The Best Meal You Ever Had?......[smile]

My very first prawn cocktail in the 60's. It seemed so sophisticated and I just loved the taste. I have adored them ever since.

Might sound odd, but one of the very best was a saffron risotto - just that, nothing added - at an Italian restaurant. It was sublime!

Another was just at a pub somewhere in Wales - smoked haddock with a topping of Welsh Rarebit. I often think I must copy that, but have never got around to it.

Funnily enough, none of the many meals I’ve had at much fancier/more expensive places have been anything like as memorable.

My first proper curry, as a student in 1972. Mushroom and veg, with chappatis, and we took the spare ones home to mould into ashtrays. I’ve been a curry addict ever since, and that scruffy basement restaurant is still my favourite. I’ve given up the fags though.

@Framilode, a friend who used to run a pub and do nearly all the cooking, had a regular customer who often asked for a double prawn cocktail as a main course. Of course he always obliged, and eventually put ‘Giant Prawn Cocktail’ on the regular ‘mains’ menu.
It proved to be a bestseller!

Eventually our friend

And now I really want their saag paneer for lunch....

Dinner at Roussillon in Pimlico after DH's investiture.
We had the truffle tasting menu, each course was a revelation.
A truly memorable meal.
We have eaten in three star Michelin restaurants around France but this was in a different league altogether.

On Pampelonne Beach in the South of France many years ago, I had fish en papillote, I can't even remember what fish it was, just delicious cooked with all manner of herbs, washed down with chilled white wine and perfect accompanying vegetables. The memory of that meal has stayed with me, possibly it wasn't just the food but the heady mix of being young and blown away by eating al fresco under blue skies and on a lovely beach..

The time my mother made bread and we had home made bread, home raspberry jam with home made butter. I must have been seven or eight!

As a child I remember bacon with potatoes and runner beans from my granny's garden. Lamb shanks at a Cotswold pub, with my DH, balmy evening, by a river.

It was lunch at a cafe in Woodford East London about 15 years ago.

I had a smoked haddock omelette with salad. It was delicious.

Many years ago in France at a pavement cafe we ate sea bass for the first time. It was simply grilled in butter and was so fresh and full of flavour. The sun was shining and it was perfect.

I think the best meal I ever had was the with the man I fell in love with and went on to marry. I don’t know what we ate.

Crab Mornay, sat at a beachside cafe at Steephill Cove on the IOW on a warm and sunny summer's day. The crabs were caught fresh each day by a man who lives within yards of the cafe and immediately prepared and sold with hours.

The most memorable was in Hong Kong many years ago. At the Mandarin Oriental hotel. Can't remember all the dishes but it was about ten small courses, all amazing. The restaurant had dozens of little red lanterns on the ceiling and it was so romantic. The waiters were charming and made us laugh. It felt special.

We sat outside a very basic fish restaurant at Amble, Northumberland on a sunny day last year. Had Sea Bream, New Potatoes and salad. It was delicious, and fish was so fresh.

I tried to serve identical meal at home a few weeks later, but it wasnt as good.

Is that the one one the harbourside, a little wooden shack *Kupari? I had the most fantastic seafood platter there. So good I did the unforgivable and photographed it!

A couple I can remember as outstanding.

The first was a fete on a beach on the French/Spanish border with the locals barbecuing sardines they had just brought in.

Sat on the beach eating sardines with our fingers and drinking red wine, a glorious balmy evening.

The second is again with fish.

On a Maldives beach, All sorts of shellfish including Lobster, crab. Languistines (sp?) and huge prawns dripping in garlic butter and copious amounts of white wine. A very hilarious drunken evening.

Was that place on the French/Spanish border a town called Hendaye Whitewave?, I remember great seafood there, sardines as you say and enormous skillets of paella.

Apologies of butting into your food memories

Hi Chewbacca
Yes , the very same place I would think.

Some years ago a road trip through France, stopped of in Joinville and booked in at Le Soleil D’Or. From the road a simple looking hotel. The menu outside also looked good, but basic.
What a surprise, the simple menu had additions which resulted in 7 courses. It was fantastic and the rooms were beautiful. One day we must go back, but I don’t expect it will be quite the same.

We went to Australia in 2007. The Sunday Times recommended a Sydney restaurant just before we went , saying the food was world beating!

We booked a table with friends we made on the trip, we had decided it was a trip of a lifetime and we wouldn’t worry about what we spent. It was expensive but the 7 course tasting menu with a half glass of wine with every course was sublime, the best food I’ve ever tasted plus a perfectly made Vodka Martini at the bar before we ate. I think the others were a bit stunned at the price but they had the choice not to come. It was fabulous and I’ll not be able to afford Australia again

terribull yes?

Every year in May we celebrate the anniversary of my hysterectomy to treat cancer.
They are the best meals ... each year that’s cancer free is a great milestone.
This year was our sixth celebration and we had to celebrate at home, of course. We had boeuf bourguignon and champagne and enjoyed it very much.

Many years ago we went to an Amish restaurant in Shipshewana Indiana. We had a steak sandwich with gravy and peas. Sounds a bit iffy but it was amazing. It was followed by a blueberry grunt. Never forgotten.