Back to the Bay Area, Hog Island Oysters Tomales Bay with the Hogwash. thereyet

After a 6-hr hike up a mountain in the rain in Sept - a soggy baloney sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise in a dry, warm room.

((I))

1. The Inn at Little Washington...Virginia
2. La Chassagnette...Camargue (when Rabanel was chef)
3. The dining room at Mondo X...Cetona

Oh.. thanks for reminding me.. of course.. The Inn at Little Washington remains a favorite too. The Seven Deadly Sins as dessert ( 7 little chocolate desserts) is heaven.

We stayed overnight and I will never forget the taste of the fresh blueberries in the morning, big, fat and juicy, blueberries like I've never had them before.

Lobster tail in St. John...I have craved it many times since then!

Ira, That reminds me of the pizza we cooked in the rain Quetico Provincial Park after a windy rainy day in a conoe. Talk about up a creek. The pizza was fantastic though and even I was surprised how well the reflector oven worked in the rain. My sister had faith though. thereyet

Antica Osteria da Divo in Siena down in the catacombs.
Jules Vern in Paris with a window seat
Pat O'brien's in New Orleans (mainly because we each had 4 hurricanes and had a very hard time getting back to our hotel) That's a very long story in itself.
Dave

Tempura shrimp at Hemingways in Grand Cayman, Mussels and Escargot at Mon Ami Gabi in Las Vegas. But don't take my word for it, I like McDonalds.

1. Paul Bocuse, L'AUBERGE DU PONT DE COLLONGES in Lyon.
http://www.bocuse.fr/us/restaurant/default.htm

soup dedicated to Giscard D'Estaing with a "french beret" pastry over the bowl, mind-boggling selection of desserts

2. Giant, freshest raw oysters at La Belle Creole in St. Martin

3. Jules Verne, Paris

4. Breakfast on the terrace at the Posa Posa Hotel, Positano

5. Salumi and cheeses, etc. picked up at the Mercato delle Erbe in Bologna for a picnic in the middle of nowhere in a Tuscan countryside two hours later. :-)

Le Bec Fin in Philadelphia, hands down :)

All of you are reminding me of where I've been, Le Bec Fin, of course! Really fabulous and it was the year of my 10 anniv and DH surprised with another diamond! ( he is such a dear, I'm on my 3rd ring now!!!, what a guy!)

About 12 years ago, DH and I went on a church choir tour to central Europe-Berlin, Leipzig, Viena, Prague, Budapest. We aren't "group tour" people, but I was president of the choir and my husband is a soloist, so we went and had a pretty good time. One of the dismal parts of the church choir tour experience is that so many of the meals are "pre-plated" affairs, either at the hotel, or at some other place that can accomodate a party of 80.

On the way somewhere (to Leipzig?) we stopped for a few hours in Wittenberg. They were having some type of street festival, and we stopped at a booth where I bought a gyro/chwarma-type of sandwich, but with freshly cooked pork and kraut. After having eaten so many pre-plated schnitzel menus, the sandwich tasted fabulous!!!

A few other memorable meals:

1. El Novillo last year in Costa Rica for fabulous steak in a very casual atmosphere.

2. The restaurant in Paris where the waiter, who had lived for two years in southern Califonia, wanted to practice his English....it was great, but he kept saying "What the [bad "F" word]" instead of "What the heck", as the kids' eyes got wider and wider.

3. Lunch at a place called something like "The Crab House" near Dunginess, WA, when my son (then about 12) discovered that he LOVED seafood. No wonder...the "open face crab sandwich" was basically a piece of firm bread piled high with fresh sweet crabmeat....I think it was $6.

My most unforgettable meal was in Aqaba, Jordan. I had planned a trip with my friend Marie to visit Jordan, and just before we left, the war between Iraq and Iran broke out. We went anyway, and I think we were among a grand total of 6 guests in a room with more the 100 rooms. Anyway, that has nothing to do with the meal, but more with the ambience of the time.

One day we rented a taxi to go to Wadi Rum, the incredible desert site with red cliffs and sand that you can see in the movie "Lawrence of Arabia." It was absolutely stunning, but we were a bit more stunned when the bedouin tribe camping out there wanted to kidnap us. The taxi driver told us to walk slowly in the direction of his jeep and to start running when he gave the word. Which we did! We hightailed it back to Aqaba (at least 2 hours) and arrived there dying of thirst, famished, and so happy to be free and alive. We settled into a small outdoor restaurant downtown, looked around at the other tables and made it clear in sign language that "we want what they're having!" An incredible feast soon filled our table, and I must say that we did it justice.

