Scent

I think about my recent visit at Scent. Me, Jerry, Jack, and some guy in Marketing I don’t care to remember have been frequenting this place since it’s opening. It’s an easy way to feel full from all the scents we indulge ourselves with, while logging in as little calories as possible onto our calorie tracking apps. The caloric value of smoke is negative 50, because everyone spends roughly 50 calories coughing off the initial abrasive smoke.
A human being only lasts five minutes without air. If you stick a grown man into a room full of oxygen depriving smoke, even the complex scented silk scent of Icelanding cured shark, foie gras, and bird’s nest, his capacity to survive will be just as the same as if he was endlessly crawling around in a fire…
The service was wonderful. I let Jerry take the bill and let him graciously gloat over his recent bonus while I coolly brush my hugo boss european cut blazer and straighten my herringbone knit tie.
There is an idea of a Ange T; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable…
I simply am not there.

I don’t know what all of these «Elites» are talking about, and after reading some of the «reviews» here, I have to say that they read more like rants than anything.
Scent is BY FAR the most innovative restaurant in the city. They are so forward thinking that they’ve really nailed the future of food. When the human race finally evolves past the needs of physical bodies and ascends to a higher plane of existence, the only things that’ll remind us of our time on Earth as ugly sacks of water will be trace essences left behind like smells. And let’s face it, PZA (Post-​Zombie Apocalypse), you’ll be grateful for any pleasant smelling scents that you can get your smell on.
And besides, forget atkins, forget raw food and forget those other fad diets. THIS is the ultimate in low calorie dieting. In fact, it’s so low that it’s virtually zero!
So if you’re lookin for a bite to eat without the bite (or the eating), you OWE it to yourself, your zombie self, AND your PZA ascended higher being self to try out Scent Calgary. After all, everyone should take time out of their day to stop and smell the… well, you know.

Is this what the Calgary food scene is evolving into? Good god, if so, I’m gettin’ the heck out of dodge. Scent is an olfactory experiment gone terribly wrong.
Have you ever lived with someone who cooks in a restaurant for a living? You know, where they come home smelling like the food they’ve been working around all day? Well… if you like the smell of them after pulling a 12 hr shift, you’ll likely enjoy dining at Scent. You’re in for a similar assault on your smelling sense.
It’s the first restaurant I’ve seen situated in the dark catacombs of one of Sunalta’s brick edifices. «Dark and dank… it’s part of the experience,» I was told. Like musty air is supposed to be a palate cleanser for our noses? You’ve got to be kidding me.
The actual interior of Scent isn’t horrible… or at least what I could see of it. The dim lighting made it difficult to see my dining companions, my surroundings and my food. I guess maybe that’s the point?
There are 20 courses to this menu with items including the Trio of Four Game Hen Scents (think rotting eggs, wet feathers and putrid chicken), Spicy Seared Scallop and Pork Belly Drift (it smelled as fresh as a hog farm on a hot summer day!) and Scent of Grandma’s Holiday Stuffing (if it were left inside an uncooked turkey a week before Easter after someone forgot to refrigerate it). Blech. They should have barf bags installed at every table.
Two showers later and I can still smell the brine pickled pickle vapour in my hair.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Happy April Fool’s Day everybody!

Call me a purist when it comes to the dining experience, but when i go to a restaurant with the intent to dine, I expect to be fed. Scent brings a new meaning to the concept of ultra-​modernist cuisine with its dimly lit «dining» area and custom made service ware for each one of its umpteen «courses» that are designed to entice the senses, particulary, the sense of smell.
Throughout the service, I was taken on a culinary journey of rediscovery. Each course carefully explained to me with great detail with instructions on how to savour each one.
«Lift this dome and slowly take in the aroma of the foie gras» or «put the glass end in your mouth and cover the hole on the other end…»
The whole experience was a cross between a strange sci-​fi hookah lounge and high school.
Maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe the future of gastronomy jumped passed the old «food in a pill» concept and went straight to smokes, vapours and «clouds» and I’m missing a vital part of the puzzle.
In short, Scent stinks…

I am writing this review from the bathtub — which — is not something I do often, but was compelled to by the onslaught my olfactory senses were subjected to this evening at Scent.
Scent is the Birkin Bag of the Calgary Food Scene. From all outward appearances, it’s stylish as hell, sleek, enviable, and despite barely being open; a wait list about a year long.
How did I get on the list, you ask? Well, eff you, too.
Reading the menu, I was a little apprehensive at the lack of vegan items, but I was assured that my nostrils would remain creature-​free. It’s a 20-​course spread served to you, while seated in a dimly-​lit dining area for the entire experience.
«You see,» it was explained to me when I fretted that there wasn’t enough light to read the menu, «when the lights are dimmed, your other senses kick in, and everything smells better.»
In that case, they should’ve served us in a tent in the woods, in the middle of the night.
The first course was described as «Atlantic Oyster Smoke with Seaweed and Lime Steam.»
That description, is like the new kid in school that wants to impress you, so he says that his Dad used to be the drummer for Green Day before they got famous, and that he left a girlfriend behind in his old hometown that now casually models for J. Crew. His reality is that his Dad is an accountant who confuses Green Day with Coldplay, and he’s never actually talked to a girl.
— «Atlantic Oyster Smoke with Seaweed and Lime Steam»: A Ziplock Bag left in the back of a hot car for three days containing Grandma’s used underwear.
In fact, most of the other courses could be described as various other body odors:
— «Essence of Foie Gras and Chardonnay»: Eau De Rugby Jock Strap with slight hints of Taint
— «Duck Confit with Honey Truffle Drizzle Wind»: Unwashed Lucky Sports Bra Worn Only For Zumba and Hot Yoga, With Old Chili Wind And Graphite Pencils
— «Fried Rabbit Cheeks with Leek and Sweet Onion Aroma»: More Like… Fried Buttcheeks After You Took A Leak On Them After Eating Asparagus
… You get the picture. Were you drinking water when you started reading the descriptions? I’m sorry that it now tastes like underwear.
The stench wasn’t just overpowering, to the point where they all blended together and you felt like you had been transported from a dining room to a men’s YMCA locker room, but it was also aggressively permeating. When I pulled my shirt collar over my nose to escape the wrath of the 6^th course, I found that it had saturated the fabric. It clung to my clothes, my hair, and seeped in to my pores.
I honestly don’t know why I stayed until the end. Maybe, it was the minor reprieve of the 10^th course’s «Pure Air Cleanser.» Maybe a bit of subconscious self-​loathing? Lent? Nasal S&M? I don’t know. I just know I won’t be back.
In the meantime; I need to lather, rinse, repeat.