The Best Meals of My Life -- So Far

I was asked recently what the best meal I've ever eaten was. It is obviously hard to pinpoint that after 25 years of eating solids, so the best I could do was narrow down a list of top contenders. Here they are, in chronological order:

1) Bogota, Colombia. I was 16, in Bogota with a group from my church, helping a children's home and their ministry to the street children of Colombia. We were on top of a gorgeous mountain, working hard to take down a fence and build a large playground for the children to visit on field trips for an escape. We had been working hard all day, and when we broke for lunch they passed out wrapped sandwiches. Those sandwiches- OOOH those sandwiches. Homemade, with 3 slices of bread, a medium-fried egg, sliced cold chicken, shredded lettuce, cheese, I think avocado, some kind of spread- I inhaled it so fast I wish I'd paid better attention to its contents. But up on that mountaintop, overlooking the city, after doing hard, physical work, in this beautiful place-- that was a perfect sandwich. 

[Bogota, Columbia, 2005]

2) Paris, France. I went for a mini-vacation with my mom, and one evening she took me to one of the fanciest restaurants I have ever set foot in, where the only thing I recognized on the menu happened to be my all-time favorite dish, Boef Bourguignon. The Coke I ordered was more expensive than my mom's wine, and the dish came out piping hot in a rust colored ramekin remarkably fast. The sauce was dark, rich, reddish brown, and the thing that distinguished it from other versions I'd had in the States was that the sauce in that single ramekin had to contain at least half a bottle of reduced burgundy. It also had large sprigs of fresh thyme that packed an aromatic and savory punch. The overall experience in Paris of course adds fondness to my memories of this dish, but it was also genuinely one of the best things my mouth has ever experienced.

[Photo taken by me!]

3) Seattle, Washington. I was visiting Seattle for a friend's wedding. My parents and I visited Pike Place Market and "caught" a side of smoked salmon from the famous fish market. We then went to the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks and set out a blanket and a picnic of bagels & lox, with the salmon from the market, cream cheese and bagels. There we ate while watching the live salmon jumping upstream at the site of the dam, in perfect weather at sunset.

[Photograph obtained from Google]

4) My wedding reception. While you might be thinking, "OK, DUH- of course on the best day of your life you would consider it the best meal of your life." But in all practicality I did plan that meal very carefully to be exceptionally awesome. On the menu were food trucks; the Easy Slider Truck (www.easyslidertruck.com) and the Guava Tree Truck (www.theguavatreetruck.com) in Dallas. My Husband and I partook in the best of the East Slider's offerings- The Sweet & Low-Down burger; Angus beef with goat cheese, strawberry jam, salty, crispy bacon (though both my Husband and I both picked it off) and toasty buns. For dessert, because I am a pastry chef and I have actually never been much of a fan of cake, we instead arranged to have two croquembousche (conical towers of cream puffs) and a tree of macaroon cookies made by an amazing local baking company called Bisous Bisous (www.bisous-bisous.com).

[Photos courtesy of Becca Ann Photography in Dallas, TX]

What about you? What is the best meal or item you've ever eaten? Did the setting make a difference? Leave your story in the comments!

Restaurant Review: Cheddar's

Nearly every week for over 5 years, I've met my grandmother for lunch or dinner. It's the highlight of my week every time, because my grandma is AWESOME. She's in her mid-80's, volunteers regularly, lives by herself upstairs, does crossword puzzles like she's channeling Will Shortz, knits roughly 62.4x faster than I do, sponsors a child in a 3rd world country and writes him letters in Spanish, reads at least 1 book per week, goes visiting people younger than herself at the nursing homes to read to them, and still makes time for her youngest granddaughter every week. I could and should and probably someday will write a blog about what I've learned from my weekly lunches, but this particular blog was inspired by the meal I had at our most recent dinner.

Cheddar's is, by most people's standards, a very middle of the road, American eats establishment. Middle priced, general American-style menu, nestled right in there alongside Applebee's, Fridays, maybe a notch above Chili's (two notches lately, anyone else feel like Chili's has gone downhill lately? or have my standards just improved with adulthood? I digress). HOWEVER. As I have periodically patronized the Cheddar's in my area, their menu, food preparation standards, and staff have gotten better and better.

My favorite dish at Cheddar's is their Asian Salad. It sounds standard enough, most places have an Asian salad nowadays, but Cheddar's Asian Salad stands tall above the rest, and not just literally.

[Photo source: www.thedallassocials.com (via Google Image)]

Not only is this a low guilt meal, - - - - - No, I'm going to skip the cliche, commercial-sounding review of the obvious and just describe this dish. It has crunchy, crispy wontons layered between a cold, dark-leaf, crispy shredded lettuce salad, tossed with diced mango, cucumber, spicy relish, grated carrots, tomatoes and grilled chicken breast, dressed with an Asian vinaigrette with chopped cilantro, and lightly drizzled with a thicker, salty sauce. 

It's not just about what's in this salad, it's about how they work together. First, of course, there's the taste- most important, and then the texture. The sour, tangy dressing with the slightly spicy, bitter cilantro (but just the smallest sprinkle- I'm not a member of the cilantro-loving camp, but I really like Cheddar's' use of it here), the cool, quenching, crunchy cucumber (again, not usually a fan of cucumbers but I like them in this salad!) with the slightly sweet, super crunchy carrots, juicy fresh tomatoes and the soft, sweet, aromatic mango pieces- all of this finished with lovely surprise bursts of spiciness from the infrequent bits of relish smattered throughout. The grilled chicken is well-cooked, never dry, and sliced thinly, adding a touch of smokiness and a welcome soft, al dente bite you can only get from properly cooked meat. The method they use to slice the chicken and toss it in with the salad, rather than laying it on top, allows easy fork-fulls and perfect bite-ratios (when you have a little bit of everything on one fork for the best bite). The wontons work perfectly, with the touch of oil from frying mellowing out some of the acid from the dressing, and the unimposing, super crispy starch converting me from croutons forever. All of this finished with the lightest sprinkle of some kind of salty Asian sauce that puts it over the top. 

[Phone photo of my dinner more than half eaten, I dug in before I could stop and get a photo of it fresh]

All the best elements: Sour, Tangy, Crunchy, Acidic, Sweet, Cool, Quenching, Bitter, Juicy, Soft, Smokey, Spicy, Aromatic, Salty- and most of all, Satiating. I usually make two meals of it. 

The cherry on top is that the salad comes with a warm, honey-butter drizzled croissant, which in all my professional experience I am willing to bet is baked freshly in-house.

Anyway, Cheddar's always has excellent food, and while I could make this stupidly long, suffice it to say you'll get your money's worth on pretty much every menu item except the chips and queso- queso is a little too thick and bland, chips are stale about 40% of the time. Still worth checking it out for a date, whether with your significant other or your grandmother.