You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Inspired by the port thread- what is the best food or drink you have ever had?
Why- I'm hungry 😉
Was it as nice the next time you had it?
Closest I’ve got to angels crying on my tongue was a custard cream. Just a standard one. Here’s my recipe:
– no food for 48h
– drip in arm
– general anaesthetic for minor operation
– some sort of drugs, no idea what they were
– one totally standard NHS custard cream.
It was, genuinely, the best food I’ve ever had. Unbelievable. When I said this to the nurse and asked for a second, she gave me a proper -are you on drugs look.
The second one tasted…. Like a normal custard cream. I was very, very disappointed then passed out for an unspecified number of hours
I can't remember exactly what it was called but it was a side dish in a very upmarket Indian restaurant - Tamarind in Mayfair (Michelin star, first Indian restaurant to achieve that) The description was 'lentils in gravy' but how that was elevated way beyond was astonishing.
Close second and totally different was a pit bbq place in Texas City near Houston, we had a plant there and everyone from workers thru' to management would go there. Kind of like a redneck Toby Carvery, ribs, brisket, pulled pork in big portions on disposable plates, go back as much as you wanted. Coleslaw, corn bread, as sides..... utterly brilliant too.
Lasagne
A scotch whisky that an Irish publican recommended, I forgot the name of it, but it was spectacularly good.
Soufflé Suissesse at Le Gavroche.
Like eating really cheesy cloud, that’s floating on a creamy, cheesy sauce.
https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/souffle-suissesse-recipe
There's a Mexican street food place in Ambleside that I had the best tasting food ever...a veggie burrito, extra hot. It is incredible.
After 3 weeks in Crimea and the black sea on a diet of borsch , black eggs and bulgar
The golden arches as I stepped off the train in Kiev hit just slightly differently.
Waking up with an absolutely biblical hangover, after ‘nipping out for a couple of pints’ ended up getting completely out of hand, and I had a pretty important meeting in an hours time.
I was introduced for the first time to the miraculous revitalising power of a double sausage and egg McMuffin and a hash brown, washed down with a pint of full fat coke
One of those time and place moments where nothing else is going to cut it and it’s exactly what you want and need 😃
Like thols2 also Lasagne. But not necessarily because of the taste, more the volume, (although it was delicious too). At a a semi-fast food place in the suburbs of Dubrovnik. Honestly when it arrived it would have fed a family of 4. This was lunch time too.
Heh, I can still pinpoint the place on Google maps even though it was 12 years ago. 😁
North Bangkok, 2001ish, just moved there for a teaching job, walked out if my new apt building and sat down at a street food market stall...
Yum woon sen (spicy glass noodle salad)
Som tam (green papaya salad)
Grilled pork + spicy fish sauce dip
Singha Beer.
Absolute food of the gods.
I'm salivating copiously at the memory 😋
some simple bread and cheese and a bottle chianti, it had been sitting in a warm cabin of the broads yacht rental for a day as we sailed to horsey mere, eaten with the sun going down in a cloud less sky over the mere.
Ynyshir - a restaurant near Dyfi Bike Park.
30 courses, all protein and fat led. My Wife & I decided to go as we’d not had a honeymoon and spent some of the money here. It’s not something we’d ever again but it was totally worth it.
3rd best night of my life.
I was introduced for the first time to the miraculous revitalising power of a double sausage and egg McMuffin and a hash brown, washed down with a pint of full fat coke
I want to change my answer to fried salt. Not something you want to eat every day, but when you need it, you need it.
Sometimes a double espresso, sometimes, after a bike ride a fancy iced coffee, sometimes a glass of ice cold water.
Waa the answer I gave to the anaesthetist when she asked what I thought was an innocent question "what's your favourite drink" after I'd been 18 hours nil by mouth.
Then I twigged she'd read my honest answer to "how much a week do you drink" and was just checking that I'd make it through the op.
I had a deep fried Mars bar from the chippy that invented them. Sweet mother of god; so, so, appalling, terribly, amazingly delicious.
Their fish supper was the best fish and chips I've ever had too
https://www.carronfishbar.com/
Very jealous of those who say Ynyshir, that’s in my list for next year perhaps.
