|
Quisty posted:I'm so glad I came into this thread. After hearing that a lot of people think uni tasted disgusting and that they can't get the taste out of their mouths, I had it for the first time last night. It was fine, kind of ocean tasting but I didn't care for the texture so much. Very creamy. So was what I had common?
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 15:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 19:11 |
|
|
ShadowCatboy posted:Foie gras isn't as cruel as people think it is. Don't forget, geese are loving aggressive assholes.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 15:55
|
|
|
No Wave posted:It's very variable in quality. Look for live uni that they harvest on-site. The tray stuff can be great too, the live is just more reliably fresh (duh). Sometimes the stuff in the cedar tray tastes more like the tray than like uni. But when it's good, you just want to savor it. I know people describe it like the ocean, but it's one of the few things I've eaten for which I don't think there is another flavor analogue. It tastes like uni.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 16:26
|
|
|
Quisty posted:I'm so glad I came into this thread. After hearing that a lot of people think uni tasted disgusting and that they can't get the taste out of their mouths, I had it for the first time last night. It was fine, kind of ocean tasting but I didn't care for the texture so much. Very creamy. So was what I had common? Uni is very seasonal. The first couple times I had it was out of season and I thought it was gross, then I had it in season at a good sushi place and it was great. Kind of heavy though, I only had one piece and that was plenty. I'm not sure how to describe that feeling. Like, I love a good dark beer but I only want one or two, after that it's kind of gross despite being something I love. The best meal I've ever had was Cantonese barbecue suckling pig in Hong Kong, sitting on a plastic stool at the world's smallest table in what appeared to be a slaughterhouse but was also a restaurant.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 18:05
|
|
|
Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:Sometimes the stuff in the cedar tray tastes more like the tray than like uni. But when it's good, you just want to savor it. I know people describe it like the ocean, but it's one of the few things I've eaten for which I don't think there is another flavor analogue. It tastes like uni. It didn't really taste like anything. I'm kinda bummed. Last week we went to Mamoun's in New Haven, great Middle Eastern food. I remember going there in college and seeing a goat tied up in the back. At least we knew it was fresh! Quisty fucked around with this message at 19:45 on May 12, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 12, 2014 19:43
|
|
|
Many of you have heard the story of handcuffed to a table delivery pizza and beer. I think that some of the best foods tasted are strongly, STRONGLY tied to experiences and the situation surrounding the meal. I taste things for a living. I'm a rather skilled taste panel participant, organoleptic analysis guy, and all around professional food dude. I am pretty darn good with tasting something and dissecting it and then rebuilding it so I can make it on a commercial basis for my company. That being said, the best things I've tasted are not the most expensive things I've ever had, the most complex things I've ever had, or even the best made things I've ever had the chance to taste. Chiavetta's BBQ chicken after the Springville NY regatta. I floated down the creek with thousands of other people. I saw lots of drunk broads whip off their tops. I got to make out with my girlfriend. She was in a bikini. We got spectacular sunburns. Several hours later, we pulled up to the shore of the creek after we passed the finish banner. Clouds of fragrant smoke rolled out over the creek to greet us. I got the half chicken dinner (so did the girlfriend) and we sat under the trees on the bank and ate. Chiavetta's chicken dinner consists of a half of a chicken, a hemispherical scoop of potato salad, a small pile of iceberg lettuce salad with Italian dressing, some baked beans, and a dinner roll with butter. All is served on an oval fiberboard