Thursday, May 17, 2012

Ratatouille's Ratatouille

Here's another intriguing food/animation mashup. There is a restaurant near me called 50 Forks that is run by the culinary arts students of the Art Institute of California. Running all aspects of the restaurant, including menu creations and food preparation, is part of the students' course work, so the menu changes every semester. For their Spring Term 2012 dinner menu I noticed on their Facebook page that they had an item called "Ratatouille's Ratatouille." I immediately wondered if it was a version of the classic French dish prepared in one of the ways shown in the Disney•Pixar film Ratatouille. When I made it to the restaurant yesterday I found out that it indeed was and here is a picture of it:

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It is not an exact recreation of the version shown at the end of the movie (seen below), the fancy plated dish that demanding food critic Anton Ego is served that emotionally reverts him to his memories as a small boy in rural France, but it is pretty close and the fact that they even made a deliberate effort to recreate a dish from an animated film did not go unappreciated by this food/animation fan. It was especially cool since I had eaten before at a recreation of Gusteau's when I attended the Cars/Ratatouille Blu-Ray release event several years ago (full flickr photo album here and several of my Ratatouille based entries at Animated Views: here, here, here and here).

ratatouille

UPDATE (February 3, 2014): Foodbeast has just reported that Disneyland Paris will get a ‘Ratatouille’-themed ride and restaurant. And... an update.

1 comment:

  1. Christian,

    I would like to talk to you about this post can you please email me at 5iftyForks@gmail.com

    Thanks,
    Chef Aj

    ReplyDelete