Meals you have enjoyed but not your day to day meals

Changing it slightly , dining car meals on trains.
The most scenic dining I have done on a train.
1: Going down the Rhine Gorge between Cologne and Main.
2: The Highlander Sleeper train when it was BR in the 70`s between Inverness- Perth.
I had a good three course on the train in Germany ,and on the BR highlander a Steak & Kidney pie.
Other rail dines have been between Brum and Bristol , Royal Scot Euston to Preston , Plymouth to Paddington.
Non exist today due new trains etc
Mick

You get around don't you Mick

I haven't done many train journeys in recent years, only the commute sometimes to London or France. We go to London for days out of course, but lately not so much as the trains are so unreliable -strikes etc. So no meals I'm afraid.

Plymouth to Paddington when I was a child and trains into Cornwall of course but that's all except once to Southport to visit my Aunt whose officer husband was posted somewhere up there. Not very interesting is it

Michael I have only ever eaten properly on a train twice; once in 1957, when my dad took me to London on the 'Master Cutler' express when it was still a steam train. We had a lovely breakfast (and coffee!) in the restaurant car. It was a real treat for both of us. Dad was very proud of the train, because it was Sheffield's own express. A year later it the name would be taken by a diesel engine and he said it never had the same romance.
In 1965 I was travelling home from London, where I worked, and treated myself to a Pullman seat, sharing a compartment with a young architect who kindly bought me lunch! I had mushroom soup, and chicken in a white wine sauce. I can't remember what he had. He was telling me about the new crematorium he was involved designing in Grantham, where he got off. I almost never travel on trains these days.

Greyduster interesting when you said about the "Master Cutler" think then it was on the former Great central and ran through Brackley.
Mick

Spinach Roulade and Rosemary Potatoes from the Austrian place at the top of the hill where we lived in North Wales.........mmmmm

You're right Mick. The Great Central Main Line, from Sheffield Victoria to London Marylebone. A beautiful Gresley A3 Pacific engine, with a restaurant car. It didn't have a Pullman until the sixties. Sorry. Digression!

First time I tried beef stroganoff (55 years ago) thought I had died and gone to heaven. Have had many since but never one that matched the first. Often wonder if it was actually the dish or the magical doorstep of love I was teetering on. Happy days.......

It's interesting that some of the meals which were not 'day-to-day' meals years ago and seemed exotic have become part of the culinary repertoire years later, eg spaghetti bolognaise, curry, nasi goreng, even beef stroganoff occasionally.

Almost any Iranian dish - there are many but one that sticks out - Shirin Polo - has saffron rice, almonds, pistachios, strips of candied orange zest, and more. It is a special occasion dish and my son's father in law cooked it for his daughter's wedding.

One of my sister's is a good cook and her moussaka puts all others in the shade, also her spanakopita (spinach and feta pie with filo pastry).

Yes, I can remember thinking that Vesta curry or Chow Mein was very sophisticated. I'd probably hate them now.

I can remember "discovering" pizza when it wasn't really known in the UK - well, it may have been in some cities, but not elsewhere at the time. It was the summer of 1968 and I was an au pair in the south of France. I loved the food there (put on weight!) and watched how they made a pizza. When I got home I explained to my parents how tasty it was, and attempted to reconstruct it, but used pastry as the base, as yeast dough seemed too problematic. My Mum then adapted it and served little pizza tartlets in individual pastry cases as a snack when friends came round for "supper" (which was not a full meal but nibbles served with milky coffee).

When my brother and I were in our late teens we went,for the very first time ,to a Chinese restaurant.
Eating out was not the norm then and we thought ourselves very sophisticated.
After ordering we sat waiting and were each served with with a bowl of clearish liquid with slices of lemon in it. Calling back the waiter I said "we didn't order soup" to which he replied " flinger bowl,flinger bowl !"
Waving his fingers about at the same time.
Of course,being young ,we found this hilarious and proceeded to laugh uncontrollably.
Unfortunately we were not able to contain ourselves completely and left the restaurant with our lovely meal hardly touched!!
Chinese food has been a favourite ever since.