platter with a plastic sleeve containing plastic fork, knife, spoon, paper salt and pepper packet, and lovely little napkin. The chicken is marinaded in a cider vinegar, "poultry seasoning", mustard, salt, and pepper, and some various thickening agents. It's pretty much a mop used as a marinade. Soak the half birds in the stuff overnight. Build a hardwood fire inside a set of cinder blocks set 3 high. Place the chicken halves on a large grate over the fire after it has burned down to coals. Slap a second half of grate on top of the first. These grates are roughly 3 by 3 foot sections of expanded metal with welded on handles. Mop on chicken marinade, then flip with your partners. In 15 minutes or so, repeat the process. Continue for a looonnnggg time, until the chicken is golden brown and lightly charred. Lower temp cooking, exposure to a decent amount of wood smoke, and the vinegar marinade yield a finished product that is crisp on the outside, falls off the bone, and is completely pedestrian, completely sublime. NosmoKing fucked around with this message at 04:36 on May 13, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 13, 2014 04:04
|
|
|
Quisty posted:....And kebabs in Auckland, NZ. Auckland has some surprisingly awesome kebabs. Little Turkish Cafe on K Road. Unf.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2014 16:21
|
|
|
A couple of years ago when I was in Stockholm I picked a random restaurant from the Michelin guide and ordered a rib-eye steak. It might just have been the best meal I've had in my life. The taste and texture was as close to perfection as I've ever tasted and the sides complimented it so incredibly well. It was pretty expensive even by swedish standards but by god was it good.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2014 13:31
|
|
|
The most memorable dinner I've ever had was actually not the initial meal, but the late nite snack afterwards. My youngest brother graduated from college years ago, and to celebrate my dad took most the family out to a very nice steak house for dinner. To give you an idea of when this was, my bro had those specicalty sunglasses with the year done up for the eyes. We had some delightful appetizers, like truffle fries and excellent calimari. When we ordered the main course I decided on a Delmonico steak medium rare, despite the efforts of the server to alter my suggestion to medium. It was a really great steak, very nice fresh from the grill- but with all the appetizers, bread, and salad I just could not give it the room it deserved in my stomach. So most of it wound up in a doggy bag for me to take home that evening. Late that night, I woke up with a hunger for a snack. So I stole down to the fridge and cut loose the bone from the majority of the remaining steak. I then spent what seems like a delightful eternity chewing on the rib bone of that steak, slowly removing every shred of meat, fat, and tendon like a happy dog there in my kitchen in the middle of the night by myself. I made steak hash for myself and my roommates the next morning with the remainder of the steak but that late night bone chewing snack fest is probably the most memorable meal I've had in my life so far.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2014 02:31
|
|
|
noodles at a place in Hong Kong that I ate at three times in two days, can't remember the name but they had like seven different options for spicy and sour, and you could add in a bunch of assorted stuff and never pay more than like $10 USD EDIT: found a guy's blog talking about the same place lookit this stuff: 
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2014 14:13
|
|
|
This happened to me the other day, I was in Japan and we had reservations to a Kaiseki restaurant called Wa Yamamura. The food was really incredible in general but at some point in the middle of the meal the chef served us a dish that was tender baby eggplant with uni on top, and a simple sauce/broth. It was so simple but it had the most incredible flavor I've ever tasted in my life. The uni was perfectly sweet/salty/creamy and the eggplant was super tender. I think I started crying. It sounds ridiculous NOW but it made sense in that second where I felt like everything in my life had been leading up to that moment in a way.  
