What was the best restaurant you ever ate at?

[edabbs44]

I think my two best restaurant experiences were at Emeril's Delmonico in NOLA and Il Mulino in a few locales. I went to Emeril's back in 2001 and had a great meal. I enjoyed the BBQ Shrimp as an appetizer and the Veal Oscar for my entree. Great dining experience all around from the wait staff to the food. Very classy.

I've been to the Il Mulinos in NYC, San Juan and Las Vegas. If anyone has the opportunity to eat there, do it. It is a different kind of meal. They give you a great antipasto sampling when you walk in the door including tastes of different meats and cheeses. Then the courses are to die for. The first time I went I had the best osso buco I have ever had. Pastas are great and the desserts are phenomenal. They end the meal by giving you a free homemade glass of grappa. I will pass on that in the future.

Anyone else?

[klw]

My favorites are Il Cucina in London, Lui Lui in W. Lebanon NH, Crazy Burger in Narragansett RI and Hoagie Haven in Princeton NJ. Each is a very different experience but give great food at good value without pretense. As a vegetarian I rarely find "fine dining" to be worth the expense. For me the menu options tend to be limited and not worth it.

[kaldaniels]

I think my two best restaurant experiences were at Emeril's Delmonico in NOLA and Il Mulino in a few locales. I went to Emeril's back in 2001 and had a great meal. I enjoyed the BBQ Shrimp as an appetizer and the Veal Oscar for my entree. Great dining experience all around from the wait staff to the food. Very classy.

I've been to the Il Mulinos in NYC, San Juan and Las Vegas. If anyone has the opportunity to eat there, do it. It is a different kind of meal. They give you a great antipasto sampling when you walk in the door including tastes of different meats and cheeses. Then the courses are to die for. The first time I went I had the best osso buco I have ever had. Pastas are great and the desserts are phenomenal. They end the meal by giving you a free homemade glass of grappa. I will pass on that in the future.

Anyone else?

My wife and I ate at DelMonico...our lasting memory is having our glasses of water filled up everytime we took a sip. I had the BBQ shrimp as well...what'd you get, like 4 of them? A great and memorable place to go, for sure.

[remdog]

This thread is interesting to me because I've just spent about two hours on various restaurant websites reading and writing reviews.

Without trying to sound pompous, I'm a bit of a 'foodie'. I love food and I'm a fairly good cook. Over many years I've spent a lot of time traveling on business and an expense account affored me the opportunity to try a lot of great restaurants.

Tonight I was trying to track down a receipe for the best tuna carpaccio that I've ever had. It's served in a little place in Petaluma, CA. I've talked to the chef, I've called the maitre'd, I've tried to chat up the waitress and the only thing that I've found out is that, apparently, the chef adds a small amount of lite brown sugar to the sauce so that it comes out as a combination of sweet (the brown sugar), citrisy (the lemon juice) and piquent (the capers). I'd just like to know the ratio so I can make it for myself at home.

The restaurant is named 'Vino Grigio' and it was, hands down, the best new restaurant that I ate at in '07. '08 is still not decided yet but, right now, it's in the lead for this year too. I've been back there a half dozen times and I've never been disappointed. One time I had a business associate with me and she ordered the veal picata (one of my favorites also). When she finished she whispered to me, 'do you think anyone will notice if I lick the plate? That's the best sauce I've ever had.' She used discretion and mopped the sauce up with bread but, in the end, the plate was so clean that it looked like it just came out of the dishwasher.

I don't know that this is the best restaurant I've ever eaten at; there were the great steaks in Chicago, N.Y and L.A., the fish soup in Nice, France (and I don't even like soup), the fish in Miami, S.F., L.A and Hong Kong, the pasta in Italy and the dim sum in Hong Kong that makes you wonder why the US didn't come up with something so simple but so delicious. However, if any of you get to Petaluma, CA (a nice little town about an hour's drive north of San Francisco) check it out. I think you'll enjoy it.

Rem

[klw]

My favorites are Il Cucina in London, Lui Lui in W. Lebanon NH, Crazy Burger in Narragansett RI and Hoagie Haven in Princeton NJ. Each is a very different experience but give great food at good value without pretense. As a vegetarian I rarely find "fine dining" to be worth the expense. For me the menu options tend to be limited and not worth it.

Here is an example of why I should not post after 10 pm. The London restaurant is Il Fornello and not Il Cucina. It is on Southampton Row which is not far from where my brother's office used to be. I always get the same gnocci dish so I have no idea how the rest of the food is but I like the place. Not fancy but a solid place.

For breakfast I must say I am torn between Polly's in Sugar Hill NH, PJ's Pancakes in Princeton, and the Sugar House in Royalton VT. I will have to continue the research on this one.

[edabbs44]

My wife and I ate at DelMonico...our lasting memory is having our glasses of water filled up everytime we took a sip. I had the BBQ shrimp as well...what'd you get, like 4 of them? A great and memorable place to go, for sure.

