Favorite Foods and Memorable Eating Places
So, Padmum suggested this, but it really is hard for an omnivore to narrow it down! But, here goes ...
Shadowbrook Restaurant, Capitola, CA
Ate here for my 50th birthday celebration. You go down through fern covered hillsides to a terraced restaurant by a river. I had salmon and my best friend ordered a bottle of Silver Oak Cabernet, my favorite wine! It's only one of the reasons I'd go back to being 50!
Clam Chowder and Sourdough Bowl at Fisherman's Wharf, SF
The San Francisco sourdough really is unique and you couple that with freshly harvested clams cooked right there, find a seat overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and you step into a lot of people's dream location.
Lobster in Boston
Doesn't require a special place. Just go from one place to another in the Boston area and order lobster. They used to serve it to the prisoners there because it was the cheapest, most available food they had, if you can believe that!
Great Escape Restaurant in Salem, MA former jail
Friends who are related by marriage took us here for a meal when we visited Salem, MA, where they live. It is a former jail turned into a restaurant and we actually ate our dinner at a nice table ... in a cell!
Fergburger in Queenstown, NZ
Just simply the best hamburger in the world! They open at 5:00 AM and close at 2:00 AM with long lines outside the whole time. Heaven in a hamburger.
Mayan restaurant in Playa Del CarmenUnique and delicious!
Cozy Inn, Salina, KS
Sliders! Dad used to go get a bag of them when we were at Grandma and Grandpa's, twenty of them for a buck back then. And the onions, grilled and minced and mixed in with the little burgers, the buns steamed and popped on the grill. Oh ... sliders!
Crab Feed
When the crab season is good, non-profits in the Bay Area will get prodigious amounts of crab and serve them with bread on the side and endlessly filled bowls of crab in the middle of the tables. You buy raffle tickets on the stage for donated items (it's how we won our beautiful orchids in the back) and then you put on the bib, bring out the nut crackers to use for cracking the shells and start eating crab legs until you can eat no more!
Home grilled salmon caught that morning in the Pacific
My brother-in-law used to go out each year and fish for salmon in the Pacific, then he would bring them back and he had a huge smoker in his back yard that he would barbecue them in. Salmon steaks the most delicious I've ever tasted!
Barbara's Fish Trap, Half Moon Bay
A true local classic an hour away at the ocean, we go there with our best friends when they come down from the mountains. You can't go wrong!
Oakland Chinatown, Dim Sum restaurant
Where else would I absolutely love eating chicken feet? It is one of the beauties of where we live. You feel like you have entered a whole new part of the world.
Thomadachi Sushi Restaurant
Japanese sushi just down the street. Delicious and I really like sashimi. Getting better with chopsticks!
Because of our location, we can get almost any kind of food you can imagine. Everything from Afghan to Italian to Indian to Thai to Nepalese (Yak and Yeti in Napa ... fantastic!). I know so many places have probably closed forever due to the pandemic, but new will surge after. We have actual gourmet food places in trucks right in San Francisco. I have read that if, in the 9 county Bay Area you went to a different place for three meals a day, you could do this forever without ever eating at the same place twice. World class cuisine!
miss being away from the seafood you have - but I stand by my choice of Spengers and my pal Dave Hitchcock maes the best cioppino i the world - mine is a distanr third LOL I agree about Chinatown SF - best Dim Dum ever - and I didn't even get into BBQ LOL a fun topic well researchrd by us both
ReplyDeleteYou are right about Spenger's and your mention of Vals on your blog. But, seriously, my eyes rolled back in my head and I was transported to heaven at Fergburger in Queenstown, New Zealand!
DeleteYou may remember some of my blog posts about the time that I was involved with the fishing business and the fishing communities all over the world. I was not a vegetarian then and have been entertained by the fishing community with some of the most memorable sea food that I have ever eaten. More memorable were the occasions when I was on board trawlers and had freshly caught prawns cooked on board, Sea food and / or river fish used to be my favourite too. More than chicken or meat.
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday to you, I hope you are always happy and healthy.
ReplyDeleteI was impressed by how to get to the dining room by train. It was so memorable ...
When I saw this week's subject line I latched onto it like a child to his/her mother's breast. Oh joy.
ReplyDeleteOn reflecting I was weaned. In an instant. By an avalanche. Not yours or Ramana's or Shackman's. My own. Memories started flooding back. I could fill a tome. One chapter dedicated to culinary sensations for all the wrong reasons. Oh did we laugh. Or cry. Depending on age. What is one Dicken's character childhood cruel gruel is another adult's congealed sauce even if the latter served in a castle in the company of those society applauds.
Not for nothing do we break bread with friend (and foe when in negotiation). Not for nothing did Jesus Christ hold a last dinner party. Not for nothing are those on death row asked for their favourite on the eve of the final good bye.
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Fergburger in Queenstown - doesn't have an queues right now, due to the pandemic & anyone who wants to tour here, must first take a 2 week sojourn in a gov't managed isolation hotel. It's interesting that when I was in Q/town in 2019, I didn't even bother to get one, mainly because the queue was up the street and around the corner.
ReplyDeleteI love all the favorable places you have gone to...and comment about how "lobster" was cheap-as is real funny considering how pricey it is now!