majority of the laboratory scenes for the television series Heston Blumenthal: In Search of Perfection were filmed. The lab equipment includes a centrifuge which is used to make chocolate wine, and a vacuum oven. The restaurant takes reservations up to two months in advance, and it was receiving some 30,000 calls for reservations per day, although that figure also included people who could not get through and were redialling. Menu Blumenthal was inspired as a teenager by trips to the Michelin-starred restaurants in France and the work of Harold McGee. McGee's work in particular led him to question traditional cooking techniques and approaches which resulted in combinations which may at first appear unusual. Blumenthal incorporates psychology and the perception of diners into his dishes, explaining, "For example, eat sardine on toast sorbet for the first time, confusion will reign as the brain will be trying to tell the palate to expect a dessert and you will therefore be tasting more sweetness than actually exists." The Fat Duck serves a fourteen-course tasting menu. Dishes served include palate cleansers made of vodka and green tea, frozen in liquid nitrogen, a snail porridge that was described by one food critic as "infamous", and ice creams of both crab, and egg and bacon, each of which drew media attention. The mock turtle soup has an Alice in Wonderland theme, where a fob watch formed of freeze-dried beef stock covered with gold leaf is dropped into a tea cup by a waiter, who pours a beef stock "tea" poured over it that dissolves the gold and the watch. A plate of ox tongue and vegetables is served alongside it to place into the soup. Toast sandwiches are served as a side dish. It had been developed for an appearance on Heston's Feasts, and was afterwards added to the menu. Dishes are served with additional sensory inputs, such as "Sounds of the Sea", a plate of seafood served with a seafood foam on top of a "beach" of tapioca, breadcrumbs and eel. Alongside the dish, diners are given an iPod to listen to crashing waves whilst they eat. Other additional sensory components include "the smell of the Black Forest" that accompanies a kirsch ice cream. History The Fat Duck is located in a 16th-century cottage that was modified in the 19th and 20th centuries. Prior to the restaurant, it was a pub, the Ringers. The building