Breakfast in New Orleans is the first that comes to mind. There’ve been many great meals, but I remember distinctly June of 1994, sitting in a small restaurant down there (We did The Court of Two Sisters, and I wasn’t as impressed) and enjoying every breakfast like it was the last.

I never liked French Toast.

This place did it right. Real baguettes. Not soggy. Perfect. Real maple syrup on the side, and strong, hot Louisiana coffee with real cream. As with every other place, they had al fresco out front, but we preferred to sit inside by the windows and watch everything. People know how to eat down there. I don’t mean just *what* they eat, I mean they know that every meal is a gift.

It was never crowded while we were there, and the same waiter managed to serve us every morning. On our last day he said, “Where are you girls from?” I told him NJ. He said, “Really? You don’t sound like you’re from NJ.”

I took that as a huge compliment.

The sun would shine, and the balcony above the place would rain hose water past the windows as it was sprayed down while we ate. All of the balconies are sprayed, every morning, and a sharp memory of New Orleans is walking down streets and watching the water drip from each one.

I don’t remember dinners there, really at all. Breakfast was amazing. For a laid back place like that folks were up early. Boys with bottle caps fixed to the soles of their shoes tap dancing in the street.

I’m going back.

You just made me crazy hungry, @Julie.

Was it the Louisiana chicory coffee?

Some people don’t like that stuff. Me? Mmmm.

– c.

Yep. I love it.

Cafe du Monde sells theirs in most grocery stores now.

We stopped in there for a beignet and coffee one afternoon, but not breakfast. We avoided Brennan’s too. I wish to hell I could remember the name of that hole in the wall.

No shockprod necessary here. The entire bookstore experience was amazing! 16 hours later, it feels surreal. The perfect blend of the contextual ingredients was similar to stars in alignment. Great friends, great news to celebrate, great food and great drinks! After weeks of “Wendig Withdrawal,” we were really looking forward to the evening…..even if the possibility of starting it off at a dive bar down the street was required! The whole idea of a speakeasy is so intriguing to me, and the Bookstore totally sucked me into another world. The cocktails were so damn good…no, wait…they weren’t just damn good. They were different and exquisite. They were unique blends of fascinating ingredients; spirits, liqueurs, bitters, eggs (yup, eggs), fruits, flowers, all kinds of crazy things. All in, I think we had a total of 8 or 9 different mixes at the table, and every one of them was amazing. And then you add in the great food – food that immediately catapults the restaurant into my top 5 restaurants of all time – and you’ve got one incredible Friday evening!

You know, I’ve asked the same thing to others – I love hearing about the context of a good meal. You’re right – the context does matter, incredibly.

The best meal I’ve ever had, hands down, was the first night my husband and I were in Florence, Italy. It was our first night there. We were fresh off the train from flying into Rome, and were dazed and spellbound by Florence because we’d never seen anything so truly “old school” in our lives. Florence is a town that embraces and lives in the its history, and when you walk down the street, you can easily believe you’re in the 15th century.

So we found our penzione, checked in, passed out for a few hours, and woke up ravenous. Ironically, the concierge was this gorgeous Taye-Diggs-lookalike from Brooklyn. His name was Robert. He’d been living in Florence for a few years now (moved here for his wife), and when we asked him where we could get a good meal, he unflinchingly said, “The Natalino.” He drew us a map on a napkin, and we were off.

We found the tiny restaurant on a small cobbled street, and, still dazed, we let them lead us to a tiny outside table. We said “please bring us food of some sort, grazi”, and they did. And it was the most amazing food we had ever eaten. I’m sure part of it was hunger and the charm of Florence, but man, oh man, that doesn’t diminish the memory one whit.

The meal consisted of handmade fresh tagliatelle pasta with a ragout of WILD BOAR (oh. my. gods. oh my gods.), and a barely-seared flank steak on a bed of bitter greens, alongside simple white beans cooked perfectly, tossed in coarse salt and olive oil.

The wild boar tagliatelle. Sweet Baby Jesus. If I saw Odin Himself bring this dish out of the kitchen while riding mighty Sleipnir, I would not have been surprised. The deliciousness cannot be described further. The steak? That cow MUST have been frolicking in a field that morning – I’ve never tasted fresh beef like this before. The white beans were so perfectly cooked and so simple and earthy and the salt was so coarse and good that I don’t know how I didn’t include them in my regular menu-writing before.

Alongside of all this, we drank red wine from an carafe, and it was delicious and dry and coated the mouth in the best possible way. We never found out what it was. Just some house wine, I’m sure. And it was great.

We were too full for dessert, so we sat back and sipped cappuccino and watched couples wander down the cobbled streets and window-shop, and thought, “if the comet hit now, that’d be okay.”

