BootsnAll Travel Community

What was the most memorable meal you've ever had while traveling? Situation and atmosphere could count as much as food here.

this restaurant called asolare on st. john u.s. virgin islands...it was open-air with a gorgeous view of the sun setting on the bay, and the food was amazing! another one would have to be in sevilla, spain...my friend and i went to this little place where a woman served paella that she made herself. you had to order an hour in advance and you got a jug of sangria with it. the woman didn't speak a word of english, but she had any foreign customers, including us, sign this book, which she was very proud of.

Well, it wasn't quite a "meal", but just a piece of bread I ate...and you may be wondering..how can eating a piece of bread be the most memorable meal?

Here's the story...

I got on the Sigchos-Chugchilan bus at 10:30 (didn't depart till 11:30)...Next to me sat an older lady (looked to be 50-60?) and her 5 year old son. The lady was in very traditional dress and hat. Her son was so cute -- sunkissed rosy red cheeks. And he was so happy. The seats were kind of small (a bench seat), so the son ended up sitting on both of our laps. Later, he fell asleep on us. It was really cute. I spoke to the lady a bit in Spanish, and told her it's my first time in Ecuador. She was all smiles. We only spoke a little bit (I was unsure of my Spanish, and a bit apprehensive to speak it), in broken phrases, and smiled at each other a lot. The lady and her son were from Sigchos, a small rural town nestled atop the Andes. That area is one of the poorest rural areas in Ecuador.

Along the ride, she bought a bag of pan dulce rolls. She shared half a roll with me, which I thought was incredibly sweet of her to do. The lady and her son got off at Sigchos, where there was a market going on.

I was more impressed by her kindness more than anything else. Being in one of the poorest areas of Ecuador, she shared something with me that was more than half of a sweet roll. It made me think...how can I improve my life, how can I be less selfish, how can I help others, how can I be happy and disregard the hunger for money...That experience opened my eyes...

Sort of going in the opposite direction of Marisa's tale...

Dinner in Belgium - Luven (Flemmish) to be exact. I was on a study abroad and we went on a semi-guided trip. Our director took the 10 of us out to dinner where we were served fabulous beef filet's and had bottomless wine glasses. Oh yes, I said bottomless. Needless to say we each drank about 10 glasses of wine at dinner, then proceeded to locate the bar that looked the most fun in the square. We discovered after being in there a few minutes that it was a gay bar! Not really a problem - we were 6 girls and 1 gay man and 3 straight men. So we had a blast - and I drank another entire bottle of wine...

But damn was that beef good... best I've ever had...

Most memorable meal? That's tough. But I love food and one that comes to mind...

In Botswana on a safari. This part was a "walking safari" so we were out in the bush, no electricity, running water etc., but at a camp that was "established" for this use. We were by no means "roughing it", but still I was curious about how/what we were going to be eating that night. Got a tour of the kitchen and an "oven" had been created by the crew after they dug a hole in the ground, heated up something (mystery heating element???) placed it in the hole and covered it. They roasted dinner in the oven. We even had freshly baked bread. How in the heck they had any control over the temperature inside the oven is a mystery to me.

I was in Senegal during the Muslim feast that commemorates when Abraham slaughtered a ram rather than his son (forgot the name, sorry, but in Senegal they have names in African languages for feast days, not the Arabic ones, and this gets confusing after a while). Anyhow, the family I stayed with bought a ram for this day and kept it in the backyard. On the feast day it was slaughtered in the backyard. I was able to watch this and eat the meal afterwards because I always thought that if we eat meat we should be able to stomach the slaughter too. Anything else would be hypocritical. It sure felt odd and sad to watch an animal die that I knew was dying just so we could eat it later. But then, the next day, there was the goat's head at the center of the platter. Somehow, even I couldn't handle that... (and no, nothing weird was being eaten, just the meat on the outside of the skull, but everybody sure busted up laughing when I asked... strange foreign folk, the questions they ask )

So many!!! but this one stands out at the moment

Baracoa, Cuba: fresh tuna steaks, fried rice and beans, fried plantains, fresh mango and avacado and most importantly fabulous company. I'd met these 2 Italians and an Australian and they ended up being the best travel cronies ever. We ate for 3 hours, drinking rum, smoking cigars and carrying on. We even sat around telling stories of great meals because we all knew the one we were having would come up in these conversations later. And here we are...

My most memorable meal would have to be in Munsiari India. We had just gotten off the trail after 25 days in the mountains. We ate in this hole in the wall around the town square. I had a pepsi, rice, Daul, and some meet stew. There is nothing like eating a meal and seeing chickens running around the kitchen.

