Did everything sour turn sweet? Yes! Howeverrrrrr, my problem is that I have a vivid imagination, so when someone tells me there is something out there called "miracle fruit" that transforms everything you taste to whole good sweetness, I had visions of olives tasting like ripe bananas, and pickles tasting like lollipops.
It's the same when someone tells you that a movie was AMAZING, and that it is a MUST SEE. Most of the time, the movie will turn out to be ok because you had such high expectations. That is exactly how it was with me and miracle fruit. I almost wish I had tried it without reading so much about it.
It seems miracle fruit will only make a food taste sweet if it already has sugars in it. It magnifies any sugar in the food, and will also exaggerate any spiciness in the food. For example, I tried a mint leaf, and no part of it tasted sweet at all. However, with tabasco sauce, because there is sugar in it, it magnified the sweet taste at first, and then it was just a hot fiery taste at the end (the type of hot that you find in jerk chicken).
Here is a little chart of some of the foods I tried and what it tasted like:
You may have a completely different experience than I did...everyone interprets it in their own way. Don't get me wrong, miracle fruit was really neat, and the foods did transform into really cool tastes. My only advice is to try it with no expectations, and the more the merrier. The people with you is what's going to make the experience. 
We got our food, and had a mini feast in the car. It was hard to take pictures while stuffed in a car, so most of the pictures are from the store itself.
Next, we had the pork meat balls. They were very tasty, and had a very soft texture to them. I highly recommend these.
We then had our cabbage perojki. This wasn't the greatest...a little too doughy for me. My mother-in-law makes the best meat perojkis, and you just can't beat the home cooked version. They also had a cherry perojki which may have been interesting tasting.
We finished off our meal with some cottage cheese pancakes and cherry crepes. We also purchased a cherry sauce that we poured all over our pancakes and crepes.
The cottage cheese pancakes were neat to try but it wasn't amazing. I much preferred the cherry crepes. The crepe itself was extremely fresh, and the filling was tangy from the sour cherries. The cherry sauce wasn't too sweet, so it went perfectly with the crepe.
The salmon and avocado roll was my favourite. The fish and avocado tasted extremely fresh. I don't usually care for avocado, and I loved it that night.
Their unagi roll was also good.
For dessert, I had to try their black sesame icecream affogato. Now, this is an affogato with a Japanese twist. Instead of the traditional vanilla gelato with a shot of espresso, it is black sesame ice cream with a ristretto shot. The verdict? Not so hot. When mixed with a little bit of the black sesame ice cream, the coffee turned sour and when mixed with a lot of the ice cream, the coffee tasted very bitter. Either way, it wasn't very good. It is a neat idea, but the Italians definitely do it better. The icecream alone, however, was great.
CK had the tiramisu and that wasn't very good either.
We had exactly one hour to place our dinner order, eat it, and drive to the airport in time for me to check in for my flight. We warned the waiter in advance, and he made sure that all of our food was placed on rush order.
I ordered the Bourgogne escargot as an appetizer, and the others had the lobster bisque, and pernod shrimp.
The escargot was wonderful. The sauce wasn’t overpowering so you could still taste the escargots. It was actually my first time using tongs while eating escargots. At home, we generally use toothpicks, and they have always been de-shelled at the restaurants I’ve been to in the past.
Luckily, TT ordered the duck confit, so I got to try that as well. It was delicious, and the duck meat basically fell off the bone. It was served with a side of parsnips, carrots, and mashed potatoes.
Jo opted for a caesar salad, and it still looked great.
For desserts, we all shared the lime sorbet and truffle pyramid. The lime sorbet was extremely fresh. It tasted as though they put lime rind into it because it had somewhat of a tart and bitter taste to it. I really enjoyed it. The truffle pyramid was super rich.
I highly recommend this place, and I would definitely eat here again if I visit London another time. There were many other things on the menu that I would have loved to try.
I ordered the bison as per the waiter’s recommendation, and TT and Jo had the ahi tuna and beef pasta.
The bison was a decent choice. The other entrée’s, unfortunately, were an entirely different story. I tasted both, and didn’t care for either of them. The sauce served with the pasta was insanely salty (no exaggeration here), and the presentation of the tuna was corny. The tuna was served with a side of rice stir fry (whoopee), and was garnished with a cheap looking sushi roll. The tuna itself tasted ok but it was a little bit too thick.
The service wasn't very good either. Our waitress told us she was going to bring us bread, but never did. When we asked her what places served breakfast, she said she would check for us, but never came back with an answer. What topped it off was when we told our waitress that the pasta was too salty, she didn’t seem to know what to do, and ended up doing nothing in the end.
Ottawa is beautiful in the fall time. The leaves turn colour, and the air is fresh and crisp.
We decided to pick up some lunch at my favourite sandwich place, 
For $4.39, you get to pick your bread, cheese, meat, and condiments.
The zereshk polow was served with saffron chicken with tomatoes and onions, and tah-deeg. 
It didn't end there. For dessert, we had an awesome apple and almond yogourt cake. It was super moist and not too sweet, just the way I like it.
The cake was served with a strawberry and mango fruit salad...yum!!
Mmm...home sweet home! Although I was quite jet-lagged, I stayed late to show them my pictures over hot tea.
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