Best meal you've ever had ?

[weeksy]

So where was it, what was it etc ?

For me it was Italian, just on the side of lake Iseo in northern Italy. Seafood pasta linguine.

I'm a massive fan of that anyway, but this was top top drawer. It was helped by the fact we were overlooking a set of cliffs, a lake and it was glorious sun. But it stands out for me as just epic.

I've never really done Michelin type places as they're all a bit pretentious to me. But i'd love to try the food of some of them, but without the white gloves and sir and madam

[Count Steer]

In the best places the service is unobtrusive. None of this 'explaining the chef's concept' or telling you where every ingredient comes from. Le Gavroche (now sadly gone) was absolutely tops.

For me it's all about the place and the companions. Some of the best meals I had, I can't remember what I ate just where it was and the people around the table and that the food was v good. eg 8 of us at the Red Fort on Dean Street (now sadly gone too) for 'a curry'.

Had a great time at some places where the food was average too!

But I'll go with Ristorante al Pappagallo (The Parrot) in Bologna for the food and numerous packed lunches sitting on some of the lumpy bits of Europe - Alps , Pyrenees etc - for the 'ain't life grand' best meals.

[KungFooBob]

Yo momma.

[MrLongbeard]

Toss up between a simple bowl of Jambalaya on the beach at Praa sands or a butterflied leg of lamb I did on the BBQ.
I've never been a fan of eating out.

[MingtheMerciless]

In Caterham there used to be a restaurant called Charco’s. A little family run place that did excellent seafood and steak dishes. Monkey Gland was my favourite (fillet steak cooked in onions, English mustard and red wine).

[gremlin]

A place called Rezzano in Sestri Levante, Ligurian coast. Happened to be there for Mrs. G's birthday so we booked in for the Friday night. Tiny place, no more than 12 covers, and we both went for a different tasting menu. Wow! Food was amazing, as was the bottle of Ligurian wine we chose. Service was good fun, not at all stuffy, and we had a really long chat with the owner service. Self-taught, sickening youthful (late twenties, tops) and a really nice guy. Studied chemistry, but from a family of restaurant owners. You can guess where the skills come from.
Best of all, whole shebang came to c. Eur200.

[Count Steer]

In Caterham there used to be a restaurant called Charco’s. A little family run place that did excellent seafood and steak dishes. Monkey Gland was my favourite (fillet steak cooked in onions, English mustard and red wine).

I remember Charco's! There was a Thai place in Caterham that we used quite a lot too - iirc it was an English chap with a Thai wife and I think it was her that used to do traditional Thai dancing (sticky rice dance??) to entertain the customers. (It was The Thai House and now it's Bua Thai apparently, so still a Thai food place).

[Mr Moofo]

I am not too sure it exists. I have eaten in many upmarket places, I have eaten lots of street food in different countries, several Michelin starred (which are generally a disappointment)
But they are all “time, place , company, experience “ so no best for me. Plenty of good ones, a whole host of “meh”!
But there is nothing quite like a crab sandwich in fresh crusty bread, sitting by the beach

[Taipan]

Easy. The first time I went into a Harvester and ladled red devil sauce over the salad from the free salad bar. Epic!

[Rockburner]

Not sure really, as some have said, a lot of the time it's the whole combination of food/location/service/companions/time&space that create a really memorable dining experience.


Also there's what each person considers "best", which is subjective at best (ref @Taipan ....)

Some distinctively memorable meals for me include:

A steak and stone "cook it your way" meal in Belgium last year, the steak cut was perfect (no gristle), and cooking each slice on the marble stone meant that each slice was exactly the way I wanted it, quite possibly the best steak meal I've ever had. (oh yeah - belgian chips.... hraaahgagahahaghag) Experience was enhanced by the banter with my brothers, the warm weather and the fact that we'd spent all day riding bikes on great roads.

Last week in Santiago, Chile, I had sea urchin, "Erezos" tongue. Never had it before, and its supposedly one of those foods that most people can't stand: the flavour is odd to say the least, the texture is weird, but the experience was great, and I've become a far less fussy eater as I've got older, so I actually rather liked the flavour/texture. I'd certainly have it again, but genuinely believe I'll never have it "done" as well as that. Highly recommended if you're in the city: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_ ... egion.html

Fish and chips with added cold seafood fresh caught on the beach at Selsey with friends.

Breakfasts at "Sea View" Douglas each morning on Manx week... memorable, but mainly for the banter, definitely not the food...

