- French Laundry, 2002. Blew my mind. Sounds ridiculous, but this was a life-changing experience.
- First visit to Momofuku Ssam Bar, 2007. Perfect atmosphere, perfect company, great food, great drink. I don’t remember a single specific thing about this meal but the whole thing stands out in my memory as wonderful.
- Per Se for my birthday, 2006 (I think).
- Alinea, 2006. You think it’s going to be too gimmicky but the food is just flat out delicious.
Not to mention some fantastic home-cooked meals with my wife, burgers with friends, and rollicking lunch discussions with coworkers over the years.
Domo in Denver. we had to end a backpacking trip early when a friend got pulmonary edema. It took us hours to hike back to the car in the snow. Donald said: don’t you wish you had a thermos of miso soup? I almost kicked him. But that night we asked around and were told Domo was the best in town. It was, and is some of the best Japanese food I’ve ever had. Rustic Japanese cooking in a volunteer built aikido studio. totally kick ass.
5 course prix fixe at Joel Robuchon in Vegas coupla years ago. 100% cliche, I know, but I own that experience, and goddamn, it was worth every penny. Never liked lobster up to that point, and the souffle was The Souffle By Which All Others Should Be Measured. Would go back in a hot minute, and I do highly recommend the experience, but take out a home equity LOC first.
Drank their next-to-last 2003 Shafer Firebreak and took the last one home with us.
That’s a tough one. You’d almost have to break it down by cuisine and by how hungry you were. Could have been our first meal in Bangkok a few weeks ago at a dive of a place called Suda. Or any number of places in Rome. Or the first time I went to Hasaki in NYC. Or pozole in those places with one light bulb in the doorway in Mexico. Or freshly caught trout wrapped in tinfoil and thrown in the fire when you are camping (and hungry).
A meal of at least 8 courses in the small Dordogne village of Cadouin. There was no menu and the owner/chef refused to serve the next course until you cleared your plate. The other odd custom was, after the first course, which was soup, your bowl was filled with red wine and you had to drink it in front of him.
The food was sublime, although rather a lot of it!
The dinner we made here tonight in Brooklyn. I’m not being cute, it was amazing. Roast seasoned chicken with stuffing, roast baby tomatoes and carrots and whole garlic bulbs, cauliflower cheese and a very fine mashed potato. Ah. I am having dessert and then going back for seconds.
Some bombed out dive bar in Valencia Spain where there was no menu, just three guys laying down SKILLET-FULLs of the most incredible seafood, tapas, tortillas, pastas, pork sausages, partridge, and rice dishes I have never imagined. Top this off with glasses of Co-op red wine and liquors and brandies, and local cheeses that lasted another two hours, all for about $25.
yes the dinner here last night (with Lucy) was very good, but I always remember a dinner I had with the band I was playing with in Avila, Spain, a literal hole in the wall (walled city) multi-generational family owned restaurant, simple fare, really cheeses, mushrooms, jamon, wine, but I fell in love with the food there ( the cheese in particular, where for the first time I tasted every bit of the land that it came from) and it changed my sense of what food is.
Bistecca fiorentina at a small trattoria in Florence 10 years ago.
SPQR in San Franscico. A friend wrote a review of the experience on Chowhound and I snapped a few pictures.
There are a few tied for first place.
- French Laundry, 2002. Blew my mind. Sounds ridiculous, but this was a life-changing experience.
- First visit to Momofuku Ssam Bar, 2007. Perfect atmosphere, perfect company, great food, great drink. I don’t remember a single specific thing about this meal but the whole thing stands out in my memory as wonderful.
- Per Se for my birthday, 2006 (I think).
- Alinea, 2006. You think it’s going to be too gimmicky but the food is just flat out delicious.
Not to mention some fantastic home-cooked meals with my wife, burgers with friends, and rollicking lunch discussions with coworkers over the years.
Domo in Denver. we had to end a backpacking trip early when a friend got pulmonary edema. It took us hours to hike back to the car in the snow. Donald said: don’t you wish you had a thermos of miso soup? I almost kicked him. But that night we asked around and were told Domo was the best in town. It was, and is some of the best Japanese food I’ve ever had. Rustic Japanese cooking in a volunteer built aikido studio. totally kick ass.
5 course prix fixe at Joel Robuchon in Vegas coupla years ago. 100% cliche, I know, but I own that experience, and goddamn, it was worth every penny. Never liked lobster up to that point, and the souffle was The Souffle By Which All Others Should Be Measured. Would go back in a hot minute, and I do highly recommend the experience, but take out a home equity LOC first.
Drank their next-to-last 2003 Shafer Firebreak and took the last one home with us.
That’s a tough one. You’d almost have to break it down by cuisine and by how hungry you were. Could have been our first meal in Bangkok a few weeks ago at a dive of a place called Suda. Or any number of places in Rome. Or the first time I went to Hasaki in NYC. Or pozole in those places with one light bulb in the doorway in Mexico. Or freshly caught trout wrapped in tinfoil and thrown in the fire when you are camping (and hungry).
I agree with Derek that anything after roughing it for a while stands out in the memory.
I can more easily identify the worst meal: a microwaved hamburger that cost 7 Euros at the Venzia train station in the WInter of 2003.
I am still offended.
A meal of at least 8 courses in the small Dordogne village of Cadouin. There was no menu and the owner/chef refused to serve the next course until you cleared your plate. The other odd custom was, after the first course, which was soup, your bowl was filled with red wine and you had to drink it in front of him.
The food was sublime, although rather a lot of it!
The dinner we made here tonight in Brooklyn. I’m not being cute, it was amazing. Roast seasoned chicken with stuffing, roast baby tomatoes and carrots and whole garlic bulbs, cauliflower cheese and a very fine mashed potato. Ah. I am having dessert and then going back for seconds.
Some bombed out dive bar in Valencia Spain where there was no menu, just three guys laying down SKILLET-FULLs of the most incredible seafood, tapas, tortillas, pastas, pork sausages, partridge, and rice dishes I have never imagined. Top this off with glasses of Co-op red wine and liquors and brandies, and local cheeses that lasted another two hours, all for about $25.
yes the dinner here last night (with Lucy) was very good, but I always remember a dinner I had with the band I was playing with in Avila, Spain, a literal hole in the wall (walled city) multi-generational family owned restaurant, simple fare, really cheeses, mushrooms, jamon, wine, but I fell in love with the food there ( the cheese in particular, where for the first time I tasted every bit of the land that it came from) and it changed my sense of what food is.
[...] wanted to comment on Andrew’s recent post—a Dear Clusterflock that posed the question “Where/what was the best meal you have ever [...]