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.

once at Gordon Ramsay (hosp rd) I had a tiny thing so divine it almost made me weep

It was a little ceramic spoon with a white tomato jelly, mozzarella and a weeeeny basil leaf. I cannot convey how good that was.

Last week, huge fresh lobster fresh from the fisherman's house in Porthgain in pembrokeshire. We ate like savages...

Kilos of huge juicy prawns on Palm Beach in Sydney one evening

The meal on the plane on the way home from the Philippines - I can't remember what it was but god it was good after weeks of manky goldfish and rice

A curry in a mud hut in Sri Lanka cooked by the mother of a loony we had hooked up with.

Waterside Inn when 8.5 months pg, could barely get up the stairs afterwards as so full (has anyone else noticed that the stairs smell of a pet shop?)

Best ever breakfast: a Sunday morning in a wee cafe/restuarant on Newbury Ave, Boston, sitting in the sun in the wee outside basement bit, reading the Globe, and having two lots of Eggs Benedict and three refill sof freshly squeezed orange juice.

Woah! This thread is pure food porn! (I'm lovin' it - yes, irony intended...)

Can't compete with any of this stuff, but have had two fab lunches at Moro recently.

My first ever curry eaten with my first ever love in the sun in the park followed by strawberries. I was trying to appear experienced in the ways of curry and asked for one that was far too hot - blew my head off and but had to preserve outwardly calm appearance...

My first proper posh vegetarian meal in a restauraunt called Greens in Manchester some time in the 1980s - a world away from lentils and mung beans and truly inspiring

Fish and chips from Rick Stein's shop in Cornwall eaten in the sun after a glorious day with kids and friends.

Going out to lunch two days after my daughter was born and eating everything I had been denied during pregnancy while she slumbered next to us - we were SO happy.

Prune and armagnac icecream in a sunny square in rural france.

Fresh pollock and mackerel roasted on the beach about half an hour after being caught, off Ilona Shannig (little island off West coast of Ireland)

Irish stew at St John Gogarty in Dublin after two days' busking having run out of money

Huge hunks of watermelon first thing in the morning at Cambridge Folk festival after playing all night in the Guinness tent and waking up with a hangover and sunburn

Giant langoustines with fried cheese and lime wedges while sitting on a jetty over the sea in Kefalonia in twilight

Merguez and frites from a little kiosk at a campsite just outside Roscoff in Brittany in blazing sunshine, with lots of cheap red wine

Red hot chilli kebabs from Bodrun in Cowley road Oxford, while out of my tree on superskunk and tequila [avec worm]

My first totally memorabel meal was at the Village Restaurant in Ramsbottom about 17 years ago. You got a wine selection to go with the meal (ie a glass per course: the meal itslef was a set menu, no choice). it was thie frist time I had ever sexeprienced that synergy of where the wine makes the food taste better and the food makes the wine tast better..... mmmmmm! :)

Since, then, have had two memorable meals at the (Michelin starred) Antares hotel in Meribel. The 7 course gourmet taster menu the first time and the 9 course gourmet taster menu the second time. We were extremely full after that second meal - lots of jokes about *one more waffer thin mint" - but what a fantastic blow out! The first time was when we were introduced to Epoisses cheese - it walked itself over to the tabel, stinks to high heaven, but tastes divine.... :) (That was the worst thing the year I was pregant - being in Meribel and watching the people I was with eating the Epoisses )

One other memorable meal was a picnic we had one year in Meribel in the summer, passing though there on route to italy (dh wanted to see what it was like in summer). Had an imporvised picnic of freshly made Tome de Savoie bought direct from a wee farm by lac de Tueda, a suacisson, grapes, french bread and a nice bottle of wine. Dh has lovely picures of ds (3 at the time) and me sitting on a log in the dappled sunshine of a forest clearing. Aaaah, the morires.... :)

Unassuming little local restuarant in Reims, v unpromising from outside, but inside exquisite French bourgeouis cooking.
Oysters naked but for lemon, I think I had venison, and as we dithered over the puddings the waiter said 'But of course, you need the chocolate fondant'. And he was right, we did.
The best bit was the sommelier recommending which of the fifty local champagnes on offer would fit best with the dishes we had chosen. That, and the fact it came to about £25 a head...
Made me feel like Elizabeth David discovering French cuisine all over again.

Others worth a mention include crispy chilli goat noodles in our favourite greasy-chopstick local Vietnamese in Hackney (sob - I miss it!) and the Thanksgiving leftovers brunch we crashed at a friend's house in London when tired, cold, wet, hungry and hungover. It was heaven.

A meal that my parents won at auction for 8 ppl, cooked in their kitchen by the lovely chef of a local but v fancy restuarant.

It was 10 courses, all v gorgeous, but I had to miss out a couple of the seafood ones as was pg and also vegetarian, but they did wonderful substitutes for me.

Amongst the guests was Graham Henry (everyone not Welsh going Whoooooo? Mark and lard stylee)

Chef from here:www.the-elm-tree.co.uk/

I can think of three, all incredibly different and yet wonderful.