Thanks for letting me relive this in writing. Five years and I still taste the salt.

@Amy:

Bonus pointsfor Sleipnir. Like, let’s go with, +778 bonus points.

Wild boar is fantastic.

– c.

@Becky:

Oooh. “Exquisite.” Well-said, most excellent food companion!

I’m sold on them putting eggs in drinks. Sold! Protein! Froth! Chicken souls!

…or, y’know, something like that.

– c.

Last winter a friend drove me and the kid up the mountain. We went from sixty-five degrees to forty, and there was snow. We tramped about, the kid went sledding, the cold and the tramping gave us a great appetite, and we went to this log cabin–it’s actually made of logs–for the best pizza I’ve ever had. I think they cook everything with wood–the cheese has this great smokey flavor that I can’t get enough of. We sat on the balcony and had hot cocoa and pizza and talked and laughed and looked at snow and people and animals playing in it. Marvelous.

No cocktails, no in-depth descriptions, for I am a simple (wo)man.

Hubby and I decided to visit the Czech Republic and after a long drive from Germany arrived in Cesky Krumlov, which is an amazing medieval city. Cars are not allowed in the “old” part of the city where we were staying, so we hoofed our bags maybe a half mile or so and found our hotel. Decided to wander about a bit. It was evening when we arrived and by the time we got out of our hotel room it was dark and very quiet (remember there were no cars allowed). It was also before the official tourist season so there were very few people out and about. (The locals all lived outside of the old part of the town.)

The September air was cool, and comfortable for walking in without needing a jacket or sweater. There was just enough light to see from the street lamps, but with each subsequent step through the cobblestone streets it felt like we were walking deeper into another reality that was identical to our own, but somehow not ours. I wish I could describe it better. It was other-worldly and yet not. Time felt different, the air felt different, the light (or lack thereof) was like nothing either of us had experienced before. I would almost say it was an out of body experience, but every sense was heightened, not muted.

I remember we heard music coming out of a stairwell. We followed it down a flight of stairs and walked through a red door with a stone lion head on top. We were suddenly in an old wine (?) cellar lit with candles. There was a band playing traditional music on the stage. There were maybe 25 people inside, the majority locals. There were tables where food was served, which were set up sort of like a beer hall in long rectangular rows. The place was very small and everyone squeezed in together. Everyone was singing and drinking and appeared to be telling stories and joking. The menu was written totally in Czech, which was at once disorienting and exciting.

We sat down and soon the waiter brought us huge pilsners filled with Budvar (the original Budweiser, and eleventy-billion times more tasty). This was in 2002 so I don’t remember if we pulled out our Czech to English dictionary to decipher the menu, or if we had the locals suggest something, but I do remember that we ate pork chops that had been sauteed to a perfect golden brown. Moist. Succulent. Tender. Unbelievable and definitely not from a package in the supermarket. Served with the pork were french fries that had been fried in – I swear – goose fat. The fries were thick cut (obviously by hand), crisp and hot and perfectly salted. They complimented the pork perfectly. More Budvar followed, at least two more pilsners for each of us. When my husband and I decided it was time to go back to the hotel and try to sleep, we got the bill. In US dollars it ended up being something like 5 dollars each for our meal, including the beer. We ended up giving them a huge tip because we didn’t feel right paying so little for a meal we had so enjoyed.

The thing that is most striking to me in looking back is that I don’t even really like pork. But that still ranks as the best meal of my life.

There is an Italian place called Buca’s, it’s pretty popular and widespread. Family style menu. We’ve been going for years every since we found it.

One night, my daughter and I went out for a girl’s night, and we managed to get the chef’s table in the kitchen as a bonus. It was one of the most fun evenings I had with my daughter over calamari, lemon chicken and tortellini. We got out books out we just got at the fancy bookstore, chatted with the manager, chatted with all the waiters.

The look in my daughter’s eyes, and the sparkle, is what I remember most.

@ Amy-

I woke up this morning thinking about those beans. Must have those beans.

I’m not going to share a whole meal with you. No, I will reserve that for my own space and not overwhelm you with the dozens of experiences that have been popping into my head since I read this yesterday. But thank you for the inspiration.

Instead, I will share the story of a single fruit: a Haitian mango (which I hope you haven’t already read about on that thing online where I write some crap sometimes).

I knew a prodigy pianist, a troubled, unprincipled sort who didn’t mind sharing his bed (or car, or public park) with more than one woman, one of whom happened to be me.

I didn’t care. Those fingers – ah! Those fingers.

