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Dunmow flitch gammon. I was 14 and Carol the butcher taught me how to bone and tie the joint. Then into the Viking bag to be boiled for hours. People flocked to the shop for it. It melted on the tongue, just stunning. Almost 50 years later and I'm still trying to find something as good.
I live in south West Wales, the seafish is amazing. Saundersfoot Harbour Cafe fish stew. Oh. My. Goodness!
Currywurst from the sadly departed Herman Ze German. Villiers St was always the best one, I could eat it indefinitely.
Last week I had the best pizza I've ever had at Square Peg in Canterbury.
Two stand out for me…
First meal I had at the Sportsman near Seasalter, sometime before they’d got there Michelin Star - the Dover Sole was amazing.
A bacon roll at the takeaway cafe on the A5 near Llyn Idwal, where the YHA is now. Just done a walk around it and properly sprained my ankle, and had to hobble back to the car.
I am surprised you like the coffee in Kota Kinabalu (my hometown)
They are the Liberica beans, they smell so good freshly ground
Chicken lab in the Thai that’s used to be on stramongate in Kendal before it flooded
pizza from beach stall in France when i was 12 can’t remember where
massaman curry from chef peake’s street cafe on samui
Pizza at a tiny little barely advertised restaurant near a church in Florence. Only locals in there and we followed the crowd that came out of the church. Amazing.
Lobster and crab pasta at Scott’s seafood in Sacramento. Utterly delicious melt in the mouth stuff.
Rare breed pork sausages from the Farmhouse in Ulverston.
Meatballs in tomato sauce at a…house in Milan. Recommended by a local who told me to name drop his name when I knocked on the door. No advertising, it looked like a private house with slightly steamy windows. It was almost indescribably good.
Hibiki 17 Japanese Whisky served in front of a roaring fire at the Mill in Ulverston when it was a full on snowstorm outside.
Two, maybe three, stand-out meals. One was in an Italian restaurant in San Marino, where we'd been taken by Honda motorcycles to say thanks for not crashing any of the new VFR750 at the Misano circuit. It was just astonishingly good possibly helped by my relief at not having binned a brand new Honda at three-figure speeds.
The second was at a restaurant in Kathmandu after trekking Everest Base Camp from Jiri, We'd bumped into a Tashi Tenzing - Tenzing Norgay's grandson - who was leading a group of Australian trekkers on the route and got on really well with him and once we were all back in Kathmandu, he kindly invited us out with his group. The food was amazing, Nepali/Indian cuisine, but not particularly hot, just full of incredible, subtle flavours. The dahl was like nothing I've ever tasted before or since.
Also have fond teenage memories of eating grilled cod on the quayside after catching it from a small boat in the Baltic. Simple but great.
I've eaten a lot of other good meals over the years, often on media launches, but the above just stand out in a proper, 'Oh my good, that's amazing' sort of way. I'm sure it's about the circumstances as well as the food, but not always. Possibly the most disappointing meal of my life was at an Italian - maybe 'the' Italian restaurant in Bolivia - at the end of a week-long trek in the back-end of nowhere, Illampu maybe. My mate, who was a mountain guide there kept raving about how good it was. The reality was that it was terrible. Even after a week of eating noodles and porridge.
Fois gras at Helene Darozze with wine. Magical place.
After reading all this on a full stomach I’ll take the Springbank 30 and Hibiki 17 please 😂
Vietnamese place in Vietnamese area of melbourne. A few thin pancakes, some sauces, and a pile of leaves that looked like stinging nettles and various pond weed. Unbelievable….
Ceviche de cojinova, La Canta Rana, Barranco.
A few great meals in girona.
Pentonbridge inn (recently got it's Michelin star) great tasting menu.
Currywurst at tempest brewery tap room.
Durian
Two different steaks and 2 different settings. <br /><br />1st in Paris St German quarter of Paris. What looked like a local restaurant complete with dogs under tables and very little English spoken. <br /><br />
2nd along with some fantastic Malbec at a steak restaurant in Mendoza Argentina. <br /><br />
I walk into La Canta Rana, knowing this was going to be my last ever ceviche - my flight home was tomorrow ( tomorrow was 30 years ago but it may as well be today) -the cojinova is fresh out of the boat.
When i walked in to Peru, nine months prior, i didn't think i even liked fish - fish, that's like tinned tuna or tinned salmon, that's fish, right? - we never even had chip shop fish when i was growing up.
So my first weekend we went to the beach and the boats hauled themselves out of the water and cooked those fish they'd caught on coals right there on fires on the beach and it was like, this is manna from heaven.
The next nine months were spent eating all and everything - i'm going to tell you now that ceviche de pulpo is edible, but not advisable.
And now we're back at La Canta Rana, my last really good ceviche. My last any ceviche - what would you do?