Later that night (past midnight), on the empty beach, we went swimming in the nude (we were kind of drunk by then -- we deserved it after the kidnap escape) and watched all of the ships in the port of Aqaba, filled with weapons to assist Iraq in the war (keep in mind that the U.S. was giving Saddam Hussein anything he wanted to fight Iran at the time). The lights on the ships were magical and we could hear the sailors' voices in the distance and the music from their radios. Aqaba was the only port supplying Iraq because the Persian Gulf was completely closed due to the war. We knew that we were risking our lives by being there -- Iran had already threatened to bomb Aqaba if Jordan did not stop collaborating -- but we were almost hoping to see the fireworks.

The next day we flew back to boring, uninteresting Paris.

6 guests in a HOTEL with more than 100 rooms

The best ribeye steak I ever had was in the sports bar of a hotel just off the interstate in North Platt, Nebraska on Fathers Day 6 years ago. Who would have thought?

Enoteca Cangrande in Verona.
At the end of a lovely meal, a glass of
exquisite Amarone and a plate of 36mo.
Parmesan drizzled with a reduction of
v. aged basalmic vinegar. We ate like
vultures.

Woke up at 2 a.m. sure I was having a
massive heart attack; but no - just the
absolute worst heartburn ever! Gee, I
wonder why?

A great meal made using Foie Gras at Wolfgang Puck - San Franciso.

Schuba, are you there? :) Just kidding.

Back to work.

Last summer in the tiny town of Hawi, Big Island Hawaii, one stop sign so don't blink, I found this equally tiny sushi bar. They had maybe 5-6 tables. We ordered the sushi chefs choice which was very good but we wanted something a little spicier. We asked the owner/server if they made something hot. she recommended the Volcano roll w/ Pele sauce. After one bite she came back and asked how it was. I told her "honestly, its not that hot" so she got a dish of the Pele sauce for dipping. My wife grabbed her first piece and dipped at about the same time my mouth caught fire. Within seconds my wife was about to slug me. All she could say was her mouth went numb. Of course I was in no better condition and actually had to go outside. We are not wimps when it comes to spicy food. My wife is Latina and I have spent years toughening up my palate! When I got back we finished the roll sans dipping. I asked the owner what the heck that was and she replied they were tiny chiles from outside the back door pureed with a little bit of vinigar. I wanted to take some home but was affraid to ask. thereyet

Comfyshoes, I am not a fanatic. And you are funny. ;)

In Grindelwald, Sw as a child in the seventies we went on a picnic to a chalet facing the Eiger. The venerable old hotel we stayed at packed the lunch for our family of six which filled 3-4 large grocery bags with all sorts of cheeses, salames,fruits,boiled eggs,french bread and chocolates/pastries. I don't think we could have eaten the whole thing if we wanted to. I still pack picnics to recreate that day which costs a fortune but can't help myself.thereyet

Deb15July,

Philippe Jeanty was the founding chef at Domaine Chandon. It used to be a ritual with me to have a long, delicious meal there, from the '80's onward. Haven't been back since he left. Yummy sweetbreads and the only Soupe de Poisson I've had in the States.

I was there one year, out of season, when a group of local growers came in for lunch and ordered French Fries.

Out came a beautiful silver bowl on a silver platter. Next came another silver platter with a 1 gallon can of Heinz Ketchup, which was carefully ladled out into the silver bowl. Around the corner was Philippe, having fun. They received their request for fries.

He's a great chef, and not really recognized, because he is very down home and just wants to make good food.

ComfyShoes, good joke! Now that Puck's banned foie gras....

Second most memorable meal:

It was our first stay at the Hotel Bonaparte. I told Mme Dumas that I wanted to take my bride to Versailles and have a picnic.

It's a long story, but she had the local shops put together a picnic that came as a tower of boxes wrapped in gold and red ribbons with a basket for the bread and wine.

We had this, quite privately as the guard closed the entrance, in a garden with a fountain.

((I))

Ira, now that picnic has all tha makings of a lasting memory. The company, tha atmosphpere, the surprise of a tower of gold wrapped boxes. How wonderful. thereyet

Ira, what a lovely and perfect memory!!!

ttt

I think of myself as a romantic and then am still shocked at your originality Ira!

Inn on the Twenty (Jordan, wine country, Ontario CA)... the gnocci in a gargonzola based broth is the first 'food' that jumps to mind - that was the best dish I've ever had.