This year it was the sweetbreads at the 2 Michelin starred Alex Dilling in London. No idea how they were cooked or what was in the sauce but it was incredible.
Close was a turbot dish at Folium in Birmingham. A tiny gem of a restaurant which should already have a Michelin star.
Less grand was a cheese crumpet at a wine bar called Arch13, also in Birmingham. They make their own crumpets, cover them with some amazing cheeses and homemade chilli jam and serve them to you after you’ve polished off a couple of glasses of wine. I could eat them until they come out of my ears!
Spaghetti and tomato sauce at a small family restaurant in Florence. So simple, it probably only had about 5 ingredients, but they were all grown in the dirt and fresh off the stalk.
Also fig rolls covered in condensed milk from a tube sitting just below the peak of Mont Blanc.
... also Hoi Lai from a street food stall in Bangkok
Kobeda Kebab. Rusholme chippy.
Spaghetti and tomato sauce at a small family restaurant in Florence. So simple, it probably only had about 5 ingredients, but they were all grown in the dirt and fresh off the stalk.
You are Stanley Tucci and I claim my five pounds
Slow cooked wild boar by aunt. Woudn't be surprised if it was shot by someone in the village not long before it ended up on my plate!
Fresh seafood on Orkney particularly the scallops. I went to collect it and was told I couldn't have it yet as it was all swimming around in the ponds still. Scallops, lobster, Crab, langustines etc etc
A TexMex in Texas with Mexican Americans. I could feel the fats saturating.
Kona encrusted steak in a steakhouse in Philly. Might have been The Capital Grille. Coffee rubbed in, then cooked. OMG. About $65 plus the trimmings. Someone else was paying which I think always makes food taste better 😁
Affogato. Ten years ago maybe, in a restaurant in boat of garden. I'd never heard of it before, sounded good so I ordered it. It arrived: espresso, a decent whisky and a ball of vanilla ice cream. Assembled it, ate it, it was fantastic, I couldn't stop talking about it for days. Strangely I've not had it again since, I'm afraid it won't live up to my memory of it.
Sturgeon carpaccio with a squeeze of lime in a small, family-run restaurant about 2 hours north of Milan.
As TJ says ^^^ any fish or shellfish straight off the boat and into the chef's kitchen.
Wild turkey cooked overnight in the ground under a pig in deepest Massecheusetts.
When I was little we went on holiday to a cottage near St Ives. The owners lived next door and the chap used to take folk out fishing. He would always drag mackerel lines behind and come home with an impressive catch which he then smoked in the back garden. Absolutely fresh warm smoked mackerel is wonderful.
Or any of the fabulous produce from my German grandma's garden though the white asparagus was a particular favourite.
Oh and the dhal gosht at This and That.
Drink, not sure, I can't remember.
I did the Atkins diet for around 10 months and in all that time I'd eaten nothing but meat, eggs and green vegetables. After 10 months I picked and ate a perfectly ripe strawberry, it was exquisite
As much time and place as food but it all counts. Before we had the boys, Mrs F and I visited Worcester, my home town. We went to a restaurant called the King Charles II, I think it is a pub now. First time I'd tried whitebait - lush; first time I had paté of any sort - this just happened to be part of the Beef Wellington I had - lush. First time I tried red wine - so lush I've drunk enough to float a battleship since. 😂 They even had Bushmills to go with my coffee. An amazing evening with Mrs F. Close 2nd would be the starter we had in Rome that the best courgettes I've ever eaten. I'd love to know how they cooked but simply amazing.
The best alcoholic drink that I have ever had was a very generous Springbank 30yr old whiskey given to me by an old friend of my partner the first time I was taken to met him. I looked it up afterward and realised that, at current prices, it was about £60 worth and that I would never taste it again.
Refried lasagne at this place in Paris.
http://www.legrandbainparis.com/en/
Or chowder, oysters and a pint of IPA sat at the bar at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central, NYC. As much the location as the food though.
