A meal you still think about...

[JackThayer]

I had the most wonderful lamb madras years ago. The sauce was just perfect and so creamy. The lamb was scrumptious and sadly I had had too many wines to enjoy it properly. I think about this curry just to tease myself every time I'm hungry 😩

Wood pigeon at a posh restaurant in 2010. It used to be a lovely restaurant in summer as you sat in a conservatory. Like all the nice restaurants, it no longer exists.

A chicken and bacon salad that I had at a premier Inn about a decade ago . I originally wanted a different meal , but that was out of stock. I mention this salad most times when we pass a premier Inn.

I had a lovely meal at a local restaurant that closed down when the owners retired. I miss that restaurant, even though I only went once.

A celeriac steak.
Never had it, was dreading it, pushed it around a bit but oh dear lord, it was Devine, absolutely Devine.

I rarely eat meat, and particularly tend to avoid pork but I had a really simple but giant pork chop in Greece two years ago and I still think of it wistfully today.

I even kept a photo of it which I occasionally look at like a long lost love. 😳😂

A chicken tikka pathia at an award winning restaurant in the Highlands. Hot, sweet & sour perfection all at once!

lol, I love this.
25 years ago, I got stoned with a friend and we had the most amazing tuna steak ready meal from M&S!! We still talk about it now. I can't imagine it was really as good as it tasted at that point, but we remember it as being the most amazing meal we'd ever had

I’m not keen on pork but on a cycling holiday in Croatia went past a restaurant that had a whole pig on a spit, it smelled amazing . We stopped and waited about an hour for it to be finished and had the most amazing plate of food. I still think about that.

a meal in Russia that was entirely crustaceans, caviar and bony river fish. We were guests and the host had provided all this, must have cost a fortune.

half the British people at the table were looking just green at all of this and just couldn’t face it, and half tucking in. It was incredible but challenging!

My first ever proper Chinese meal that wasn't a takeaway. My boyfriend at the time from uni was from London (I was from the midlands) and it was in Chelsea and seemed so ridiculously posh. I had chicken and cashew nuts in yellow bean sauce. It was the most delicious thing ever.. and the rice was so fluffy.

I have tried to make it myself and ordered it when getting takeaways and even had it in china town many times over since, but none of them have ever come close!

An Arabic meal in Paris years ago. Lamb tagine amongst other things. It was fabulous.

Spit roasted suckling pig by the sea in Sardinia. It was the most delicious thing ever - with lovely crispy bits. Aromatic crispy lamb in a Chinese restaurant in Canterbury - I really fancy some now. And for different reasons, a 2 michelin star place in Colmar where they plonked down a Yorkshire pudding as an amuse bouche and DH had lobster bisque that looked like a science experiment - Bunsen burner, glass tubes etc. The staff were very earnest and professional and I spent most of the meal trying not to giggle.

T-bone steak with canary sauce and potatoes with a jug of sangria in a restaurant in tenerife - used to go there yearly when teen- early 20s. Went this year (mid thirties) and closed down. I was devastated - thought about that meal on a very regular basis for years. Was delicious!

Salted caramel profiteroles in Miller and Carter. They were amazing!

A starter of garlic bread and parsnip crisps at this tiny restaurant in Cornwall that has long closed down. The garlic bread was absolutely oozing with garlic butter and parsley and the parsnip crisps were so sweet and salty. It was just the most delicious thing ever.

Also, a different restaurant up country, chicken stuffed with avocado in a garlic and cream sauce. SO MUCH sauce and crisp fries to dunk in it. Divine.

Swordfish ravioli that I had at a tasting menu/wine tasting night in a local Italian restaurant. I’ve never seen it on any menu since, and it was about 18 years ago. So delicious.

I had fresh tuna at the Ivy about 30 years ago. Up to that point it had never occurred to me that tuna could be anything other than tinned. It was a revelation.

Can I have two? Liangpi noodles from a hole in the wall place in Xi'an. Food of the gods. Not easy to get where I am now so I've learnt to make my own, but it's such a faff I don't have them often.

When I lived in Northumberland there was this incredible little pub on the edge of the moors. They had snagged themselves this brilliant chef who was a real master of game, in particular. Best meal I had was a starter consisting of smoked salmon, roasted beetroot and goats cheese cream, followed by pan fried pheasant with black pudding mash and tenderstem broccoli. Just wonderful. New owners took over the place and got rid of him, so now standard offer is burger, hotdogs, etc. 😭

Oh this is easy, for me!

I used to work in a very high pressure job with asylum seekers in an extremely remote location. It was FIFO work. Over a summer, there was a monsoon which lasted weeks and weeks (in my memory a month, but that could be wrong) and the container ship with the food couldn't dock. For the last week we- asylum seekers and staff both- were eating powdered eggs for breakfast, and rice and soy sauce for lunch and dinner. There was nothing else. It was also raining nearly continuously.

When I flew out (two days later than expected because of the weather), we flew on a military plane to the nearest main city, and then a big commercial airline home. We got onto the commercial plane and I had a normal economy plane meal- pesto pasta, probably microwaved.

It was hands down the best meal of my life, and always the first thing that comes to mind when people talk about "memorable meals"!

Seafood pasta at The Wensleydale Heifer in 1992. It was sublime.

My mother's lamb stew, you could smell it as you came in the gate from school and knew you were in for a treat, fantastic.

Truffle risotto on my 40th birthday in the Greenhouse in Mayfair. Best menu choice I've ever made. That restaurant is utterly perfect.

Jumbies restaurant in St Lawrence Gap Barbados. The best mashed potato ever. I still think about it x

The steak piecat The Magna Carta in Lincoln over 18 years ago! I have a pie maybe oncd a month so it's not something I eat a lot of but wow, that pie was incredible. Thick, crumbly pastry with just the right amount of steak and thick gravy inside.. Mmm...

Proper Thai food- som tam, khrapao gai, tom yum- in Thailand just before the pandemic.

When I was working abroad I discovered this amazing little thai place that did the perfect veggie green thai curry. I must have had it twice a week my whole stay. The delivery guy knew me by name by the end. It was absolutely glorious and I've never found anything like it anywhere else.

(My mouth started watering as I typed this, that's how good it was.)

Lamb tartare at a restaurant called Six Head overlooking the Sydney Opera House. It was only my starter but it was so good I could have eaten it until I was sick.

Steak in south america