What and where was the best meal you've ever eaten?

[TheDuchessOfNorksBride]

The risotto on What's For Dinner????? reminded me that I once ate the most divine Roast Quail on the creamiest risotto at Claridges (pre-Ramsay).

And then COVs liver-love stirred memories of fried chicken livers with bacon and pinenuts in a crunchy basket thing at the Green Olive in Little Venice. Would love to eat that again.

So?

Very precious memories of a lunch at the Domaine Chandon restaurant in the Napa Valley, early/mid 80s. Not so much for the food as for its being a magical point in a particular (group) friendship. Though somehow the pudding (nothing more exciting than very fine shortbread rounds layered with raspberries) still lives on as the best pudding ever.

Indian food cooked by dh in our own home.

I probably don't get out enough.

a very simple but so delicious spaghetti with loads of limoncello, on honeymoon in Positano...it was fantastic!

my mum used to make a really nice stew, with dumplings that we had on saturday lunchtime

Are you Cali?
How do you make it? and does it taste the same as in sun drenched Italy?

Cinnamon Club taster menu was pretty good, wine with every course though so the hangover the next day was pretty bad!

Oooh good thread.

My choices are from different ends of the spectrum:

Maincourse - Beef Noodles in sweet chilli sauce at The Living Room restaurant in Newcastle. Very simple but absolutely delicious.

The best dessert I have ever had in my life was in an Italian restaurant in New York (not glam just a little place) and they brought us complimentary pannacotta. It was absolutely amazing.

Nobu in central London. I love Japanese food and the food there was divine.

Shrimp risotto with pan fried cod nestling on top at a small resaurant in Aldeburgh in Suffolk.

have eaten lots of excellent food, throughout the world, BUT, the best was spaghetti with freshly made pesto and bit of parmasan, in a small place in Corfu Town. Wit ha friend with whom I had had a wonderful two weeks lolling around.
Meal was modest and perfect. 15 years ago, but fresh. It's not so much the food but everything else that makes 'the meal', n'est-ce pas??

bizzarely it was a simple pasta and tomato sauce dish at the River Cafe .. it was truly divine

and I say that as someone who has been lucky enough to have an expense account for entertaining through most of the 1990s

Cali...
Right...
you're going to have to send me some then

my dh cooked the spaghetti,...I can't even remember what was in it really apart from lemon fried breadcrumbs and chilli...too much limoncello

had a wonderful meal at the Glasshouse in Kew many years ago. Food was all delicious...was a fish main course and I normally hate fish but this just melted in my mouth. Divine.

Favourite meal was probably at Boschendal wine farm in Franschhoek, SA (think it was Boschendal). Steak that your knife literally glides through, fresh produce, beautiful setting, surrounded by friends....sigh, was glorious.

The most delicious truffle risotto in Lake Garda that was so soft and runny and moist it had to be served with a soup ladle....

.....or Le Chateau di Ligny in France which served the most divine tartlet thingy with fish (sounds vile).....

.....or most things that DH cooks.....

We did have some fantastic fresh pasta at a little back street place in Atri, near the Adriatic coast in Italy. The italians know how to do great, fuss-free food.

gosh - well-cooked pastas seem to be top of the menu.

What a great opportunity for me to ask you a favour.

Would anyone mind voting for my brothers restaurants on this website?

Have a quick read of the post below from my brother, and please, please, PLEASE just spend a quick 5 mins to register on the website he mentions -
www.hardens.com/survey/index.php
and tell them how great you think the Hawksmoor is and vote it your favourite restaurant and then vote Green & Red for is your best Cheep & Cheerful.

Please.

It means so much and takes such a short time.

A thousand thank you's - love TC xxxxxxxx

FROM my BRO -

OK, I have to admit even I'm fed up of me sending these emails. Its shameless, and now so monotonously consistent that its getting dull, even if it only takes a few minutes.

Thing is stuff like this really makes a difference, and the restaurant game is HARD at the moment (that's true by the way, not just me looking for sympathy). To give you an example the Marquess Tavern, which won the last thing I emailed you about, is flying since it won, whereas before it was borderline nightmarish.

Anyhoo, here's a website for you (which you should look at anyway - I think its the best restairant guide in London). I would LOVE for Hawksmoor to win favourite restaurant and/or best for business. It would also be great for Green & Red to win Cheap and cheerful.

Anyway, if you have time and don't mind viting then sincere thanks (as opposed to the usual half arsed appreciation I send your way)

www.hardens.com/survey/index.php

oh dear. Has the thread been sent back to the kitchen??

Had a gorgeous meal of some enormous scallops in garlic butter in a restaurant right on the harbour in Oban.
Gorgeous.... In fact all my favourite meals have seafood in them

The Fat Duck, wouldn't know where to start describing it, but it was delicious in the extreme, beautiful, hilarious, fantastic.............

The best ever starter was prawns baked in garlic and oil in a funny beach cafe in Fuerteventura.

Fresh butterfish (which may be swordfish)eaten with rice from leaves half way down a cliff in Bali, the Ritz Carlton BBQ restaurant - fab setting.

And a meal cooked in my own home(fresh crab floowed by sea bream with roast globe artichokes and sweet pot followed by fresh fruit and then baked camenbert - yum) with my best friends by a TV chef called Barry Vera - he even helped with the drying up!