My first bowl of Pho Bo I ever had, at a back street Vietnamese food seller in Saigon
Many years ago I was in Miami meeting a client. It was a weekend so we had a couple of days downtime (smart planning by the boss as it was February and the next stop was NYC). Asked for a tip of where to eat, the client directed us to a steakhouse in Coconut Grove, where I had the most delicious piece of meat ever - the memory was so good I spurned the option of ordering steak for a number of years afterwards as I knew I would be underwhelmed.
Abanico Iberico de Bellota with Manchego Truffle Fries from The Spanish Butcher in Glasgow
It's basically meat from pigs that have been fed on acorns. I'm salivating just thinking about it
Roast potatoes with goat cheese and little bits of grilled steak, at some random mountain restaurant place in france. Simple but just absolutely perfect. Second prize to some crispy ring doughnuts made by a massive stoned rasta guy in Dawlish.
(but then again, the best drink I've ever had was a pint of carlsberg... Sat on the edge of milton keynes bowl, absolutely shattered, sunburned to **** and covered in bruises, watching Metallica. So what do I know?)
I had to look up who Stanley Tucci was. Now I want my won series where I travel around Italy eating.
Slow cooked lamb shank massaman curry, rice and roti, Chiang Mai, 2009. Sublime.
Interesting thread. I really love food and drink. That's possibly why I'm such a fat git 😂
So thought that this thread would be really easy to contribute to. I can't honestly say that I've had a single meal that was standout over and above any other meal. Which I find a bit concerning.
If it had a gun held to my head and had to choose I'd say a nice Turkish place in Edinburgh, discovered about 20 New Year's ago. Hadn't booked anything and randomly found it, and the food was awesome, service great and friendly without being OTT.
Unfortunately it closed a few years back. Was called Nargile and was on Hanover street. Still got the number in my phone.
Fresh BBQ'd sardines on a quayside in Portugal probably around 1998.
Curry in a big open air hall in the middle of Singapore served out of buckets onto Banana leaves by roving waiters.
Grilled fish in some random beach restaurant behind a bush the other side of the railway tracks in Columbo taken there by a local (thought I was going to get murdered)
Food.. Charcoal grilled fresh fish in Kefalonia from a beach side restaurant.
Drink.. Chateau Margaux tasted at the house of a millionaire I used to know back in 1990..Truly outstanding.
I spent my 20 and 30s in the wine and champagne trade and was lucky enough to eat some really good food, in some really nice places.
I remember being half way through a tasting menu with a couple of well known chefs, and we all agreed we really just wanted a plate of salty chips and a beer.
Not necessarily the best I’ve ever tasted but a few weeks ago on a particularly wet and grey Manchester day we rode to Wythenshawe Park cafe on the promise of beans and chips soaked in vinegar, huge portion washed down with a big mug of tea, very satisfying, however the next hour as we rode home there was a bizarre rising sense of euphoria spreading through my body as the salt and sugar and fat started flowing through my veins, by the time I got home I was elated and slightly tripping…
We went back last week for more but the moment had gone 😂😂😂
At either extreme there were fish and chips in Aviemore at 9:30pm after an adventure on Lurchers Crag in the snow and a storm.
Then there was foi gras stuffed mini figs in Black Perigord accompanied by a sweet wine.
Best drink is easy. Pint of Salopian Oracle in the Castle beer garden at Bishops Castle in the summer after doing the Batch Burner ride.
Lovely in every respect.
Absolutely perfect timing, this thread, being Christmas eve.
Reindeer. Medium-rare. In the Hilton at the waterfront in Helsinki. Pre -covid.
Santa may have been reduced to running on 7 cylinders on the sleigh, but my oh my was it suclent, tender and melt-in-the-mouth deeeeeelishous and worth the kids in America only getting their presents on Boxing day as a result of the delay.
.
Almost anything my wife manages to concoct from left overs, otherwise known as "one offs"
Not particularly a taste sensation, but when I was little, the family holidays were usually to Greek islands, and as this was circa 45 years ago, they weren’t overly commercialised. Had some great holidays with my late mum and dad. Hadn’t really had Greek food since but then went to a Greek/Mediterranean restaurant near me and the dolmades instantly took me back to those holidays. It was really quite bizarre, the association of that food with my parents and those great holidays. Dusty in here just typing that…
Well all these reminiscences bring back a few more memories for me.