Don't remember how many shrimp were in the order at Emeril's, but I do remember ordering the Shrimp Oreganata at Il Mulino and getting 4 of them....for $22. Needless to say Il Mulino is a special occasion kind of place.

[SunDeck]

I've eaten at some famous places in the US, but hands down nothing compared to the Maisonette. It's a shame the place is gone.

Generally, I'm not one to go for the famous and expensive. I prefer regional or "home" cooking, like Mama Dips in Chapel Hill, or any of the zillions of places that serve pulled pork down there. Those places are different, obviously, from the high end, chef driven restaurants, but my satisfaction with a finely made low country shrimp and grits down in Charleston or a perfectly seasoned fried chicken dinner from St. Peter's out near Brookville, or a bucket of crawdads down Lafayette way is no different.

[westofyou]

http://www.millenniumrestaurant.com/

No meat and gourmet.

[Super_Barry11]

I was just chatting with my ex about this topic a couple days ago! My favorites are Bix and Farallon, both in San Francisco, and Daniel's Broiler in Bellevue, WA. My ex prefers Bix as well, but he also loves the EX Bar and Oak Door in Japan, Scarpetta and Alto in NYC, and the Oak Room in Boston. Pretty much everywhere we ate in Thailand was delicious as well!

[westofyou]

I was just chatting with my ex about this topic a couple days ago! My favorites are Bix and Farallon, both in San Francisco, and Daniel's Broiler in Bellevue, WA. My ex prefers Bix as well, but he also loves the EX Bar and Oak Door in Japan, Scarpetta and Alto in NYC, and the Oak Room in Boston. Pretty much everywhere we ate in Thailand was delicious as well!

Farrallon has the coolest decor

[TeamSelig]

White Castle

[TeamCasey]

Some little side of the road place on Maui. I can't remember the name but it was named for the dog that "lived" there.

[OldRightHander]

I've been in a lot of restaurants over the last couple years. I'm into seafood and steak, so all my favorites serve one of those two. I went to the Golden Lamb once, but that was years ago.

Steak places:

1. The Precinct

2. Heitmiller's in Waco, TX

3. Texas Land & Cattle. They're all over Texas and I think they have a couple in other states, but I've only been to the Texas ones.

4. Honorable mention to the now closed F & N in Dayton, KY. I miss that place.

Seafood:

1. I don't remember the name of the place, but it was in Lewiston, ME. It was a little hole in the wall with a small bar inside and picnic tables outside. You sit down at the bar and order what you want and the guy turns around and cooks it right there in front of you, just on the other side of the counter. They only had two kinds of fish, clams, and lobster, but the quality was outstanding, probably the best fried clams I've ever had.

2. Also in Maine is Bob's Clam Hut, in Kittery Maine just over the border from New Hampshire. Clearly the second best fried clams I've ever had.

3. There is another place in Marion, SC that I can't remember the name of. It was across from a place I picked up at once. Incredibly good shrimp.

4. High Tide Harry's in Orlando. I was there just a week and a half ago. I had grouper and it was very good.

5. There is a pretty decent catfish place on I-20 west of Shreveport, just over the border in Texas. They have an all you can eat there and I made a pig out of myself a few weeks ago.

[RedsManRick]

The GF and I are in Vancouver, BC and going out to a place called "West" tonight. It's supposed to be quite good. I'll let you know

[nate]

My favorite restaurant is one I used to go to in Hamamatsu, Japan called "Tenkin." It's a tempura joint with all of 8 seats. They serve one meal a night so once the seats are full, they close up. The master of Tenkin stands behind the bar everyone is seated at and produces the lightest, most flavorful tempura one has ever had. He's an older dude with two giant vats of oil and chopsticks the size of drumsticks. The great thing is watching him make the tempura; he gets whatever he's going to batter, lays it in the batter and then into the hot oil with his fingers seemingly breaking the surface! Of course, the trick is he's been doing this his entire life and likely has attenuated feeling in the tips of his fingers and the batter is ice cold.

Aside from the standard shrimp and veg tempura, he makes things like egg yolk that is cooked to "just runny" in the middle and chrysanthemum leaf wrapped around ume (salt plum) paste. For all the foreigners that come (because Hamamatsu is off the beaten path a bit), he gives gifts at the end of the night. I've gotten sake in a bottle shaped like a train and Japanese whiskey (which is surprisingly good.)

Youtube is awesome, here he is:

Tenkin

Here's a blog post from someone who's been there with pictures; all of my pictures of the place are "old school" (not in the computer).

Here in Nashville, there are increasing numbers of outstanding restaurants. One in particular is Flyte. To me, it's amongst the best places I've ever eaten. The staff is great and they remember you by name when you come in, an outstanding young chef, great, fresh ingredients and an excellent wine selection. They also have great ambiance inside although outside it's hard to avoid noticing the Adult DVD shop.

In California (where I consider myself to be "from") there are, of course, many choices. Two favorites would be Tantra which is kind of modern Indian fusion and The Gardens of Taxco which is an excellent, authentic Mexican place.