What's the nicest thing you've ever eaten in a restaurant? And been searching for ever since?

[catinboots123]

Mine was battered zucchini flowers, in Rome about 20 years ago.

Also snow crab on a boat trip in Florida also about 20 years ago.

Never been able to find anything similar to either.

Pan-fried gnocchi with mushrooms and peas in a garlic truffle cream sauce.

Divine.

I also remember a simple pasta with walnut sauce in a restaurant in Pisa that was magnificant.

An avocado and pomelo salad in a Mexican restaurant in New York. I've tried to recreate it at home, but it's difficult to buy pomelos where I live and somehow it's not the same if you substitute it with ruby grapefruit.

Homemade steak pie in Lincoln about 20 years ago. I am a meat eater but would never normally choose something like this off the menu. It wasn't a pie in the normal sense of the word but I remember how delicious and melt in the mouth it was.

Dishoom’s eton mess. It was the best dessert I’ve ever had. I went back a couple weeks later and they didn’t have it on the menu anymore. I have tried to recreate from their recipe but it’s just not the same 🙁

And weirdly two artichoke dishes. 8 years ago I had a creamed artichoke bruschetta from an Italian restaurant in London. The restaurant closed down years ago.

The second was at a hole in the wall type pizza place in Rome. DH & I had spent a very hot day doing touristy stuff and were meant to go for dinner at a fancy restaurant. On our way back to the hotel we were really tired and sweaty and discussing whether to cancel, we took a wrong turn and ended up on a very quiet road with not many shops. There was this tiny pizza place that smelt gorgeous so we dived in there for the most amazing pizza I've ever had.

Oh and also Indian food in South Africa. Many of the curry dishes in a South Africa Indian home are cooked a bit differently and it’s just so delicious. I love the biryanis and bunny chow.

Where abouts in Derry?

Mid 1980's I had a dish outside a shack on scrubland on a remote island in Greece.

I thought at the time it was a type of carbonara but with my subsequent searching over the many decades, I can conclude that it wasn't.

It was a simple spaghetti with a thick cream sauce served to look almost like a big dollop of melting ice cream.

It was thick, rich, creamy, savoury and absolutely fantastic. They had goats tethered alongside the shack so I was wondering if it was made with unpasteurised goat milk.

They also had a wood fired oven and made spectacular pizzas.

We ate there every evening as it was so tasty and so very cheap.

Lemongrass deep fried chicken at a street market in Thailand: crunchy juicy hot salty savoury fragrant deliciousness that we discuss way more often than is normal!

oh and a beef and mango salad on the beach in Vietnam that I’ve recreated to a fair degree at home, but eating it sitting in the kitchen in northern England makes for a much reduced experience sadly.

@Tillsforthrills I mean it's not local but close enough that I'm happy to give it a try!!! Thank you!

Omg Oistins!! That brings back memories

A very fine flakey pastry starter with blackberries, beetroot and a milk posset ( I don't like that word)

It was so stunning and worked, on every level.

It was about twenty years ago and I've never eaten anything as sublime since.

Stuffed papads (popadoms) in Goa in 2011.

I love this thread so much. Loads of interesting sounding food and no one being remotely horrible to each other.

@Gingermoth I had cranachan for the first time at my wedding last year, it was absolutely delicious

That’s our favourite desert here. 😋

20 years ago in a part of Spain ( can't remember ) ate paella from an outside place that had it cooking in front of you.

It was the most divine paella...never ever tasted paella like it.

Hand made chips in Greece. They had oregano and other seasoning. Have tried so many times but can't get that same texture and flavour. Have been told since that they have a different potato variety grown in Greece so if that's the case that could be why.

Lobster ravioli

@SunshineLollipopsAndRainbows
I am convinced the Greek folk keep the best feta for themselves 🧀
and of course their misshapen tomatoes and cucumbers are delicious 🍅🥒

A monkfish Caesar salad at a restaurant by the pier in Barna, Galway. It was the tastiest thing I ever ate.

Also a tapas place in Amsterdam called Foodism (now closed) It was a baked Goats Cheese salad that I can still taste. There was some sort of honey dressing on it I think. There was a huge long table full of food but we all raved over that dish.

There’s a pub in Manchester called Sam’s Chop House. They USED to do a chip barm which sounds boring as fuck BUT the chips were proper home cooked ones on an oven bottom muffin with a jug of proper meat gravy and a curry mayonnaise, totally shouldn’t make me salivate just typing the description and yet it still do. It was utterly divine and only £4, paired with a shandy and 👌🏼 Incredible.

But the feckers took it off the menu about 4 years ago. 😭

If you mean the Craster Seafood Restaurant, I think it closed, @SilkySuky. Dh and I have eaten there several times and loved it.

A sourdough bagel with salt beef and mustard mayo at a Cafe in Silverdale. It got me into salt beef and I now make my own. I'm crap with sourdough starters though so I can't recreate the bagels.

Beef cheeks at a restaurant near Portmerion. Unbelievably tender.

Beef gyros from a restaurant in Edinburgh. My husband still dreams about it. It's on the menu very, very rarely and I always miss the dates when it's on.

A black olive, parsley and sundried tomato tapanade, spread onto little crackers at a little Cafe on Gozo, with a brilliant blue sky overhead. Tried to recreate it many times. Never got it just right.

Cullenskink from a hotel in Achnasheen. The nicest I've ever eaten.

Not a restaurant but …. Nhs toast!
especially after childbirth
Tried to recreate with cheap white bread and proper butter at home but nothing comes close!!