Back in the 70s, Breakfast at the Stoney Middleton Caff before a day on the crags. "Full set an' a mug o' tea`'.
Donuts fresh out of the machine in Woolies, Sheffield.
A simple plain omelette and green salad with a cold beer at a roadside bar somewhere above Gap, on the way to Buis les Baronnies.
Many years later a lovely hotel in Grasmere for a Valentine's weekend away. My first taste of Zinfandel. Still my favourite red.
I'm banking on enjoying tonight's rolled stuffed leg of lamb too.
We have a small, local restaurant that evolved from a dining club a couple set up in their front room. They never advertise, aren’t really on social media or Trip Advisor but are booked out most nights. They do 6 covers per night, it’s a fixed menu based on local produce - just divine.
If there’s one dish, it is freshly caught and cooked scallops with black pudding.
Nigelas xmas ham cooked in Coke is up there for me (we're doing it in Dr Pepper this year as an experiment )
as for drinks, coca leaf tea whilst at altitude in Peru was unbelievably moreish
Nigelas xmas ham cooked in Coke
Must...not...make...inappropriate...joke...
I made a chocolate fudge cake from her recipe though, and it turned out really well, it was the best fudge cake I've ever eaten, and I don't even bake cakes!
I'm sure I've had better in some fancy restaurants, but the best tasting was on a dive boat in the red sea. Tiny galley and this wizened old Egyptian knocked up fried fish with a fresh salad with loads of coriander followed by slices of cold watermelon. That combination of hunger after a morning's diving and a parched mouth from sea water, I still remember it clearly and it was 30 years ago.
Tasting menu in Hotel Europa in St Petersburg in 1997. It'd just been refurbished, the chef was Finnish and it was absolutely lovely and not expensive. I was based in Moscow, I had colleagues based in St Petersburg. My experience was of Moscow was an ugly city with a prohibition era level of corruption and violence. My colleagues had a much nicer city and "get of jail free" cards from the gangsters they were working for.
(I lived in the Marriot and commuted on the tube from the Kievskya station. Shortly after I left the American manager of the business centre in the Marriot was killed in the tube station apparently for not paying protection.)
Still warm Arbroath smokie eaten straight out of the paper with fingers. Translucent and succulent with a light smokey flavour and flakey flesh. Only had it once so far.
Some scrambled eggs on toast in a children’s hospital when I was ill. Nurse said I could have anything I wanted and I asked for scrambled eggs on toast. Looking back it was technically terrible but at the time it was the best food ever and I still remember it 40 years later.
Rabbit Ridge - a Californian red a colleague picked up whilst on a conference. Don’t know the year, but it’s has been hard to match since. It was fruity, aromatic and totally moresome. I think part of the reason it was so good was that I had low expectations (and vice versa, something with high expectations is often disappointing). One thing I love about getting out and about, on foot or bike, is the appreciation of food and water - ascend 3000 ft on an MTB and a cheese sandwich is elevated from something nice to something stellar.
Just had Nigella’s ham in coke for dinner, superb. We’re lucky to still have excellent proper butchers, pies, cheesemongers, fish and veg here in town so eat fresh and well more than most. <br /><br />
I guess fresh fish within sight of the harbour where it’s landed usually hits the spot for me, some standouts being buckets of prawns brought straight to the dock we were working at in Bergen by our hosts for their breakfast/our supper after working an overnighter. Superb halibut risotto with chorizo at Ivars in Seattle and the best plats de fruits de mer ever at a beach bistro in Brittany. Today’s lunch was as good a haddock and chips as you would ever want too, the theatre on the pier at Cleethorpes is now the worlds biggest chippy and has been winning awards all over.
Only problem is it’s very strong, more than 2 or 3 and you’ll be totally spangled, lol!
Went to a customer Xmas do a couple of weeks ago, one of them ‘reliably’ informed me that, due to the sugar to alcohol content ratio (??!), a Long Island Iced Tea won’t give you a hangover.
I responded that from my 20 years of drinking them, I don’t think that’s true, but you go for it.
