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.
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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.
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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.
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….