The first was at a restaurant that may as well have advertised a seventies theme, it was all prawn cocktails and steak. I had prawn curry but TBH I didn't eat a bit as Dha nd I literally just stared at each other all night on our first date, bit like 'recognising' my other half.... weird memory

Second, Valentines day two years ago, The Old Vicarage in Bridgwater in Somerset, fabulous duck dish...... most gorgeous meal ever eaten in a formal setting

And the third, last year camping, disposable barbecue, bread from bakery, salad and fish from the harbour salesmen.... yum yum.

DH and I clocked up 42 Michelin stars (I kid you not) on our 3 week honeymoon driving around France. I lost 2 stone to get into my mothers wedding dress (she was 19, I was 35) and put pretty much the whole lot back on again. Amazing amazing best meal at a restuarant in the Lot in a small village called Puymirol.

Wow Alexh - that must have been a fantastic experience! :)

have had some fabulous meals in Soth Africa: a couple of meals in Rozendaal, where the chef-come-winemaker has some eccentric views, but does mkae fantastic food and wine!

Another fabulous meal at Delaire in Stellenbosch - but overlooking the Franschook valley. Aboslutley fabulous food and the staff took away ds (13 months at the time) on a tour of the property, to give us some peace to enjoy the food.

Have also made some fantastic meals at home: thinly liced fresh salmon cured in lemon and lime juice and sandwiched together with a yoghurt and cucumber concoction, followed by semi-braised (in Madeira) semi-roasted fillet of beef rolled in fresh herbs, followed by homemdae vanilla icecream with a lemon tart.

Or our wedding lunch (8 years ago next Tuesday :))- glorious sunshine, marquee on the lawn at my parents, azaleas in full bloom, and dh and I sharing a bottle of 1988 Grange.

Big Beefy meals in Buenos Aires, with lovely bottles of red wine

birthday treat at Club Gascon (the one with the different glass of wine with each of 5 courses, hic)

freebie at Le Gavroche, including a fabulous red pudding wine, Banyuls (?sp)

griled mackerel in Lahinch, caught moments earlier from seasoaked rocky shore

many lovely meals at Terre a Terre in Brighton, often on their terrace on balmy summer evenings

Fab thread!
I'm with you Acnebride I think Mortadella is great.
I had the best spaghetti alle vongole in Pellestrina (small island in front of Venice)
focaccia in Camogli (Genova)
my ex boyfriend mum's impepata di cozze (mussel)
on a more international scale:
tapas in San Sebastian
posh cheese restaurant in Paris with my parents when I was twelve
take away thai food in Amsterdam
raspberry roulade at roger's tearoom in exeter (but I think he sold the tea room now...)

OOOh, Club Gascon, where they have a section on the menu for cold fois gras and another for hot fois gras. (drooling Homer Simpson emoticon) The lavender white beans I had there were to die for!

An omlette made with ducks eggs and topped with four tiny quails eggs in a corner stall in Hue in Vietnam will live with me forever, as will the experience of eating dog casserole in Beijing (though I didn't know it was dog till afterwards)

But my most memorable meal was the first day home after a week in hospital after having the sluglet. My in-laws laid on a lunch of freshly baked bread, fois gras, blue cheese, soft, unpasturised cheeses, tomatoes (which gave me heartburn all through my pregnancy) and bubbly. I just thought it was so thoughtful to feed me all those things I had missed for the last 9 months.

have eaten an enormous amount of spectacular food, but I can still taste the chestnut and sage mousseline at the Chevre D'Or in Eze a good few years ago now.... sigh

Had a spectacular meal at Whatley Manor a month or so ago, much better than I expected, really superb. And only 20 mins drive! Hurrah!

PS the most consistently excellent food in London is, IMO, at Roussillon. And VERY good value for the quality (up there with Gordon Ramsey but half the price)

Coffee and Applestrudel in the Austrian alps, after spending a cold, uncomfortable night in the car, becase all the hotels were too expensive.

Where is Rousillon pph? Might take dh there for his bday.

st barnabas street, off pimlico road, chelsea end. fabulous place!

CountessDracula - praps it was due to your pg-ness that you thought the Waterside Inn smelt of rabbits or somesuch... Was there a couple of months ago and it smelt simply of wonderful food (oh, and italian leather and hot credit cards). Their menu exceptionnel was one of the best meals ever I thought.

Also - amazing cheese restaurant in Paris - 8 or 9 tables at most - like being in someone's home.

And a truckers caff in Catalonia somewhere - dragged there by the guy who picked us up hitchhiking. Not quite the same as a UK greasy caff - here it was pigs' jowls - i.e. scrape the cheek off the bone...

www.roussillon.co.uk

thanks pph - just looked at the menus....drool and yum

Talking of posh restaurants, have also been to whathisface Novelli's new place. Which was nice, good quality food but not a patch on Gordon Ramsey. Obviously Novelli's is different anyway because it's a gastropub rather than fine dining but the food was just not as special as Ramsey's.