[Skub]

I probably shouldn't add anything,but it's the interwebz innit.

I don't care about food,other than it's fuel to keep you alive,so the least amount of time wasted,the better. The whole preparation and clearing up all for 15 minutes eating time,wears me down. Part of the reason I hate Xmas,it's all fucking work.

Folk tell me Mrs.Skub is a great cook,but it's a bit 'pearls before swine' with me. The best part of a 'nice meal out' is when I can pay and gtf out.

If I could neck a pill instead of blowing time on the food process,I'd be first in the queue.

As you were,gluttons.

[gremlin]

As you were,gluttons.

Gourmands, darling. Gourmands!

[Mr Moofo]

Visiting Japan regularly gave great food quality and boundary experiences. Shabu Shabu / Sukiyaki was delightful, as was a lot of the wagyu beef we had.
Tokyo fish market and working your way through tuna sashimi and drink loads of saké will be a very fond memory. Sea Urchin Shashimi is very iodine in taste and kind of slimy. I liked it.
I wouldn’t hurry back for pig brains or vagina , mind …

[Count Steer]

But there is nothing quite like a crab sandwich in fresh crusty bread, sitting by the beach

Reminded me, in a slightly tangential way, of some fried fish butties down by the water near the Galata bridge in Istanbul in the 80s. Two blokes bobbing about in a little boat with a huge wok style pan of v hot oil. You'd nod and they'd lob a gutted/decapitated fish of some sort in the oil, stick it in a baguette style bap and hand it up to you. You handed them some money and they, maybe, handed you some change. (It helped to watch how much the locals handed over. It wasn't much ).

Best

Fish

Butties

Ever.

[Dodgy69]

I better not say but its been a long while.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Summer 2003, Ostersund in central Sweden, restaurant across the road from the hotel we were staying in, I had reindeer, my wife had halibut, it was feckin superb and fairly expensive.

[Felix]

I cant say best meal ever but......

I went to a restaurant in Edinburgh in 2019 ish. On the menu was T-Bone steak and as i had never had one before i thought why not. It was cooked to perfection and i was hungry so it went down really well. Washed down with a bottle or two of Gluten Free Daura Damm.

It was so nice looking i took a picture

Steak.jpg (2.56 MiB) Viewed 94 times

[weeksy]

I cant say best meal ever but......

I went to a restaurant in Edinburgh in 2019 ish. On the menu was T-Bone steak and as i had never had one before i thought why not. It was cooked to perfection and i was hungry so it went down really well. Washed down with a bottle or two of Gluten Free Daura Damm.

It was so nice looking i took a picture


Steak.jpg

Miller and Carter Mmmmmm nice. Their gravy is ridiculously good.

[Pirahna]

I've had some memorable meals, for me it's the right food at the right time. For example, riding into a village in France one evening, very hungry and the bar didn't server food, then the mobile pizza van turns up, best pizza ever. On the way to Gib a couple of weeks ago, seven hours on the bikes with only a small breakfast to keep us going, the hotel did the best tapas ever.

Re the Michelin star question, I've done it once and wasn't impressed. It was Michele Roux Junior's place Le Gavroche. The people I went with were raving about the taste of everything, I thought it was nothing special just good quality ingredients. There's a lot of skill in the way the food was prepared and presented which I could never match, but fresh seasonal veg from a good farm shop tastes a lot nicer than anything a supermarket will sell you. The same for meat, buy from a decent butcher, the stuff in Tesco isn't fit for dogs.

[Taipan]

I went to Ramsays The Narrow (now renamed to Bread Street Kitchen) and for a man who spends a lot of his life criticising restaurants, he really wants to look at his own places with the same critical eye. What a shit hole. Entrance door had worn paint and a deeply worn welcome mat. The toilets were not very clean, and the fixtures were worn, and one toilet roll holder broken. The mirror behind the bar was filthy. Smeary glasses. It was almost a joke knowing Ramsay had hsi name on te place! We had a drink first and both agreed the place didn't exactly inspire us to eat there, but the table was paid for by our kids, so we went ahead, otherwise we'd have probably left without eating.

The food was actually good, but, over seasoned (too salty) as most high-end restaurants are for me. I dislike salt and dont put it on anything. So when I go to a good restaurant, its all I taste. Chefs obsession with seasoning means its all i taste, Salty meat, salty veggies, salty sauces, salty everything. I'd much rather just taste the good quality ingredients, which should speak for themselves. It's why I rarely bother with named restaurants.