I was inspired by the Food Network show as titled above.
What's the best thing you ever ate?
The best thing I ever ate was a Kobe Beef Filet. It wasn't real Kobe Beef as you can't get that outside of Japan but damn, it was good. It was so tender you could cut it with a spoon. I've never had steak like that.
They even serve a Kobe Beef Amuse Bouche tartar. Fantastic. I've never eaten raw beef before but it was very tasty.
It was $60 just for the steak but it was well worth it.
Wow, there are so many good foods, it's hard to choose what is the single best thing I ever ate.
Good meat is a sheer pleasure to eat. On that score, I'd have to say the best thing ever was a grass-fed beef ribeye steak that DH and I made about a year and a half ago. It was so full of flavor, and so tender -- it was like eating silk or melting chocolate.
Nothing is really popping to mind... I'm not really a foodie. After some thought (besides chocolate LOL), I think my vote goes to edamame (soybeans in the pod) with sea salt. I had it in Kelowna with my friend Darcy at a Sushi place, and couldn't believe I'd gone my whole life without having heard of it before.
I know it must be some kind of chocolate or beef. At the moment, I'm thinking the Beef Wellington I had on a cruise to Mexico a few years ago. I have a few runners-up but that popped right into my head. I had always wanted to try it and finally did, and it was terrific.
I'm so into good food it's hard to single out any one thing in particular. I can remember some amazing meals: A seafood platter at the Drum & Monkey in Harrogate, UK; steak tartar and mussels in Paris; the lobster and steamers dinners DH would make every Tuesday when we lived in Maine; a sandwich made with Wensleydale cheese (my fave) I ate while sitting at the summit of the Pennine Way in Yorkshire; oh, and the dim sum breakfast at Dol Ho in Chinatown in San Francisco. I guess I have no one best thing!
Elsbee, I had the same experience with beef wellington. I had wanted to try it for the longest time, but it was until we went on a caribean cruise that I had it. I would rank it as my fav if I wasn't such a chocolate addict.
Overall my favorite would probably be the flourless chocolate cake with melted chocolate center I had on an Alaskan cruise, served all warm out of the oven with a little powdered sugar on top.
The best meal I ever had was at college and served by the usual dining services which most people loathed but I thought was very good. They decided to try an experiment where they had "elegant dining" once a month.
The menu for the first one was your choice of a steak which looked good, even to my non-meat eating eyes, lobster tail(!), chicken kiev, or a simply luscious bit of swordfish which is what I chose. They also served lobster bisque, or two other kinds of soup that I don't remember anymore. A scrumptious salad was served, and the dessert cart was absolutely divine. The dessert I chose was entitled "Triple Death By Chocolate" which was chocolate cake, with chocolate icing, and chocolate fudge within the cake. When the waitress was naming the items I told her "Ok, you can just stop right there because with a name like that it's got to be good."
They served water in goblets, and freshly ground coffee. I don't usually rave about food, but this was one good spread! This was a sit down meal where you were waited on hand and foot and believe me, it was something to experience. Linen tablecloths, cloth napkins, the most! The cost of this? Your normal dinner meal plan plus three dollars. In human terms, this is eight dollars. Yes. Eight dollars. As in a ten spot will get you two singles.
The sad thing was the program was canceled due to lack of interest. On a campus of 6,000 students, they never had more than 30 show up for this.
Back when I was a broke college student, 2 friends and I wandered in to Iridium, an upscale restaurant in Manhattan. The waitress was so kind, even when we all ordered tap water! The 3 of us then ordered ONE creme brulee to share. It cost $9. I remember the waitress bringing us the creme brulee in a big oval dish with 3 spoons. We savored every bite of that creme brulee! It was probably the best one I have ever had!
I LOVE creme brulee. It has to be my favourite dessert - other than cheese cake. I don't have a sweet tooth at all.
I'm totally enjoying this thread! Great stories. Also, I'm fascinated at how most people's choice seems to be meat. There has got to be an evolutionary explanation to all of this. HA!
Jo, considering most people are carnivores, it really shouldn't come as a surprise, should it?
You know, it may be meat because it's relatively expensive and many of us don't have access to restaurant or "hotel" cuts, so we THINK it tastes fantastic because we know it "should."
