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 😩

A Thai and Loa restaurant down south, I can't remember what I had, curry of some sort. We all tried a little of each others. There's a funny story about table cloths. We were all good friends so comfortable in each others company. Food was gorgeous. It was really just such a lovely night.

A vegan salad in London. I'm not a vegan and I never eat salad but it was like the food of the Gods. I actually felt upset when it was all gone.

One i start thinking about it lots of meals stick out in my memory and I think love (with my dh) or just the good company of family and friends, event and location all affect how memorable a meal is to me.

My husband makes a pork ribs dish out of a street food recipe book he has.... I don't eat much meat and if I did I would never choose ribs, butohmylordy these are A. MAZING.

Restaurant wise has to be Nobu in Doha, went there for work and took a client for dinner, insanely gorgeous food. With an insane price tag, but happily I wasn't paying.

A lobster cheese toastie with roasted tomato soup starter in a posh restaurant in Las Vegas. It was absolutely amazing but I stupidly didn't finish it as the portion was huge and I wanted to leave space for my far more forgettable main.

An entire meal in a Michelin star restaurant for my Dad's birthday. Went back a few years later and it wasn't as good.

The meal we had with my Belgian great grandmother in 1999 for her 100th birthday. 5 courses of gorgeous Belgian food with all the family favourites.

Also a Chicken Korai in Bradford in 1989.

Also my favourite tortellini pasta dish that I used to have every Wednesday night in a now defunct little Italian restaurant in South Manchester when I was on my year out from uni in 1992.

Yes it’s the company and remembering how you felt at the time. Heartwarming x

DH and I had the most glorious seafood congee and homebrewed rum slings at a cheap, rustic no-frills local beach bar on a beach in Sirinat National Park in Phuket at 7am after arriving on a very late several hours before. I’m willing to accept that being seated next to a turquoise ocean in an empty beach before the rest of the world had begun to wake up enhanced the flavour, but all the ingredients were just-picked fresh and the chili balanced perfectly with citrus. It was perfect and never to be recreated.

I also remember the vodka tomato pasta my university flatmate once cooked for a dinner gathering, but for all the wrong reasons.

Richmond upon Thames in the early 90s used to have this takeaway place just inside the station entrance that sold warm baguettes with a choice of filling. They did an amazing chicken Caesar one. I still dream about it 😞

Three friends and their children. We had camped for a week in Aberystwyth. It had almost been a hurricane every night and we woke every morning, wet and cold, with 4 children. We still had a brilliant time.

Our last night we packed up the tent and set off to a tiny wild camp site we'd all seen at different times.

We put up the tent, next to the river. We then sat and had steamed salmon, new potatoes and french beans. Absolutely the best meal ever.

I was at a barbecue in a Caribbean resort, they had steaks marinated in soy, garlic and chilli and cooked on the barbecue and they were so good. Actually the food in general was unbelievable.

Epic story!

A Cuban pork roast on top of a hill in Nassau after our flight was delayed for 14 hours.

Whilst I was staying in hospital, I ordered Cumberland sausage for my meal one day. It was incredible!

Also, a Cumberland sausage and baked potato meal my ex boyfriend made. I think I was so hungry and that's why it was divine.

Posh meal - a tower of beef in a country house hotel in the Midlands. Delicious!

My mums Chicken Maryland, the most perfect sweetcorn fritters, chicken and fried bananas …. DM passed away in 2019 and my DH has tried to recreate it for me, but it wasn’t the same. Or, maybe it’s my nostalgic view that nothing will compete!!!

There are two.

The first is a gorgonzola pizza from a restaurant in Vicenza, that was the size of a dustbin lid but so thin that it was almost transparent in places.

The second is a spicy lamb and chickpea soup that was brought to a work pot luck lunch. It was the perfect balance is warmth and spice and, on the cold winter day that I ate it on, just perfect.

There's a little French restaurant in Richmond we took my mum to for her birthday. I ordered the liver as I never cook it at home as the kids hate it, and I wasn't fancying anything else.
It was utterly gorgeous. Slightly crunchy edges, pink in the middle served with peas and bacon and n my ash and a creamy sauce. Every mouthful was delicious. I let DH try some and he had huge dinner envy. I'd never manage to cook it like that at home so it was a real treat.

A cheese baguette from a dodgy looking cafe that had that white patio furniture inside in Paris circa 2008. We got lost on the way back from the Eiffel Tower. It was hot and I was starving. It was glorious. Maybe because my expectations were so low or because I could’ve eaten my travel companion I was so hungry.

Pollo Sopresa in a family run Italian restaurant in St Albans called Nello's in the 80s. It was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten, way before chicken Kiev was a thing.

My first doner kebab in Luton, also in the 80s, with my Dad. I have had many, many dirty kebabs since then, but nothing ever came close.

A minted pea and chilli puree/soup thing as part of dinner at a murder mystery event I went to at Peckforton Castle. I have no idea what they did to it to make it so delicious, but I would love to have it again.

We were in San Francisco during our second part of our mini tour of America, had just got married in Vegas so technically our honeymoon. We found a lovely restaurant with a view of the bay and I had the most amazing clam chowder, honestly the best meal I've ever tasted and it was served in a bowl of bread so you ate the chowder and the bread too - heaven! I've never had clam chowder in this country and I think we're missing a trick, it was outstanding 🤤

There used to be a really cheap French restaurant we went to as students who did crab profiteroles with Hollandaise sauce. They were absolutely divine. Think about them all the time! Though clearly not enough to attempt to make them myself! 😂

Supposed to be going back on my healthy eating plan today after a few weeks of falling off the wagon, and I've just made air fryer pizza because of this thread 🙄

Seafood calzone in a restaurant somewhere in Jersey, 2012. Salmon and prawns and everything else. I was pregnant and ravenous and it was marvellous.

Seafood chowder at the pub in raglan, New Zealand. Live in Australia and will go back one day to see if they still make it

And a pizza with hard boiled egg, artichokes, two kinds of fancy ham, gorgonzola and olives in Rome beside the river. I think about that a lot.

I love food. I really, really do.