<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> The waiter was grinning when he set the plates on our table.

"Pacific sea urchin," he said, "with frozen banana, puffed rice and parsnip milk."

I looked at my friend Bill. "We're either at the wrong meal or in the wrong country," I said. "This should be breakfast at a sushi bar in Tokyo."

No. We were in the right place at the right time — and this was just the third course in what would be a 26-course, 15-wine, four-hour dinner. Our dinner had begun with a thin sheet of green zebra tomato wrapped around a piece of watermelon, suspended in a juniper gel. It went on — and on and on — to include caviar with kola nut ice and milk foam; a liquefied "salad" made from greens that had been juiced, frozen and turned into a granité, a sort of a vegetable snow cone on a plate ... and eight desserts, including one made with foie gras and another composed of mustard seed cake encased in thin sheets of Venezuelan chocolate.

Welcome to Trio, the most avant-garde restaurant in America.</font>