What is the best meal you have every eaten?

[Shookethtothecore]

Just that really, either home cooked, restaurant or food hut- anywhere in the world. What’s the best thing you have ever eaten?

I’m sad I can’t have a Katz deli Rueben sandwich everyday and it’s too far for me to go to just for one (New York) although my waist line is probably greatfull

A grapefruit sorbet at an Ice cream parlour in Aldeburgh one February half term.

An absolutely "I did not know food could taste like this" vegetarian platter at the Llys Medygg hotel restaurant in Wales. I have no idea what was on there but every bite was ambrosia.

Duck with peaches at the Connaught Hotel in the 90s. Sounds very boring written down but it was beyond description.
Through work, we were lucky enough to travel the world back then, ate at the best restaurants, but nothing, however fancy, ever quite touched it. Most things I ate then I felt I could probably have replicated at home. That, just no, it was sublime.
Pudding, a chocolate confection at The Belfry in London, also late 90s. I don’t even like chocolate and said so to the waiter, at which point Anton Mossiman came out to say hello and that he was glad he had converted me 🥴

(Yep, shameless name-dropping. A chippy tea is the best it gets these days. Another life 🤣)

I was working in Verona, years ago. We went to a little, unassuming restaurant, in a back street and had the most amazing meal. One course was roasted mozzarella, wrapped in very thin slices of aubergine, it tasted slightly smokey. Ye gods, it was amazing

More recently, this, at an Italian in Weston Super Mare. (Il Michelangelo). We’ve been back about five times now, lovely place

Crayfish from a food truck on the side of the road in kaikoura NZ, we took a massive detour on our road trip so we could have it again 😂

Flight from hell with Air France to Italy. We arrived without any luggage, really late, tired and hungry. The chef 'threw' some bits together for us, cheese, meats, bruschetta, bit of pasta....it was glorious and cheered us up enormously!

My mams salad sandwiches! Made with fresh Brennan's bread and Kerry gold butter and loads of salt on the tomatoes! Finished off with salad cream and cut into 4s! Mug of hot sugary tea, pure taste of home!

A meal I remember is one I had when I'd been to a hospital appointment when I was about 10. So 1987 ish. Instead of going back to school my mum took me to a "proper" restaurant for lunch and we had slice of melon with a cherry on a cocktail stick, lasagne and chips and Arctic roll. With lemonade to drink. Pure retro class! It was absolutely delicious and I felt like I'd been to the ritz.

I just now ate a really gorgeous Nepalese Thali meal mmm
And the other one that comes to mind is a cup of dipping hot chocolate sauce with some kind of doughnut bought at 6am on the way back from a nightclub during the Fallas festival in Valencia.

‘Green’ curry and homemade chapati at my friends house when I was about 8 years old. I think the green bit was spinach. My friend’s family were from Pakistan and had very little, but always fed me. I still dream about that curry almost 50 years later. All washed down with spicy sweet chai made with condensed milk.

Honeymoon in northern Morroco in the middle of nowhere right by the mountains and lake, a homemade tagine made for us by the lady who owned the farm we were staying at for a few days on our road trip of the country. It was incredible. Sigh!

Bbq brisket and pulled pork sold by the lb from a roadside shack In Alabama. We tookit back to the holiday rental that was on Stilts overlooking the river and had it with hot fresh baked rolls and fresh corn on the cob done on the microwave in the green leaves

I could cry thinking about how wonderful the food , location and general happiness was

A beef short rib dish in Mexico. It was 8 years ago and I still think about it. It was incredible.

Or my grans roast beef followed by her warm apple cake with clotted cream.

The lunch i had after DD1 was born. Meat pie, mash and veg in hospital. I still think About it. It was lovely.

And im being serious. Ive eaten in a lot of places and this is what stands out

Smoked salmon pate with salad and bread. On a footfall only island on the west coast of Scotland. It was so simple but so delicious.

A corn on the cob from a street vendor in Ayia Napa. Always after a few cocktails.

Dripping in butter and covered in salt❤️

Second is steak and mash followed by chocolate mousse at Shmollenskys

@DemBonesDemBones

In a Spa. It was mushroom linguini. I actually married the Chef

Ooh, you were lucky!

Caviar and King Crab at Robuchon au Dôme, situated at the dome of Grand Lisboa Hotel Macau with a majestic view of Macau SAR China! Once in a lifetime unforgettable finest French gastronomique extraordinary experience!

A mushroom risotto in a mountain restaurant in the Italian Dolomites, March 2010. The last time we went skiing.

Went to Sorrento to have a recce before planning our wedding - there was a wine/grape festival that we took a bus to and it was absolutely amazing - the food was the best ever, and set the tone of low key/not fancy real Italian food.
And there were people crushing the grapes and a parade and music - it was brilliant.

Lunch at Adam's in Birmingham.

It was 50th birthday and I went with a friend who has a very limited diet.

I'd been in contact with them before and they had agree a totally different menu for my friend.

The food was fantastic, every mouthful of mine was a slightly different taste, rabbit, lamb and a ginger pudding.

My friend got garlic bread, fish and chips and profiteroles, he claims it is the best fish and chips he has ever had (and we went to Scarborough and around for 3 days and had fish and chips every day).

As Leicester seems to be an unknown centre of gastronomy I have to give a shout out to 1573 if you like steak, although looking at the menu it seems they have expanded from the steak and fish only so maybe it's changed in the 10+ years since I've been.

@motogogo

Kayal in Leicester's stuffed seabass

Oh boy, the thought of that makes my mouth water. I had sea bass yesterday, not stuffed, quite delicious.

Paella at Sevilla, in NYC, a very old Spanish restaurant.

Coming home after 6 awful weeks in SE Asia (serious food poisoning, sick to death of spicy food) the in-flight meal was cod in parsley sauce with new potatoes. Bliss.

Roast pigeon in Guangzhou, China. We'd had a really big lunch and I wasn't hungry at all but oh my days when those pigeons were served at dinner 🤤. Hands down the best thing I've ever eaten, nothing else really comes close.

An item we lovingly call a 'chipwich': chips with salt, aioli and chilli sauce wrapped up v tightly in a thin pitta bread. Bought from a kebab shop outside of Hammersmith Tube station and eaten in a bus stop in the rain in the early days of our relationship.

It was 20 years ago and we've visited hundreds of Great restaurants together around the world in that time but that chipwich we still talk about.

It was fucking heaven