Once I asked a friend of mine, "What was the best meal you ever had?"
He thought about it a moment and then replied, "A stick of pepperoni dipped in peanut butter... after a day hiking the AT." (He'd actually hiked the whole Appalachian Trail, as I recall.)
Years before that, a different friend asked me the same question. The one item that came to mind above all others was the dessert course at a resort my family visited when I was a child, on a snorkeling trip to the Caribbean. I don't think I've had a sopapilla that good since. And sure, childhood taste buds and all, but that's kind of the point: the best subjective impression is the best subjective impression.
One of the best things I've ever made myself was early in the first COVID season. I was throwing together a soup of whatnot, and I made a broth of soy sauce, mirin, gochujang, garlic and probably a few other things. When I had a taste, it was knee-bucklingly good. I haven't hit the proportions just right again, or something; everything I've tried in that genre has been nice, but not that nice.
Dad was the sort who'd try a new thing at a restaurant and then try and figure out how to make it at home. He was good at it, too. I picked up that habit, a bit. My white whale is the suanla chaoshou/suan la chow show/swans from Mary Chung's in Cambridge, MA. For that, I have to go by memory, since the restaurant closed years ago, and I have to adapt it to my current diet, since I went mostly-vegan vegetarian. There's a dumpling-sauce recipe from 1993 that is perfectly serviceable, but I tried it with three different chili pastes and it just wasn't the same. I think it was adapted for home cooks of the early '90s and left out doubanjiang, which a Sichuan restaurant would have had on hand. A couple heaping teaspoons of that brought the flavor a lot closer....
Anywhoo. Do you folks have food memories that stand out? Best ever pizza? Cookies that you'd like to find again?
oooooh, excellent one... i'll contribute. a teenager at the time flying out with my family, following my dad's work. we touched down in Boston i believe. landed late in the afternoon, 10PM or so. we were going to make a grocery trip but nothing nearby was open. so we found some hole-in-the-wall deli place and i got the thing that sounded the best: a Sicilian panini.
i don't know exactly what they had put on there -- probably pepperoni, salami, turkey, and bologna, maybe provolone and swiss, and all on a toasted bun -- but i tell you i have been chasing that sandwich high ever since