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In Don't Look Up (2021), Kate speaking to Dr Randall and Dr Teddy:

Kate: Oh, Randall. God. Where's Brie Evantee? Shouldn't you two be playing footsie in a restaurant that only serves cubes and foam?

What does "serves cubes and foam?" mean?

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This appears to be an allusion to "nouvelle cuisine", a style of cooking that emphasises form and presentation of food over its nutritional value. Such cooking might use cubes and edible foam to create an artistic presentation of a dish.

It is obviously an exaggeration, but the suggestion that the speaker is making is that at this kind of restaurant you get a tiny (but perfect) cube of food, which is presented beautifully with some kind of edible foam. Such restaurants are thought to be exceptionally expensive, especially considering the amount you get to eat.

Taking a girlfriend to a famous and expensive restaurant is a place that rich people might go on a date. So Kate is saying that she thought that Randall was on a date with Brie at an overpriced restaurant.

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    Playing footsie, by the way, is a type of flirting in which the couple are touching feet under the table (to keep their flirting secret)
    – James K
    Commented Mar 3 at 12:26
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    It could also be alluding to Molecular gastronomy - a more recent style of cooking, perhaps a development of nouvelle cuisine, that also creates highly artificial and manicured presentations that can include cubes and foams.
    – bdsl
    Commented Mar 3 at 23:07
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    @bdsl I'd definitely associate foams as a feature of molecular gastronomy in particular, whilst cubes could absolutely be applied to both. Ofc, the overall impression of an expensive restaurant emphasising style over substance works either way
    – Tristan
    Commented Mar 4 at 9:52

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