She wasn’t in work the next day…
Ooh, actually, the night after I had my first, aforementioned, soufflé I went to Fishworks in Marylebone, a restaurant in the back of a fishmonger, had a very simply seared lump of tuna, rocket salad with truffled crushed new potatoes, followed by a massive Eton mess. Was amazing!
Loving this thread, so many interesting experiences. It's often about the place, time and company as much as the food.
Drink - possibly Titanic Plum Porter.
Food - mum trained as a chef when I was at primary school, then did nothing with it. She made some amazing stuff, and still does, although age is holding her back a bit now. But she made an incredible chocolate pudding called negre en chemise (possibly no longer a suitable name) and it absolutely blew my mind.
Probably the main course from the first proper bit of beef I supplied and cooked for Xmas dinner when my Father was still with us. In fact far as he was concerned it was the best he had ever had, given Mum is the worst cook on planet Earth. He spent most of the meal commenting upon it.
Mums idea of meat properly cooked, is if it is grey all the way through and cold.
I carefully selected a 5 rib of beef from our supplier, then hung it in the chill for 8 weeks. Boned it, trimmed it in the French style, which is to first remove every bit of fat,sinew and connective tissue, then rolled it including suet as a cap to help baste ,though the beef i picked was very well marbled, and cooked it so it was pink, (probably medium) pink, but not too red.
.
At the time it cost me about £80, though that was 25 years ago and the same piece of the same quality will probably set you back today 200+(hung that length of time, trimmed for enough meat for 4 people and a bit left over).
I also made a red wine jus from the drippings etc.
It's one of my endearing memories of my Father, having had over the course of his marriage to mum some pretty shocking meals. Probably the first time I saw him as happy as that.
That became my Christmas contribution for the next 3 or so years while i was still in the trade and before he passed.
I dont think Mum was too happy with me 😆
Don't get out to eat with the missus very often, but this was a treat on hols summer before last - pork three ways, L'Esprit des Mets, Ales, in the Cevenne. Fabulous flavours.
Went to a customer Xmas do a couple of weeks ago, one of them ‘reliably’ informed me that, due to the sugar to alcohol content ratio (??!), a Long Island Iced Tea won’t give you a hangover.
I responded that from my 20 years of drinking them, I don’t think that’s true, but you go for it.
She wasn’t in work the next day…
It's a common problem with casual christmas drinkers... they talk a big game but... heheheh!
food, i have 2 that stick with me.
a big slab of bbq bellypork from the market in Porto. just amazing.
and a plate full of oysters and razor clams at a place in Marennes in France. served with Ile D'Oleron rose.
just perfect.
agreed mattyfez. pork is my fave meat.
an 'experience' meal at the savoy grill my partner's eldest bought for us this year. by the time we'd traveled to london, stayed, paid for a bottle of wine (their cheapest rioja, at just shy of a ton!), and my partner upgraded to a beef wellignton, that present cost us a fortune but my god, i'd go again, and again. tremendous food, the food and wine both were sublime, and the service was extraordinary. i've had some great food at some nice places, and i'm not given to extravagance but this was just something else.
I celebrated cycling from the Med to the Channel with lobster flambeed in calvados, and washed it down with chassagne montrachet. That was quite nice.
Still warm Arbroath smokie eaten straight out of the paper with fingers. Translucent and succulent with a light smokey flavour and flakey flesh. Only had it once so far.
Food of gods.
My granny lived next door to spinks smoke house when it was still in spinks back garden at the flats on market gate before they moved up to the commercial unit. Could get them fresh off the rack as a young loon
Best milk tea brewed by two sisters (83 & 86 year old) in Southern Thailand. 2nd place goes to the old man in my home town of North Borneo who also brewed excellent milk tea. Cost 20p to 30p. Coffee from North Borneo is also brilliant (Java beans).
Best traditional dessert (Cendol = looks like green worm) made by a lady at the market in Southern Thailand, then follow by the India guy (wearing sarong) who sell them on a bicycle in Penang (mainland) under a big tree, then the street dessert bloke on a small island in Borneo. Cost between 20p to 50p for a small bowl.
Noodles, I don't know where to start because they were all brilliant - soup, stir-fried, semi-liquid based, flat, round, thin, all sorts from North Malaysia to North Borneo. Cost £2 to £3 nowadays. Used to be 40p to £1.50 when I was young.