The cooking class at Fagiolari in Tuscany is the best 'memory'. We became friends with the other guests and had a wonderful time of it.

There was a cup of shrimp etoufee at the New Orleans Jazz Festival that had me on my knees and the tomato and arugula salad served on the balcony of my hotel with the view of Positano, and the small restaurant in Sorrento where I asked the maitre' d to just please select some things for me. I never had a more wonderful dinner of fish and seafood.

meat pie at TAMAM resturant in old town of Chania Crete Greece

So much comes to mind...Gigantic mussels in Scotland, in a creamy sauce...Angel hair pasta with artichokes in Ancona, seafood at a restaurant on a beach...Closerie de lilas in Paris for steak tartare and wild boar, so much Duck confit at litte restaurants...Steaks in Argentina...Florentine steaks...Exquisite vegetarian lasagna at an agriturismo in Sicily...Suckling pig in Spain... And now, I will have to visit some restaurants that have been mentioned on this board on my trip to Rome 4/26: no problems, I will be walking a lot!

For a meal, It was at the L'Auberge de L'Eridan cooked by Marc Veynat at his restaurant in Annecy by the lake. It was the whole presentation as well as the food. When you enter you are taken by a host into a beautiful tiny elevator that only holds three persons. You ride down and are taken onto a beautiful deck with low tables and benches. It felt like you were sitting on a beautiful yacht as you gazed out on the lake. Apertifs are ordered and little morsels of food to pick on are brought to the table. Later table by table, you are scorted to your seats.
Veyrat, who always wears his shepards
hat is a collector of wild herbs that he uses in his cooking hat and many chefs who worked with him went on their own using his ideas. We had a meal that was too long to write about called Menu Synphonie, that started with escalope de fois gras de canard, four vegetable ravioles, and a grilled lobster for J. and lapin for me, a plateau of cheese followed by desserts,sabayon flavored with genepi of the alps. This was my treat for J's retirement. Thank goodness, that's a once in a lifetime. I had to not buy books and music for a long time but it was worth it.

Hands down the lunch I had at the Pre Catalan in Paris. If you search under "Pre Catalan" on Fodors you will find the story of the unforgettable meal and how it was paid for--or wasn't.

Thereyet, I almost hate to admit this, but our most favorite meals have always been the least noteworthy. We're foodies too! Funny, but it's does seem to be the company and the scenery that make a meal special.

OK, I found the thread with the Pre Catalan story. It's here:

http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=34529593

There were some nasty reactions. Who can figure what people will say hidden behind anonymous internet monikers? Please ignore the negative stuff.

dgg, I agree. As I posted earlier one of my favorite food memories was making pizza in the rain while canoeing in the Canadien wilderness using homemade dehydrated sauce! I certainly understand that many of us have extravegant meal memories as well. Love the stories either way, thereyet

thereyet, my FIRST unforgettable meal was in paris, eatoing on park bench where I shared my food with the pidgeons :)

Cigalchante, you just never know when or where those memories will come from. Like Tom Thumb donuts at the Minnesota State Fair!
FauxStMarie, can't help but notice the nastiness as I have felt the sting myself and I have only posted for the past month or so. Just like the real world though, most are extremely helpful and the forum is alot of fun to participate on. Thanks everyone, thereyet

A few come to mind...

At a Bed and Breakfast in Missouri on our honeymoon. The BEST homemade biscuits and homemade strawberry jam! I can still taste it 18 years later!

In Statford Upon Avon in a small hotel. Room service "afternoon tea." The scones and clotted cream were heavenly and my 10 month old baby took a long nap so I could enjoy my tea and watch a WHOLE movie. It was Sleepless In Seatle, and interesting pick to watch in England. A perfect afternoon!

The Filet Mignon in a little place in Ponca City, Oklahoma!

Tortellini with ham in cream, followed by sausage and roasted potatoes....two weeks ago in Rome. YUM!

The crab claws, oh those crab claws, and the whole meal at the Al Awan buffet restaurant in the Burj Al Arab in Dubai. Memorable.

Fun subject!
Katy

thereyet, my view on the nasties, is that some people need new hobbies and are affected with Obsessive Compulsive Nasty Posting Disorder (OCNPD) Terminal Stage. Don't look in the DSM manual. That diagnosis is not there yet, but some day it will be!

You do have to look past the know-it-alls sometimes to get the information you need. Whew!

The most unique form of pre-made sandwiches in london, the pasties in london, and the wonderful little delis in NYC that have such a wide assortment of foods to choose from in their hot and cold salad bars.