hallo spacedog fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Jun 8, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 16, 2014 14:21
|
|
|
Riptor posted:noodles at a place in Hong Kong that I ate at three times in two days, can't remember the name but they had like seven different options for spicy and sour, and you could add in a bunch of assorted stuff and never pay more than like $10 USD Looking at that blog, that's right next to where I've had some of my favourite food ever - potstickers from the place on the corner opposite the park! My absolute favourite has to be beef ho fun from a restaurant in a mall in Sha Tin, I didn't get the name. Hong Kong is such an incredible place for food.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2014 17:29
|
|
|
A toss up for me, between an old and a new. The old one was a little mom-and-pop place in my home town, a Mongolian stir-fry called Pounders. Fairly standard raw buffet, which you put together with sauces and they cooked it up for you. If your bowl weighed exactly 1 lb then you ate free. They had an array of like 25 sauces and for a young me that was just learning to love asian cuisine it was heaven. Went over 50 times, trying out new variations every time. Then the mom of the mom-and-pop passed away, and the whole place closed down. I would give anything for a Pounders stir fry right now, but will never get to again  The new is a dish a dish I tried the other week at a cuban place in islington. Pina rellena de gangrejo y aguagate. Basically, it's a pineapple half that's been semi-hollowed out and filled with crab meat, prawns, and avacado, with cheese melted over the top and served with plantains and cassava. The mix of savory and sweet was absolutely fantastic. I had the swordfish and this dish was my girlfriends, and while mine was really nice I couldn't stop myself from reaching over the table with my fork and stealing bite after bite of hers. Amazing, amazing flavor.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2014 17:55
|
|
|
Shbobdb posted:Dude, moving to California has made me appreciate Stawberries so much more. California strawberries are good, but wild strawberries are the best. Teeny, tiny, and packed with flavor. Knowing that you have deprived bears of a treat only adds to the delight.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 18:11
|
|
|
I've eaten a lot of really good meals, but there's one ridiculous dish that was so simple and so good. It was 1999 and I was at a beauty product launch at a hotel on Circular Quay in Sydney. It was being catered by Wokpool. I was broke so I never ate anywhere expensive. One of the little passed appetizers was the tiniest lasagna. Rectangles no more than 3/4" tall, 1/2" wide, 1" long. The most delicate pasta, layered with extremely thinly sliced smoked salmon, with a drizzle of very good olive oil and a little salt and pepper on top. To this day I still crave the drat things.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2014 22:34
|
|
|
Bob_McBob posted:Otoro selected by the chef for omakase. Otoro is by far the best piece of food I've ever tasted. I've been eating mediocre sushi most of my life. I was moving from Washington state and I had sold like $800 dollars in gold I had laying around for years to a pawn shop, I was moving to the midwest so last chance to have some sushi near a coast. Prior to eating the single $20 dollar piece of nigiri sushi, I thought to myself it can't be THAT much better than regular tuna. I have never been so wrong in my life. I'm going to Vegas soon and I plan on splurging on some Otoro again. A close second, I don't remember the name of the place but my friend took me to this Asian restaurant in San Francisco. They sold these fried meat pie things... I'm pretty sure it was just seasoned meat fried in some kind of dough, a little on the simple side but it was the most memorable thing I ate on that trip.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2014 19:32
|
|
|
Last year for Easter my mother made gumbo. It was easily the best thing I've ever tasted---it was thick and rich and the shrimp were perfect (I normally hate shrimp but these were buttery and tender and just melted) and it had the ideal balance of spice and salt....I could just eat that forever. Save me jeebus posted:California strawberries are good, but wild strawberries are the best. Teeny, tiny, and packed with flavor. Knowing that you have deprived bears of a treat only adds to the delight. Around here the bunnies like them. Usually every spring we get one decent-sized one, and pick it and cut it up to share. So goooooddd...