Travis, that pit sounds like a Hawaiian imu, my understanding of the process (usually a job for the men-folk) is that they dig a hole and line it with heat-retaining lava(?) rocks, burn wood over it so the rocks heat up, shovel out the ash, then put in all kinds of food into the imu (the main attraction usually pig but also turkey, sweet potatoes, other things) cover it up and let it cook.... tasty!!

So many memorable meals... but one stands out b/c it was such a gesture of hospitality in Santiago de Cuba. This woman (the mom of an aquaintance from the university) invited us into her very humble home. She couldnt afford anything fancy, but served up pan-fried liver and onions along with fried platanos. I love plantanos, but I hadnt properly communicated to her that I was vegetarian, like my travelling partner had managed to do... how I wanted the vegetarian plate....

Tho she'd invited us to dinner and obviously prepared especially for us, the woman herself didnt eat. Instead she sat smiling warmly and communicating in many ways beyond the little spanish we understood, watching on as I choked down the whole slab of liver with a smile on my face.

It was disgusting, but I was humbled. She served delicious Cuban coffee after.

Yeah, Mina, that sounds like the same process. I definitely remember it being covered after the heated--rocks prob-- were set in there, along with the food. The thing that surprised me most was the western-style loaf of baked bread.

Along the lines of what others are mentioning....I fondly remember a woman in Mexico who was sort of the domestic help at a place I was staying. She spoke not a word of English, naturally. But I speak a little Spanish and we'd become friendly. She saw me sitting by myself early in the morning drinking coffee and came and shared with me the breakfast she had cooked up for herself on a hot plate in the "office/closet". Those simple moments of generosity and kindness go a long, long way.

At the Thai restaurant called "Blue Lagoon" on High Street Kensington in London. My dad was over there with me for two days, and it was my first trip outside of the States. The atmosphere was just perfect--sitting next to the window looking out the London streets with soft lighting and all of this magnificent new food with complex layers. It was fantastic.

And while not a meal, I was on a bike ride in Paris with a new friend, and I met another bike guy who is now one of my best friends. We got ice cream cones and rode them down the little tree lined streets in the summer sun. It was just perfect...

In Chiang Mai.......after three days of hardcore trekking and climbing to the top of a mountain. I had the best ever goddamn chicken and noodles in my life. Cooked by my guide Mr Mong.

And there is also the time i caught a Red Snapper during the day, and my resort had it at night on Salaad Beach (Koh Panghan). Truly memorable experience....

So many meals..

One of them has to be outside Tangalla Sri Lanka some years ago. Was during the monsoon season, two guesthouses on the beach, maybe five six people staying there. It was my 25th birthday and the friend I was there with had bought a bottle of wine in the village. Only wine available was passion fruit wine. We had been having these lovely lovely srilankan potato mango and jackfruit curries, hoppers and all that lovely srilankan food for three months but now my friend had asked the guesthouse owner if he could make some pasta which he did and which was wonderful as was the passion fruit wine, the beach was just outside, we had seen a sea turtle the same day and it was all lovely. Finished the wine and then wanted some more, the guesthouse owner was a bit troubled and said he didn't have any and then without us knowing it went into the village and tracked down another bottle of wine from a relative, also passion fruit.. Then he joined us and an english guy in several games of caram. a bottle of gin was there as well. Very great evening.

The best meal I've ever had was a lobster bake during one summer night on the coast of Maine. We had set fire to the rock ledge on the beach early in the day, around 6am, and had the rocks red hot by 4 that afternoon. We laid down a pile of seaweed, then rowed out to one of our neighbors lobster boats, picked ten or eleven fat lobsters from the trap and threw em on the seaweed bed. Another layer of seaweed, some oysters and mussels, another layer of seaweed, some corn and some other veggies, then another layer of seaweed. Once the eggs we had placed on the edge of the base layer of rock were done, we ripped apart the seaweed pile and had ourselves a feast. My family and my cousins and aunts and uncles all chowed down for three or four hours, watching the sunset, singing stupid songs and having a blast. That night we set off fireworks and had hot chocolate.

Morocco!!My husband & I found an amazing restaurant in Rabat where we both had the pastilla - phyllo-flaky pastry with cinnamon & cardamom & walnuts & onions & pigeon that was to die for. Best combo of savoury & sweet I've ever had. The restaurant was decorated with blue tile every where and there was a small orchestra of musicians strumming & chanting in a far corner. It was sublime. I've had pastilla elsewhere in Morocco and it's almost universally amazing but Rabat wins for the ambience.

Now that we're vegetarians, pastilla is a sad doleful memory.