Kokorec, in Istanbul. Lavas bread, lahmacun, icli kofte, maybe you can tell I love Turkish food....

I really really enjoy a good old traditional Christmas dinner. Turkey and all the trimmings. Just once a year. Stretchy waistband at the max. Lovely!!

Things Mum used to make that I have tried to cook but they never tasted like hers:

Bread pudding
Jam Rolly Polly - suet pastry rolled up with jam, wrapped in a cloth and boiled and served with home made custard
Fish and parsley sauce - she baked the fish in milk with breadcrumbs sprinkled on top then used the liquor to make parsley sauce
Rabbit stew
Stuffed hearts

Things Mum's Mum used to cook:
Apple pie - her pastry was to die for, she had a tiny kitchen and rolled out the pastry with a milk bottle putting random dabs of butter
Yorkshire pudding which she used to beat for ages to get lots of air in.
I used to sit and watch her for ages and she let me help beat the Yorkshire pudding.

Chocolate fudge from a quaint sweet shop in Southampton where they used to make all their own sweets.

Not very adventurous but I love fish and chips and would never make this at home.
On French holidays we'd eat 'assiette des fruits de mer' which I again adore but wouldn't go to the trouble of preparing these days, maybe prawns with mayonnaise which is simple and delicious.

My Mum cooked Chinese food when I was young- I had my first Chow Mein at 6 months old. She wasn't Chinese- just loved trying different things- took me round SoHo looking for birds nests for soup when I was quite small. My Grandfather & Uncle were in British army in India & both cooked wonderful Indian dishes. So I grew up loving 'foreign' food & still do.
I love Greek food & would eat Giovetsi any day of the week- luckily I can make that very easily but I am currently pining for a really good Gyros (street food).

Gosh Jane43 we must have lived in a parallel universe - you describe my mum's kitchen and all the things she used to cook (except the stuffed hearts) and the way she used to cook them! All my favourites.

No-one made a "cottage pie" like my dear Mum. It was a staple Monday night meal and my favourite dish of all. She used to mince up the leftover Sunday roast and vegetables in her old metal mincer that she clamped onto the table.
I have tried to make them myself, but they have never tasted the same.

To take things to the other end of the scale, perhaps the worst thing I ever ate was a suckling pig. We were in Spain with friends, one of whom had heard of a restaurant that served it, so it became a quest to find the place and eat it. DH thought it was a good idea as he had had it at a party held in honour of the Sultan of Brunei's birthday in 1966 and said it was delicious. We ordered it in advance and frankly, seeing this poor little thing in it's entirely on the table did not fill me with joy and expectation. It was very expensive and, to my mind - and I am a fan of roast pork - rather disappointing.

My mother cooked spaghetti bolognese from a recipe in Woman's Own when my sister and I were small. It was the most delicious thing we'd ever eaten as dad only liked ' the land of the bland'! Imagine our dismay as having eaten it all ( he hated waste) he said "Bet, I don't ever want to eat that again" we were devastated!!

Best was beef stroganoff on my first date with DH. It was divine. The restaurant had dancefloor made of glass with tropical fish swimming under it.

I love food in the Balkans, they are so inventive. They had to be, being under the communist cosh for so many years they had to be inventive with so little choice.
I think one of my best meals was an impromptu evening in a boat yard. A Dutch barge came in, the skipper caught some eels, got some oak shavings and a 45gl drum and smoked the eels, absolute heaven.
Up until I was 40 I couldn't stand oysters, olives, or gin. I don't know what happened, but I made up for lost time
One of the worst was crispy duck in china. Obviously it was cooked in the way the Chinese like it, but it certainly wasn't the way we have it.

I think I've been to a very similar restaurant in Madrid, Greyduster. I just found it all dreadfully upsetting, though it was supposed to be a wonderful dining experience. As we were with a group, it was impossible to make a bolt for the door, which I really would have preferred to do.

Jalima1108..my husband makes a wonderful chicken satay...everybody who tries it absolutely loves it...so much so we have given everybody the recipe. He did by trial and error, me being the guinea pig.

Will poke out the recipe and post it here.