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2014 04:52
|
|
|
I eat a lot of sushi but most of it is from food courts and train stations so while it's decent it's never amazing. Recently I went to an actual sushi restaurant and the sushi was just so much fresher and of a better calibre than the stuff I eat normally that it was an amazing meal and made me feel excited about what had become kind of a mundane food for me. A couple of years ago I was in Berlin and all the food was great but one day after I'd been out all day sightseeing I was walking through a train station and saw a vendor who was selling slabs of roasted ham served on a small dinner roll with a dollop of mustard. It was a really simple snack and only cost a few euros but it was so tasty and satisfying; pretty much the best thing you could want when you're hungry and waiting for a train and don't have time to sit down for a meal. Another really simple thing done well was a felafel sandwich made Egyptian style with broadbean felafels that a local cafe sells. It's a tiny little cafe with barely room for two tables but they cook the falafels fresh and they are really moist and have a lot of flavour and it just makes for a really satisfying sandwich.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2014 07:13
|
|
|
There's a chain of bars in Japan that sells decent food, I forget the name. It was the first place I ever had braised pork belly. I've never been the same since.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2014 14:06
|
|
|
I was a kid when I had the best piece of food I've ever tasted so I couldn't exactly get you the name of the place I had it at but I can get you pretty drat close. The dish was a ravioli of cheese/meat in a very thin tomato sauce with some obvious spices and the like lain over the top of it all. They were huge. We've got some pictures from that day and the serving was 4 pieces of ravioli and each one was at least half the size of my 12 year old head. Location: A town on the west coast of Sardinia, Italy. We lived on the NE coast on another small island at the time but were traveling the larger island on a vacation of sorts. It was a mom and pop place we stopped at on the drive home. I've been trying to get back out there ever since we moved away. There's no italian joint in the US that I've found (in the places I've lived) that properly replicates legit Italian food from my experience.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2014 15:08
|
|
|
A food truck in Glasgow that sold Italian food. I got a portion of the Penne Arrabiata, and it was sen-loving-sational. A perfect balance of the ingredients, with the freshest pasta I've ever had. To this day, I've never seen that food truck again.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2014 17:37
|
|
|
Pain perdu in a hotel near the Louvre in Paris. I was working at a convention for a week and had that for breakfast every day. So good, fluffy with crispy edges, dusted with powdered sugar. The convention was very tough for various reasons and everyone on that crew has plenty of war stories, but what many of us remember most clearly is the French toast.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2014 18:00
|
|
|
Creamy Spicy Rock Shrimp at Nobu. I actually prefer the Miso Black Cod at Kenichi to the one at Nobu, but they are both fantastic. Roasted Rabbit at Craft is best meat dish ever, even for this beef lover.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2014 18:29
|
|
|
Ochazuke and umeboshi onigiri from Yoko's, in Denver. It's so simple, but the combination of the rustic flavor and tiny Japanese grandmas serving it makes it feel like being wrapped in a quilt. It's definitely no foie gras, but it is definitely the best food experience I've ever had.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 01:07
|
|
|
My grandfather's smoked pork shoulder, smoked in a smokehouse he built on is farm right before he got married in 1930-whatever. That smokehouse still stands, and is still used by family, but I'll be damned if anyone can do it the way he did. Second place: My grandmother's pork cracklins, served warm and seasoned with salt, chili, and lime. I've dined in some damned fine places, and think a good dry aged rib eye is about as good as it gets, but the hillbilly in me knows whats what.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 03:54
|
|
|
I thought of another 'best food ever' experience. When I was in Amsterdam a few years ago, my wife and I went to a Spanish restaurant and got a platter of awesome seafood; grilled prawns, octopus, sardines, mussels. Probably a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting. It was served with bread and was just fantastic in its simplicity. The meal combined with the super-enthusiastic host of the restaurant and the excitement of traveling and being in a new city is a really great food memory.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 05:11
|
|
|
When I was little....we stopped at some pizza place in Southern California with some family friends. I must have been about 9 years old, but I can still taste that pizza today. It was a small pineapple and ham pizza, and no sauce on it. It had instead some sort of pineapple juice on it in place of the sauce, and it had crushed macadamia nuts, bay shrimps, almonds, and coconut. The crust was perfectly thin without being overly crunchy or floppy. God its been over 30 years since I had that and I can still taste that amazing pizza if I close my eyes. I keep trying to replicate it, and have never come close.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 05:34