(06-13-2010 02:29 PM)eslbee Wrote: [ -> ]You know, it may be meat because it's relatively expensive and many of us don't have access to restaurant or "hotel" cuts, so we THINK it tastes fantastic because we know it "should."
I'd agree with that because I KNOW the average person does not have access to restaurant quality meat.
I don't know... even if more people are carnivores, there are a million more items that are NOT meat than ones that are. LOL
I did not know there were differences between restaurant grade and supermarket grade. I have been told there is a difference between organic and not, but I don't know.
I did a taste test once with organic carrots vs. regular carrots -- made carrot juice -- and the difference was night and day.
I think maybe it's because most people don't know how to make meat right, so when you eat a good cut of meat, prepared properly, you're amazed.
I mean, really -- show of hands! How many of you here can fry a fish, but not necessarily poach a fish? I think we can all fry chicken, too, and maybe even cut up some breasts into a stir-fry -- but have you ever made chicken that was juicy not just after the meal, but several days afterward as leftovers?
And I'll bet not many of us have even attempted more exotic meats like alligator, duck, quail, venison, moose, etc. Much less know how to make it right!
As for restaurant cuts of meat -- I've never noticed any superiority in the cut, and I know I and my DH can make better flavored steaks than anyone I know (I will admit, though, that I've never paid more than $30 for a steak, so if the better cut is not available at that price, then I've never had it!). But I now know one secret of restaurant steaks that few people know -- to get that silky texture, you finish it in the oven with a quarter-inch thick slab of butter all over the entire surface of the steak. If you've ever looked up a restaurant's calorie guide, and wondered why their ribeye has so many more calories than the ribeye you buy at the grocery store, that's why!
(06-13-2010 04:36 PM)Jo Wrote: [ -> ]I did not know there were differences between restaurant grade and supermarket grade.
Totally!
The average consumer does not have access to the prime beef available to restaurants.
http://www.cbef.com/beefquality.htm
Canadian Prime is not available to you and me. If it were, no one eat out!
Like Jo I am having a hard time answering. My best meals were mostly because I was extremely hungry so whatever I ate at the time seemed good. But I'm not a foodie, either.
I remember having done a very long hike out in CO and afterward we went to a Nepalese restaurant. It tasted great because I was so hungry I could have eaten the tablecloth. I have no idea what we had. Not meat since I wasn't eating meat by then, though.
CNK -- that's a good point about a meal being good because of the level of your hunger.
I remember once, my cousins and I hiked a waterfall trail in El Yunque, and when we were driving out, we stopped at a little convenience store that advertised pressed breakfast sandwiches. My cousins and I all got bacon, egg and cheese pressed sandwiches, and they were the best sandwiches I ever had! We almost turned around and bought more, once we were done! HA HA!
I like those Shiner Bock ribs from Chili's ... but one of these days I want to go to a fancy restaurant and try beef wellington.
The Very Best Thing I ever ate was while we were in Las Vegas at a Place called "Texas de Brazil"
Now I have always loved lamb meat. When I was a kid mother would buy lamb breast, and have the butcher chop it up in ribs
and she would bake them and later broil them.
It was the cheapest part of the lamb back then. And still is today if you can find it. But very very greasy.
When I got married I said to myself no more cheap cuts of lamb I will splurge and buy the shoulder steaks of lamb which are bigger pieces and less greasy then the rib meat or lamb breast meat.
I always saw the real lamp chops in the store, These dinky little pieces of lamb with a big huge bone in it that cost a small fortune
AT my local super market they want $13.00 a pound for them
And I would say no way, would I ever buy them. Its not worth it.
Your paying for the weight of the bone.
But when my eyes feasted on the all you can eat very same lamb chops at Texas de Brazil. I said OK I will see for myself what makes these things so expensive. And of course,
I got my answer. They were the tenderest most flavorful part of the lamb I had ever eaten in my life. And I was in Lamb heaven
It was by far the VERY best Thing I have ever eaten in my life.
Of course I still won't buy them for myself at home I am afraid I will cook them wrong. So I will wait till the next time we are in Vegas.. Now that hubby is working we will be back.
PS: For all the vegan's or animal rights folks out there please spare me any lectures about lambs. I know all about it.
But the meat is out there packaged and sold
And at "Texas de Brazil" it was served with an abundance of beef & chicken too.
Somebody has to eat it, It might as well be from one who truly appreciates the sacrifice like I do.