We went into the city one night. You know, the city, to hear some jazz and get drunk and pretend we weren’t both working in a restaurant together instead of getting published in literary magazines and invited to play Carnegie hall (is that what pianists do when they’re not fucking? I’m not sure).

After we left the basement of the bring-your-own jazz place, where we’d drunk bottles of wine, we wandered up to the street and found a little bodega with fruit in the bins lining the sidewalk. I fondled the mangoes, and he said he’d never had one. Never had one! I immediately bought one, while he asked, “But how will we eat it?”

How will we eat it, indeed, silly initiate. I fished my Swiss Army out of my pocket and sliced one side away from the pit. He reached his hand out for it, but I first made him rub the flesh with the pads of his fingers and close his eyes, until he opened them with a start, a look of recognition on his face. Then we were all over it, slurping and eating and wandering Washington Square, imagining we could run away and would live forever just like that.

Not a meal, perhaps, but filling all the same. And now allow me to apologize for writing food erotica in your comment thread. On a Sunday, no less! Oy.

@Jennifer –

That’s awesome.

And it proves what I’ve long told my wife: the mango is the perfect fruit mimic of, and complement to, a lovely vagina.

– c.

There are several, including fish and chips in Stratford-upon-Avon, and oysters in San Fransisco, but this one comes to mind:

Dinner at La Cave Wine Bar in Dublin, Ireland http://www.lacavewinebar.com/ It was my sister’s first night in the country (I’d been once before) and we had to hunt for a decent place that was still open. This place was in a basement, quite small, painted in red and black, and full of flowers and pictures and pretty things. It was edgy but soft, high class but friendly. Perfect. Not to mention, we were in fucking Dublin. Rockstar perfect.

We split a half bottle of Gewerztraminer, and each had a pasta dish that had some French name I can’t remember. Basically, ribbons of pasta (no pasta I’d seen before or since, about 3″ long and 1″ wide and very thin. It was tossed with goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, pine nuts, and ground pepper. Very simple and very tasty.

Really, the food was nothing special, and our waiter was a bit chatty, but overall the event was classic and memorable.

If you’re ever in Dublin 2, check this place out!

I’ll have to check that place out. It sounds awesome. I’m a Manhatten Drinker – and at my age, I would often get odd looks or comments of being too young to be a grandfather. Some bartenders even had to look it up (it’s not hard, people). Looking down the Bookstore’s cocktail menu – I’m happy to say they do it right: Many people neglect to add the bitters. It’s all about the bitters. Awesome Stuff.

Added to my todo list. Thanks, Chuck.

@ Chuck: You should see my holiday cards from last year. All about Sleipnir, baby.
Here: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2686/4205803210_d6e7ce413f_o.jpg

@ Julie: Those beans were WORTH dreaming about. They were so simple and so, so perfectly delicious. I worked myself up too – after writing this out, I decided to make some.

I share the Florentine love of white beans. I make Tuscan white bean soup all the time (just made some last night, in fact).

The florentine bread soup called Ribollita takes two to three days to make just right – the bread and beans thicken up so much that you drizzle olive oil over the hot soup to make it more liquid again, because it’s a thick stew. It’s really incredibly delicious.

I made it once, and it was delicious, but nothing like the ribollita we had it Florence. That’s ANOTHER amazing meal story.

That’s easy: London, April 2007.

Despite it being the trash strike (so I heard years later) and that city being the most filthy, smelly, wade-through-garbage place I have ever been. Despite it being the last day of a long and stupid day (two-hours at Stonehenge, WTF? We could’ve been in trashy London). Despite me being with about 5 people I hated and only 2 I liked, I managed to squeeze out some awesomeness.

While the group was walking around somewhere…trying to find a red bus and sit on the upper deck…trying to find a palace with guys in hats…I saw a change purse lying in the street. It was two, actually. One was full of change, which in British Pounds means a few dollars. I could’ve gotten some fast food. The other was full of paper money. 90-fucking-pounds! There was no id, no person standing around looking for what fell out of his back pocket, no way to return this money.

The group split up, thank heavens, and I and the only two people I liked headed for the London Eye. It was closed. We were slightly sad. But then, we hit up a pub.

This was right across the Thames from the London Eye, right next to Big Ben. I have no idea if this was a good pub or not. What I know is that some poor dude in London lost all his money and gave us an amazing meal of fish and chips and cider and beer. It was the best way to end a really long trip (the entire month of April) and to say good-bye to a city that I still can’t figure out why anyone likes it.

AWESOME.

Also, I have since become obsessed with fish and chips, which is sad, because I know of nowhere in Ohio that serves it up right.

This was a great post. I am now remembering all sorts of favorite meals (two others came from the same trip as the one I posted). I had forgotten how wonderful it is to have a good meal with good people and good memories.