Well, obviously, you order another...
I remember getting back to the car after a multi day trek in NZ (about 25+ years ago) had gone a bit Pete Tong and had run out of food, found a Bolognese sauce jar, tin of corned beef and some pasta, 20mins of trangering later and I was in culinary heaven!! I will never forget that meal.
Much as I love complicated cookery and good restaurants, the food that stands out in my mind tends to be simple.
Belly pork tacos from Ember in Wellingborough. Great place that cooks everything brilliantly over open flames, but the slow roast belly pork tacos are astonishing.
Simple, fresh oysters from the seafood shack in Oban.
Properly old-fashioned lobster, crab and other seafood salad from Cookies in Salthouse.
I’ve been thinking about this since the thread first started, and I finally came up with something.
In 1997, I had to do a course in Mexico City, when we spent time in the countryside with some farmers. The village were expecting us, and to celebrate, they pulled out all the stops and held a feast.
They dug a few holes and filled them with burning coals, then wrapped the meat (pork and chicken), put it in the ground, buried it, and let it cook all day while we played football with the local kids.
Later, the meat was dug up, and we ate it with rice, corn, and molé (a sauce of cocoa and chilli). I don’t think I have ever had a nicer experience of food - before or since.
I had eaten in Mexico a lot, as we had a place in the Rio Grande Valley, but the stuff I ate that day was unlike anything else.
Pint of straight from the cask Moonlite and a slice of their own cheese pie at the Square and Compass, Worth Matravers, sat outside on a sunny May Saturday. Bliss.
Street food Spring roll. Night market in Luang Prabang, Laos, with my 2.5 year old son.
flintstones
Free Member
Street food Spring roll. Night market in Luang Prabang, Laos, with my 2.5 year old son.
Not a takeaway dinosaur rib?
Not a takeaway dinosaur rib?
Took me a moment!
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.
Hanedan, West Preston Street?
I see a mention of razor clams on the previous page.
Those cooked on la plancha at a seafood place in Nerja is the one single taste that stands out to me. With a glass of fino obvs.
Ate some amazing gourmet meals in Andalucia as well, I remember a lovely seafood stew kind of thing served from a teapot at one of the cliff edge restuarants in Ronda.
And a chocolate & mango dessert in El Puerto de Santa Maria.
Roadside cafe, SW corner of Viti Levu, Fiji - the best chicken curry, dhal and rice ever.
2nd place curry was a restaurant in Moscow, but I reckon it’s gone now.
Other standouts:<br />Ploughman’s from the Seymour Arms, Whitham Friary circa 1993<br />Meats from a kiwi Hangi<br />The Waterside Inn at Bray
On holiday in Corfu. In the Flying Fox restaurant on the road above Paleokastritsa I had the best moussaka I’ve ever eaten.
In the 80’s was in Milan for F1 GP. Had some Spaghetti with a plain tomato sauce in a small back street cafe. Still not had one as good since.
Both simple home cooked but perfect dishes.
The standout for me from various tasting menus over the years was Kenny Atkinson's mackerel dish that he got to the banquet on Great British Menu. The fish was cooked in a crispy tube made from some rolled out bread, served with several gooseberry elements. Just a superbly tasty and balanced dish.
Drinks wise, a couple of wines stand out, an awesome Barolo at the Raby Hunt and an Amarone enjoyed with roast lamb in Verona.
Chicken kebab meat and chips with cabbage salad, chilli sauce, lime and garlic mayonnaise. I don't eat it very often but when I do, it's normally after a big ride where I'm still dirty and tired. All washed down with a can of Vimto.
Braised beef with spring onion mash, covered in incredibly beefy gravy with a side of green beans and deep fried cheddar cheese. Washed down with a glass of Merlot.
Indian starters/sides are hard to beat, I love poppadoms with mixed pickles and mint yoghurt.
My mother in-law's Christmas lunch is incredible too. Only just pipping the boxing day leftover Turkey and ham pie. Her fruit meringue is like eating a sugary cloud. Bliss!
The bratwurst from a pub in Chop Gate on the North Yorkshire Downs was very, very good. It came with sauerkraut and pickles. I found the place after an impromptu evening ride. The german beer was also superb.
Standing outside Hendon Bagel just as they opened at 7.00am back in the 90's eating fresh bagels after some all-nighter
The Pierhouse Hotel in Appin, OK, I had some veggie cobble-together, but my wife loves seafood, and it was a great moment when she asked the waiter where the langoustine was caught, and he pointed out the window to Loch Linnhe and said "There."
The wee place in Fayance that allowed my son (aged 6) to try andouiette after he was insistent in the way that only small people can be, the cook watching him from the kitchen door nodding appreciatively and the waiter bringing him some chips after my son, after a couple of mouthfuls, realised what he'd let himself in for.