Memorable meals of your life ............................food snobbery and one upmanship strongly encouraged. No nugget and twizzler talk here please ladies!

[moondog]

God I'm a greedy cow and there is a dearth of good food talk at present.

For moi they are as follows...

Mumus in the South Pacific where I grew up.
A big pit is dug and meanwhile stones heated in a fire. Meanwhile pork,chicken,fish, taro and sweet potatoes are placed in banana leaf parcels,usually with coconut cream.Then they are put in the pit,covered with stones and left to steam for hours.
This was special celebratory food and utterly divine.

A picnic in a pine forest en route from Perigord to the Alps to see my sister.
It was only bread,pate and red wine but never have these tasted so good.

A shashlik (bbq) in the orchard of a Russian dacha with the family of a university student I taught.
A warm spring day after a very long cold winter.
Pork kebabs,marinated in oil,vinegar,bay and juniper,tomatoes,rye bread and vodka,followed by a sauna in which we wore funny little woolen hats to encourage the sweating and beat each other with birch branches.

FiS,I've always wanted to eat abalone.What was it like?
Oooh er,get you and Concorde DG!!!

You were mad on the caviar front.

When we lived in Russia,we could get lots of it for about $10 for 90g. An old lady used to come to dh's office with a huge tub of it.
I used to give tins of it to everyone for Christmas.

Obviously like foie gras,it is morally repehensible however...

a chocolate mille feuille at the Glass House in Kew. I nearly came it was so good. dh rather perplexed. still think back on it 5 years on

Talking of prawns we had absolutely fabulous ones (also whoppers) cooked on the braai watching the sunset at Camp's Bay in Cape Town this February, accompanied by a glass (or 2) of chilled champers to celebrate my birthday.

Served with vodka Moondog? It was on Concorde. Dh said the look on the stewardess' face when I turned it down was a picture. I have to say I was too tired to notice.

Oh yes, and I slept for about 2 of the 3 hour flight across the Atlantic. I don't think dh has forgiven me that yet!

my mum is queen of foie gras, she makes her own and it is fab

don't talk about it over here much though as feel like criminal .......

I have already noted the dramatically aphrodisiac effect of the food at the Cinnamon Club.

Slaver.

Heston Blumenthal always goes on about caviar with melted white chocolate.

Frankly I am dubious.

I'm not a big fish eater at all - only really like white fish and hate anything smelly so I was very suspicious of abalone! But ex boyf cooked it in a stirfry in a big heavy based frying pan on the bbq and it was delicious. I find it VERY rich - looking at it, you'd think you'd be able to eat a whole plate but about half way through you realise you're completely full. It's a very delicate flavour.

V v v posh Indian restaurant if I'm not mistaken MI??

Tea at the Ritz!

Frenchgirl,my sister makes her own too.
Her dh's colleagues are appalled ('Une Anglaise qui sait faire ca?????? C'est pas possible!!)

She a Galloise actually and a better cook than most.

I like your sister already!!!!
Sadly on dh's side they're all cuddly about animals and stuff, so not big on foie gras.....

Very posh indeed. Fantastic food. I went with DP, who is a Nice Asian Boy.

Mm,go on talk us through it.

I cannot remember exactly...it is lost in how shall I put this a bit of a fond haze of memory

Melissasmummy,I always like the sound of this but worry it could be a conveyer belt touristy thing?
Was it great? What did you have?

I once ate an orange while on LSD

I can't eat oranges now, as they are such a sorry let down in comparison with the sheer mind-blowing orangeyness of it. Apparently I spent about half an hour just licking the outside

Zalacain in Madrid was supposed to be one of the best restaurants in Spain when we went 15 years ago. I was with someone who had no business being there with me which added to the occasion.

Being taken to Oakley Court Hotel outside Windsor when I was 21 by my then boyfriend. First posh grown up romantic meal and he didn't wear a tie and had to be lent some horrible grotty one by the maitre d'. I thought I was going to die it was so romantic. Can't remember the food though.

Sausage egg and chips followed by a knicerbockerglory at Coles corner cafe in Saundersfoot with my Grandpa, followed by donuts on the seafront (he had a sweet tooth) [happy but so full I could throw up emoticon].

Everthing I've ever eaten at the Glasshouse in Kew

ooh, ooh, ooh, and tea at the public library in Boston this Christmas

It's very grand in there, although I expected the "Tea Room" to be bigger. It was like there "there's some free space over there, lets put a tea room there" type thing.

Cucumber, salmon, smoked salmon, tuna, cheese & ham sandwiches, minus crusts. (as many rounds as you like, hardly filling tho, they are so titchy!)

Tea or coffee & fancy cakes (again as many as you like...) we needed lots of those.

I went with work one afternoon as they wanted to show us the ultimate in customer service, which I wasn't that impressed by (customer service) TBH, as it was just how it should be, not exceptional or anything. I just guess it's that fact that you don't have to ask for anything, it just keeps coming before you get too low & the "old" food gets taken away so it's all very fresh.

Lots of older people there so all us "younger" types had to be quieter, polite etc etc.

Oh & a jack Daniels & coke cost £10.00 (honest), but then I did get free nuts (!) & it wasn;t like I paid for any of it!

moondog, we never felt rushed at any point. We waited about 15 minutes to get a table (we did book) but there were lots of people who arrived (seemingly) long before us & stayed after we have finished. Never felt like they needed the seats/tables at all! Very relaxed.

Oh and about a million [slightly exagerated emoticon here] different choices of tea.

Oh, drinks at the Oxo Tower. Really expensive, but beautiful.

I think my favourite cities to eat in would have to be Paris and Tokyo. Nearly everything there is great.

any meal at the Lido Palace Hotel, Riva del Garda

amazing food!

that sounds nice, a friend and I have been wanting to take our dds to the Ritz, hopefully will manage this year!

was v disappointed by Tea at the Pump Room in Bath, v average

But still remember some fab meals in Paris when I was about 11, at La Coupole after going to La Comedie Francaise, and au Pied de Cochon (no idea waht I ate but great memory of the atmosphere and excitement!)
Also still remember fondly Le Vacares in Arles ...