Chana Dhal with roti for breakfast in Malaysia all of them (about 50p to 70p), but the one in Newcastle Aneesa's Buffet Restaurant also do brilliant Chana Dhal. Very impressed with the one in Newcastle.
Most food in South East Asia are brilliant if you know where to find them.
Colmans Fish & Chips in South Shields. Amongst the best in the UK.
Fancy restaurant foods? I have not encountered poor ones in Thailand or Malaysia yet. Note that eating restaurant foods in that part of the world is merely a place where people eat in comfort with air condition. On the other hand, street food is generally what they have on offered and some of their recipes are absolutely secret as they specialised in few foods for generations (even top chefs need to learn from them if they are even taught). No fancy restaurants can offer the same taste and the most they can do is just second best and expensive.
Most food I have sampled in Europe (affordable ones and nothing cost more than £40 per person/meal) do not even come close in terms of the taste, with the exception of Fish & Chips or fresh jellied eel.
p/s: I used to practice making the milk tea like the two sisters and at one time I had about few kilos of tea to practice and tonnes of sweet condense milk. I only managed to get 70% right. Not good enough and even my piss started bubbling due to the amount of sugar in them LOL! Same with coffee and on average I have 2 kg of coffee to practice.
Durian- possibly wild ones in Borneo
I also loved the coffee in the market at Kota Kinabalu, but its not arabica nor robusta
Khao Soi Gai in Chiang Mai
are the ones that spring to mind
What I really love about this thread, and good food, is that in almost everyone’s answer it is as much the location and the occasion as it is the food itself. Good food for me is about the place, the memories, how you got there and what it brings to you. That’s why I love travelling to make these experiences.
I also loved the coffee in the market at Kota Kinabalu, but its not arabica nor robusta
I am surprised you like the coffee in Kota Kinabalu (my hometown). They are dark/black in colour and heavily roasted. Most of the coffee beans come from Indonesia but if you drink in the normal shop, then most of them are lower grade beans but roasted differently by different brands. They are mixed of low grade Arabica and Robusta beans. However, my mum used to complain that they use other vegetable beans as coffee LOL! The real Borneo coffee beans can be hard to find and limited but they taste very good if you can get them.
Good food for me is about the place, the memories, how you got there and what it brings to you.
For me it is about the taste. It does not matter to me where the food originated from. For example, Fish & Chips, it is very difficult to find a really good Fish and Chips nowadays. The ingredients are simple but for the life of me, I can never cook like them like the shops. Even cooking the chips can be impossible to get it right for me.
A big bowl of beef ramen in a simple place used by taxi drivers a few hours after landing in Tokyo and thanking my stars the Korean waitress spoke better English than me as I certainly couldn't read the menu.
I have forgotten about the old town of Prague on top of the hill, over looking the city, there was a restaurant in 1991-2 where we were served very good duck stew or whatever they called it. Bear in mind, a pint of Czech "black" beer in those days only cost us 20p. I still remember on one particular day at a local pub, 3 tables of Brits drank the pub dry! LOL! I was with few of my Brits friends and we couldn't stop laughing. The waiter (looked a bit like Manuel from Fawlty Towers) just told us there was no more beer to serve as we drank them dry. LOL! The beer was so good we practically glued ourselves at the pub for half a day.
Bundobust in Leeds prior to of A Night Of Salvation at the University in November "21. Basically the start of a of Damnation festival so a couple of nights of heavy metal with old work mates, and having missed out the year before before covid this was our first gig gathering since the last Damnation festival in 2019. It's Indian street food and its bloody good. No Michelin starred stuff but the feeling of being out and the anticipation of what was to come just made the whole experience utterly memorable. It may be uncouth of me to suggest that the best drink(s) also came that night, some beers in a park after the gig surrounded by rats that we'd managed to get from an all night off. I can't even remember what it was I was drinking. Newky Brown I think 😳 either way, it was fab.
Think all my best meals have been in SE Asia like a lot of others here. A standout is fresh crab and kampot pepper in Kep, Cambodia in 2009. So simple but amazing.