I arrived in Shanghai dreaming of dumplings but instead was invited, by a generous friend, to a quixotic culinary experience that took much time to digest.

Ultraviolet is a high-end restaurant-cum-theatrical show. It's a self-described "multimedia experience" staged for a moneyed audience of 10 in a closed room whose environment is meticulously controlled.

The group was led into the dining hall and held captive at a large table for what seem like an eternity, like an existential scenario from a Buñuel film.

A couple dozen tiny, refined plates from a never-changing menu were prepared and served, one after another, by waiters whose every move was carefully choreographed and scripted. Each dish, paired with a drink, was accompanied by projected images, music, even piped-in aromas, all feeding on a philosophical theme.

The exhausting show took hours. Awards have been garnered — for the food anyway — which, by the way, is very good in a global, Noma/Bullí sort of way.

The theatrical aspect is more dubious. It skirts the edge of ridiculous while managing to keep its intellectual head above water.

It’s no accident that talented French chef Paul Pairet has brought this over-the-top evening of pseudo-avant-garde sensory incitement to Shanghai.

All encompassing, audience-involved theater is nothing new. From Strindberg's difficult-to-perform "A Dream Play" to Antonin Artaud's "Theater of Cruelty," a theoretical, unrealized experiment in avant-garde spectacle in which the performers would attempt to assault the senses of the spectators, artists have been attempting to expand theater beyond the stage.

But never has audience participation been brought to this level, at least in a restaurant. The attempt to juxtapose high-end dining and individual introspection was, at times, jarring.

While we ate, a parade of images, meant to evoke collective memory, were projected on all four walls.

They ranged from spooky to comforting to, at best, beautifully and playfully nostalgic.

Charlie Chaplin's shoe-eating scene from "The Gold Rush" was shown in its entirety while wintry dishes were served. Manet's "Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe" was recalled during the "picnic."

Walls were plastered with hundreds of images of Asian dry noodle soup packages (evincing laughter from the several Asians present) while a high-falutin' version of that fast-food classic was served.

Moving images on the wall made the room seem to rise and fall: At one point we dropped into a Dante-esque netherworld as the scene around us fell away.

I'm not sure if the bourgeoisie, whose foibles were often brought to the fore — Chaplin, a running leitmotif of fast food — was being patronized or burlesqued. But one did have the sense that this Frenchman is well aware of what he is doing, deconstructing and commenting on the classic multi-course meal.

What do I remember of the food? Little more than theoretical insider jokes that tasted good.

One of the very first courses was entitled "Paloma" — it was a light sweet-sour salad of pomelo served in a vitrine which, when lifted, unleashed a cloud of white gas — the dove of peace? The Mexican song "Cucurrucucu Paloma" was heard in the background.

Next a single oyster, dressed with caviar, pepper, lemon and sea foam, was offered while the walls become a calm ocean.

At a "picnic," for which the table was covered with synthetic turf, a dish named "fish Tupperware," dressed in mayo, recalled simple American/English food, while projected images harkened back to a long-forgotten country outing of the 1920s.

Henry Mancini's campy theme from "Breakfast at Tiffany's" accompanied a faux American "breakfast" — a fitting, albeit ironic, paean.

Pairet, who is obviously trying very hard to do something new, an admirable but nearly impossible goal nowadays, has been quoted as saying that "pretension is my worst enemy" — in which case the enemy lurked behind every carefully constructed shadow. He tries hard to pair food with feeling, to create "edible theater."

I appreciated the effort. I enjoyed the evening immensely, and ate and drank very well indeed, but instinctively resisted the artifice intended to carry me to higher (or lower, for that matter) emotional planes.

In this sense, the experience did not coalesce.

Critic Richard Gilman (who happened to be my father) wrote, referring to the avant-garde theater of 50 years ago: "It may be that nothing will come forward as new, unassailable creation. It is surely true that any art comes to find that its own historical momentum becomes the enemy of its renewable prowess."

I'm not sure if we are heading down a creative cul-de-sac in the increasingly global gastronomic world. I hope not.