It was buttered popcorn, but unlike any buttered popcorn I had ever had.

Beside the buttered popcorn sauce, a swath of rich caramel, a paper-thin wafer of peanut butter and a plump piece of poached lobster filled my bowl. I was eating Lobster Fiddle Faddle. I had to laugh.

The Mint's executive chef Jeremy Clayman and sous chef/pastry chef Eric Foster created this delicious, if disconcerting, experience. They, along with a few other Triangle chefs, are bringing more chemistry techniques into the kitchen, employing what's known as molecular gastronomy to present familiar flavors in unexpected ways.

With tools and chemicals found more often in industrial food laboratories than in restaurant kitchens, these Triangle chefs turn Grey Goose vodka into fluid-filled pearls called "caviar" that burst on a martini drinker's tongue. They poach an egg at a temperature so low that the yolk and the white are the same soft consistency. They turn sesame oil into a powder and sprinkle it alongside sashimi tuna that is served with an "egg yolk" made of mango and ginger juice.

In creating the lobster appetizer, Clayman and Foster sometimes add Ultra-Tex, a maize-based starch used in salad dressings, to thicken the sauce. To the caramel, they add miso paste, a soybean paste common in Japanese cooking, to impart butterscotch flavor. The wafer-thin peanut butter disk is made from peanut butter, fondant, Isomalt -- a sugar substitute made from beets -- and glucose to add some texture.

"It allows a chef to be slightly more creative and artistic because we can learn to manipulate ordinary average ingredients to look how we want them so we can paint a prettier picture," Clayman says.

Plus, it's fun. On a recent day in The Mint's kitchen, Foster is making their take on strawberry shortcake: a honey gelee topped with macerated strawberries, a dollop of mascarpone ice cream, pound cake crumbs, a few freeze-dried strawberries and dots of vanilla syrup. As a finishing touch, they pour liquid nitrogen over the plate, enveloping the dessert in a fog. "That right there sells itself," Foster says. Then he and Clayman start playing around -- spooning liquid nitrogen into their mouths and exhaling the frosty air.

The trend spreads

These Triangle chefs have quietly embraced molecular gastronomy, a trend that is packing such restaurants as Alinea in Chicago, McCrady's in Charleston, wd-50 in New York City, the Fat Duck in London and El Bulli outside Barcelona, Spain. El Bulli, chef Ferran Adria's restaurant, is open only six months a year so that Adria can test recipes during the remainder of the year. A meal there can cost about $350.

Molecular gastronomy fare at those restaurants can be rather abstract food: hot ice cream, avocado foam, foie gras cotton candy, peanut butter and jelly Dippin' Dots, a ravioli that releases a burst of black truffle liquid. Some criticize these scientific abstractions as being unrecognizable as food.

In Raleigh where conservative tastes prevail, local chefs are hesitant about diners' reactions to such cutting-edge cooking methods. They use these techniques in small ways so their audience is not put off by the food.

"We're not trying to weird people out," Clayman says. "It's really subtle what we're doing. People don't even realize that it's avant-garde technique. It's only when I speak to some people that I explain we used a tapioca derivative. Some people are really excited about it. Some people don't get it."

The chef as geek

These young Triangle chefs are a handful of tattooed, spiky-haired, body-pierced punk-rock scientists in the kitchen. They love understanding the science behind how food behaves under different conditions. They use these methods to make the food more artistic. They aim for cleverness in their creations: the Lobster Fiddle Faddle pairs a highbrow ingredient with a lowbrow taste. "Like fair food, but with lobster," Clayman says.

They learned about molecular gastronomy in different ways. Clayman, 30, and Foster, 29, both worked for Sean Brock, the chef at McCrady's. Todd Ohle, 32, the executive chef at Raleigh's 1705Prime, learned from Clayman when they worked together before Clayman left to open The Mint.

The Internet introduced Justin Rakes, 29, the chef de cuisine at Four Square Restaurant in Durham, and Brian Allen, 26, the executive chef at The George on Glenwood, to these ideas. Allen says he started reading books by chefs Adria and Heston Blumenthal, owner of The Fat Duck. Rakes will intern at Blumenthal's restaurant in August.

Diners in Raleigh can get a taste of this trend in a range of prices, from $8 for the sashima tuna dish at The George on Glenwood to $47 for a three-course meal at The Mint.

While the field's international innovators may be a bit out there, what these local chefs create is absolutely recognizable. At The Mint, the lobster and a Poulet Rouge chicken breast entree look like what you expect. They just happen to have been cooked "sous vide" style, where the meat or seafood is placed in an airtight plastic bag and cooked in a water bath at low temperatures until done.

Another common trait among these chefs: Their menus do not reveal their methods. Rakes recently described raspberry caviar as a purée and did not use the word foam to describe a maraschino foam on a white chocolate red velvet cake. "That's my way of introducing it," he says. "I don't tell you about it." Even the Mint's menu does not hint at the techniques. They write panna cotta, when it is methylcellulose, or coulis to describe a fluid gel, Clayman explains. Meanwhile at 1705Prime, they use the techniques only for private parties, not for the general dining public.

"We haven't put it on the menu because, in my opinion, Raleigh isn't ready for it," says Ohle, the culinary director for the Rocky Top Hospitality's chain of restaurants. Ohle did the Grey Goose caviar for a private party.

Allen says he tries to ease diners into the idea; otherwise, they think it's just chemicals in food.

These Raleigh chefs want diners to know that these chemicals, which they call hydrocolloids, are safe to consume. Most have been used by food manufacturers for decades. Sodium alginate, a seaweed extract, is used in Easy Cheese. Soy lecithin, a soybean extract, is found in a Snickers Bar. Carrageenan, another seaweed extract, is in Edy's Grand Ice Cream.

Being able to use techniques discovered in a laboratory makes the kitchen more rewarding.

"We're able to use both parts of the brain at the same time, being a little bit more artistic and being a little bit more scientific," Clayman says. "Really it just makes that much more fun for us."

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