|
|
|
I had a stew of thick rear end bacon, potatoes, cheese, blood sausage and other stuff at La Olla de Felix in Buenos Aires. It was served with bone marrow and rolls and some red wine. Probably that.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 18:59
|
|
|
When I was in high school my parents catered a party with this fat italian gently caress who drove a lovely van and whose son (the bartender) got shitfaced and hit on my mom at the event. The guy was a trainwreck and i'm pretty sure he slept in that van in parking lots. But drat if he did not make the best pasta i've ever eaten, perfectly seasoned, authentic alfredo and the meatiest, most balanced bolognese I have ever had. I guess genius like that messes some people up. But if we're talking about just one thing then a ripe japanese peach is something I would eat every day of my life. for sale fucked around with this message at 12:17 on May 30, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 12:04
|
|
|
When I was younger my dad had a job opportunity in the south of Spain. It would require the whole family to relocate so we visited first and they showed us around so we could get a feel for the country and see if it was the right choice for us. For breakfast the morning we arrived they took us to this really fancy restaurant that was seated in some old castle atop a huge hill. The food was excellent but it was kind of stuffy for just having got off a long flight. So for dinner they took us to a more relaxed place. We got out of the car right at sunset and were led through into a small alcove along a beautiful beach. It completely empty for miles except a smallish shack that was the restaurant. We sit down and the waiter talks to our guide for a minute. Our guide told him we'd never been to Spain before so he wanted us to try their paella. The waiter nods, grabs some fishing gear lying next to the table, and jumps into the loving water. We asked the guide what was going on and and he was like, "What do you mean? he's getting our food." After about 40 minutes the waiter comes out of the water with a net full of fish and walks by us towards the kitchen. He explained to the guide that it took so long because since it was sunset certain fish were harder to see, because they weren't feeding yet but it would be worth the wait. 30 minutes after that 3 people came by carrying this gigantic pan with rice, fish, sausage, completely smothered in saffron, which I had never tasted before. It was easily the best food I'd ever tasted. Throughout the rest of our trip I wanted to get paella at every place we went but it's kind of a big deal so I guess it's only for special occasions. On the off chance we did get it, it was never as good. I miss Spain.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 08:54
|
|
|
I need an idea for a special. What's the best traditional Mexican dish or street food you've eaten?
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 09:07
|
|
|
Tacos de lengua. Yes. It's AMAZING.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 17:01
|
|
|
Disco Salmon posted:Tacos de lengua. Agreeing on tacos de lengua, and I'll add on tacos al pastor, if you can make it well. Imagine pork turning on a vertical spit, kind of like gyro meat but rubbed in different spices, and with an onion and a big section of pineapple on top, dripping down and seasoning the meat. It's savory with some sweetness, and served in simple tacos with more of the onions and pineapple, plus a sprinkling of minced white onion and chopped cilantro. Neither taco should come with bright orange mounds of shredded cheese, sour cream, iceberg lettuce, or anything like that.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2014 22:04
|
|
|
Disco Salmon posted:Tacos de lengua.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 00:50
|
|
|
Big Bad Voodoo Lou posted:and I'll add on tacos al pastor, if you can make it well Second. Al pastor is my favorite and if done right is fantastic in a taco, or a Torta with lots of avocado mmmm.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 00:56
|
|
|
A good mole is hard to beat. Also that Oaxacan dish that is goat cooked in banana leaves with all kinds of deliciousness. If you want to attract a more adventurous crowd, crickets s e great too.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 01:32
|
|
|
Isaac Asimov posted:I need an idea for a special. What's the best traditional Mexican dish or street food you've eaten? Might have a lot to do with eating it where it was caught but red snapper Veracruzana is really the only thing anyone should make with snappers.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 16:37
|
|
|
If you can find a kid goat you can make consome de chivo, which is arguably the crowning glory of the Mexican cuisine.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 21:58
|
|
|
Not sure about best food but the best meat I ever tried was Icelandic horse-meat. Reykjavik also had the best hot dogs I ever had, on this tiny hut on the waterfront. Bizarre.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 22:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 19:11 |
|
|
Crown of Smoke posted:Reykjavik also had the best hot dogs I ever had, on this tiny hut on the waterfront. Bizarre. I went there a few months ago, incredibly tasty for a couple of bucks.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 12:18
|
|