Does an amazing pecan slice eaten halfway up the Corrieyairack pass just as my bottom lip was about to turn down count?
I found a Snickers in my bag towards the end of a very hard Cairngorm/Ben Macdui ride. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
I found a Snickers in my bag towards the end of a very hard Cairngorm/Ben Macdui ride. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
I can't forget the snack pork pie I inhaled after doing the Dalby Forest red/black with no food at all because someone had suggested it would all be done in an hour or two.
I do think most of my best meals have been when I'm at my hungriest. A $1 street pad Thai in Bangkok, a corned beef hash on a NZ mountain pass...
I am quite lucky that I get to eat in some nice places with work and I have done some good Cumbrian Michelin places but in February this year I groaned with pleasure like an idiot for my whole meal.
La Marineta in Mataro near Barcelona. Very small tapas place opens at 8pm with one table sitting. Very seafood biased which suits me. There was six of us so I got to try a lot of dishes and they were all great or superb. It was a business trip but I will make a point of going back, I was very struck by how cheaply I could eat and drink really well in the town.
INSTAGRAM.COM Joro in Oughtibridge near Sheffield is excellent though getting very very spendy now it’s got its first Michelin star. But still amazing especially with the drinks pairing (don’t be put off if one of the first drinks is half a lager, it gets better).
For me though it’s as much about the associated memories of a trip or holiday as the quality of the food itself. There was a small rundown corrugated tin building in Khao Lao in Thailand we went to on holiday once, no longer there but served simple but superbly fresh local food with cheap cold beer and lizards on the wall. Will never forget that place.
Great thread, my thoughts.
We had a small local Greek/Turkish chain “Olive Branch” open near us and we went a little while after opening. I had the dolamides and a kebab, with the usual sides of pitta and dip. Now, I’m not saying it was the best food, but smelling and tasting the food whisked me immediately back to fantastic family holidays in the Greek islands, early 80s, with my sadly departed parents.
Funny how food can evoke memories. It’s even dusty in here typing this…
But even an orange kitkat was devoured after completing the Mary Townley loop in a day, running on fumes for the last few miles.
Ceviche de Cojinova, Canta Rana, Barranco, Lima.
I was so sad to be eating my last ever one before i left Peru for what is so far forever, that i immediately ordered another.
Most memorable for me was at the Hollytree near Ballachulish. Excellent food, lovely views and perfect company. The first time I had tried brown bread ice cream. A revelation
I've been to some fairly s****y restaurants with work, but the one meal that was really memorable was in Kathmandu after trekking to Everest Base Camp. We'd found ourselves knocking along with Tashi Tenzing - Tenzing Norgay's nephew, I think from memory - and a group of Australian trekkers he was guiding, having moved to Oz and set up his own guiding outfit, he married an Australian. A really nice guy.
Anyway, when we got back to Kathmandu, he invited us to join him and his group for a celebratory meal. Indian/Nepali cuisine and it was just astonishing, not hot or massively spicy, but these incredibly vivid, clean flavours. I remember the dahl as being amazing. Great company too and I suspect it helped that we'd been eating basic tea house food for the last month odd, but it was very, very good.
Other stuff - Honda VFR press launch at Misano, we have a great Italian meal in San Marino, again quite simply but really clean, strong flavours. And when I was kid, with a Danish friend of my dad's, fresh cod that we'd caught ourselves from his small boat in the Baltic, grilled on the harbour side.
I've eaten at a couple of Michelin-starred places and don't remember much about them at all, just that they seemed to be trying very hard. Oh, there used to be a pub-based Indian in Glossop that was fantastic, one of my posh London mates couldn't believe how good it was.
And a back street pizzeria in Cuzco, that was good. Again probably context as much as anything.
Loads of posh places with work but really, the best was the sausage roll I found in my back pocket, still warm, in shap on lejog. I wish I d eaten it slower, it was amazing.
There's a chiringuito in altea, spain called crank, Valencia no for crab, that was special.
It was an impromptu meal when I'd only just met my girlfriend/now-wife. Sat in the Italian restaurant she used to live above just having an after-work drink and the waiter talked us into eating. Had grilled langoustines layered in chilli & butter then veal, and it was amazing.
The best single morsel of food I've ever put in my mouth was a cube of confit duck at The Cellar in Anstruther, sadly now closed.
I'm off to Killicrankie House in a couple of weeks so maybe the bar will be raised.
As said by others "it depends". If you are talking great food in fine surroundings then for me it was Hintlesham Hall back in the 70s when it was Robert Carrier's restaurant.
But equally I have had other great meals though less sumptuous and luxurious.
A plain omelette and green salad with a glass of beer outside a roadside bar in Provence.
Freshly caught and smoked mackerel supplied by the owner of a cottage we stayed in in Cornwall.
My German mum's Goulash with red cabbage.
Meals at my German grandma's house in Germany. She had a fabulous fruit and veg garden, we would sit outside in the sun all mucking in with the prep. I particularly remember the fabulous white asparagus when in season and massive tureens of potatoes (they did like their spuds over there). Also in Northern Germany there it's lots of smoked or pickled food, which I love.
I have Oma's dinner service in my home now. It was a wedding present to her and will be well over 100 years old.
