Holding a 1990s dinner party - please give me some food suggestions!

[lorettalemon]

I'm holding a 1990s themed dinner party to celebrate my niece's 30th birthday as she grew up in the 90s.

Can anyone give me some suggestions of meals which used to be really popular at the time, or things you remember really enjoying if you were a child or teenager then?

I know pizza was popular, but that's so commonplace for people to eat anyway that I would like to go for something a bit more nostalgic!

Ideas for starters, mains, desert and nibbles would be much appreciated! Party decorations too if anyone can think of anything!

There aren't any vegetarians/vegans/dietary requirements to cater for, so all ideas welcome. Thank you ever so much!

Yes MrsJayy! I remember thinking Lidl was a touch below Kwiksave! Now I do indeed drive out of my way to stock up.

My sister worked in kwiksave when she was a student it was such a random shop

Mini spring rolls, lasagna and tiramisu ❤️

Oh gawd Archers. Stable of the 90s for me.

Still feel slightly nauseous now if I smell anything peachy.

Malibu as well.

Taramasalata with French stick. A Camembert encased in flaky pastry. I agree with the Delia suggestions. I cooked extensively from her winter cookbook. Still do!!

I think there is less choice these days in terms of restaurant cuisines. When I was younger there were loads of independent & reasonable Chinese, Indian, Thai, Italian places now it's all burgers & sourdough pizza places

I agree re restaurants. I still live in London so we have every kind of restaurant imaginable but its disappointing when a new one opens and you find its just yet another new chain and then you go to a smaller town and the high street is full of the things you already have in spades. Lots of Turkish independents springing up though.

You're kidding?! Nowadays we have restaurants from all kinds of different cuisines - back in the 90s you'd be lucky to find much more than Italian, Chinese and Indian (apart from the obvious fast food places). These days we have Spanish/Tapas, Lebanese, Persian, Argentinian, Brazilian, Greek, Turkish, Vietnamese (as well as 'classic' French, and Modern European and classy British). And that's just within a couple of miles radius of where I live.

@paddlingwhenIshouldbeworking Blue elephant was a very special treat & an institution.

I turned 18 in 1990, so that was when I started cooking for myself. If I had people round, then I usually did lasagne or chilli or lemon chicken. Chicken kievs, too. Not that they were new, but I liked them. And baked spuds.

Also, cold lime pickle left over from a takeaway is the breakfast of kings. I suspect this is more to do with my student habits than the '90s per se.

Southern Comfort is the thing I could no longer drink after the night it was on offer in the SU bar. I remember Archers too (and alcopops), but I didn't overdo them in the same way.

@BIWitch are you in London? In the 90s/00s I had all those cuisines you mention. I remember so many independents, when I would grab lunch off Bond street there were loads of little sandwich/Italian delis.

The high streets are very homogenous now I find & even the "independents" are just much smaller chains.

@paddlingwhenIshouldbeworking ooh can you recommend any Turkish ones? I love Turkish food.

I think the trouble is the rent in London is so high now it’s much harder for independents to keep going.

Although I work near soho where there’s a lot of choice.

Thai restaurants all over the place in the 90s. A lot of them looked like cafes, basic tables and chairs etc and were byob and very cheap but the food was amazing. I think it was easier to eat very well mid range then. There were places that sold restaurant standard food for cafe prices. And of course the original gastropubs were restaurant standard food for slightly more than pub prices but not much. Now every pub has a menu so they call themselves an eating destination even when all they do is ping a meal, but they charge loads more than the old chicken in a baskets used to charge even though that's what they are, and other places have also lifted their prices accordingly.

yes i'm sure that's why @MiddleClassProblem & they were good value which obvs doesn't help margins.
I worked near Soho for years, so much choice for lunch, bad for the bank balance though. I miss it!

I drank so much blue wkd my teeth ached for days afterwards. Never had it since :)

Did Sandwich Spread rear its head in the 90s or 80s?

I remember sandwich spread from about 1969...

My dad used to have toast toppers in the eighties

At the beginning of the decade TexMex and Thai food were really popular. Pub food always consisted of deep fried Camembert with cherry/cranberry sauce (making a comeback now!) and potato skins. Everyday food consisted of pesto, feta, balsamic vinegar, sun dried tomatoes, etc. These were not considered fancy foods, I was a student! I agree that many of the foods suggested on this thread were from the 70s, not the 90s.

I have seen a rise in Vegan places but tbh the ones I've visited have been expensive & not particularly tasty. Im possibly spoilt by having a Spanish brother in law whose been a vegan for 20 years. He's an excellent cook, he had to be as very little choice for him back in the day.

The problem IMO with a 90s dinner party is that most of the things that were distinctively of that time (sun-dried tomatoes; goats cheese; pesto with everything; towers of miniature veg; vodka in your pasta sauce) have slipped out of current use because they weren’t actually very nice. The things that arrived in the 90s that really were nice have stuck around so nobody would recognise them as retro.

From my POV the thing that distinguished 90s dinner parties was industrial quantities of over-oaked Aussie Chardonnay. I still can’t drink the stuff to this day.

Hi Lorettalemon.
My eldest is the same age as your DD. He remembers his favourite/most memorable childhood foods from the 90's were:

Pasta with pesto and cherry tomatoes
Potato skins with cheese& bacon
Potato smiles /waffles
Onion monster munch
Pom bears
Individual Chicago Pizzas and micro chips
Shepherd's pie
Lasagne and garlic bread
Frozen fruit strudels and custard
Frozen chocolate gateau
Skips
Sunny Delight
Triangular ice lollies
Push up ice lollies

A lot of junk food in these memories!

Loads of people are remembering the kind of food kids ate, not dinner party food.
What I remember was dinner party food then was coq au vin, I still make the Delia Smith recipe for friends, summer meals were whole poached salmon decorated with cucumber slices, chicken caesar salad, nouvelle cuisine, kiwi fruits were everywhere in posh restaurants for a few years in the 90s, Thai food was very trendy at beginning of 90's, baked alaska, tiramisu, and cocktails started to become very trendy.

I remember ocassions when we met friends for food being fuelled by chardonnay, the oakier the better. Was there food....?

Also loved 'all you can eat' places: Thai, Indian, Chinese..... Lots of fun.

The ops is celebrating her niece turning 30 though so she probably ate more of the kiddie foods as she was a kid in the 90s

And sun dried tomatoes are amazing in sauces, the problem was they were over used in too many ways in the 90s