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Can't remember their names:


An amazing fish restaurant in Lisbon behind a locked wooden door, where you went down some stairs into a huge open space with an atrium - and the wine list was to die for.


A vegetarian restaurant in Rome with a 7 course tasting menu - where all the Roman women came in with their fur coats and didn't see the funny side.


A little restaurant on the island of Lipari where I had THE most amazing swordfish ravioli (I think it was on a previous thread)

A little vegetarian cafe in a little town by the blue mountains in Australia. Mrs Keef had had to endure lots of very meaty eateries, and was getting fed up with chips or salad, so we went to this little place, and it was one of the nicest meals I had over there. All home made soups, humous, lentil things, and that kind of thing. Very hippy, and very very tastey!

2 places in Madrid for you.


El Botin, just off the Plaza Mayor. Great sopa de ajo, and you might be lucky enough to sit where my mother was sitting when her waters broke for my brother.


La Trucha (the trout) in the old theatre district; you cannot get a more typical Madrile?o tapas establishment, be sure to have a bit of spanish with you y ten coraje (especially with the sheep's brains)!

???? Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> My missus is a vegeterian and we lived there

> (Andulusia) for a year...she struggled, and would

> agree. Whereabouts were you living?



Estepona, (halfway between Marbella and Gibraltar), then Villablanca - about 10 miles from Portuguese border.

The food was the only negative aspect, everything else was completely, ESTUPENDO! If I was going again, I'd like to live up in the hills behind the Costas, or maybe on the Western Coast.


What about you?

cheese on toast type of dish and bottle of red wine for an extortionately mortgage your house to pay high price in a mountain refuge somewhere on the Vallee Blanche.


I suppose the food and wine may have been particularly good because at the time I was certain it was to be my last meal;-)

I've had my share of fancypants meals, but my favourites have always been eating simple seafood by the seaside.


Grilled prawns, ailoi and an ice cold beer, El Cotilo, Fuertaventura, overlooking the Atlantic ocean


Scallops at the Inver Cottage, Loch Fyne


Lobster and fries, Ogunquit, Maine


Grilled squid and a Greek salad, Istron Bay, Crete


Almost any food anywhere in Normandy.

giggirl Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> spadetownboy Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > me ma,s

>

>

> Really classy. My mother had many talents but

> sadly cooking wasn't one of them.


ah, you,ve havn,t tasted irish stew until you,ve tasted spadetownmums.

spadetownboy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> giggirl Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > spadetownboy Wrote:

> >

> --------------------------------------------------

>

> > -----

> > > me ma,s

> >

> >

> > Really classy. My mother had many talents but

> > sadly cooking wasn't one of them.

>

> ah, you,ve havn,t tasted irish stew until you,ve

> tasted spadetownmums.


Stop it STB, you're making me hungry. (And I'm a veggie).

Cassius Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Fish seems to be the memorable meal of choice -is

> this why Moxon's is always so busy?


Yeh but no but...


Traditionally, the British fish experience has not been good.


My own family is Basque, so fish has been a big tradition in our diets (lots of sailors in the family going back generations, living near the sea, fish is something you can catch yourself, especially useful under the starvation conditions in parts of post-civil war Spain etc etc. The Basque fleet fishing all over still supplies even Catalunya's best restaurants, which some find surprising as Catalunya has its own sea, the Med.)


My mum (who for many years was a professional/personal chef) was horrified by the generally appalling fish situation when she arrived in England in the 50s. Fish is something few people do, and hardly anyone does well. Fish is delicate but is often overcooked. Freshness is important - and it's often been difficult to get good fresh fish across the UK. So fish is something we have generally had to go somewhere else to find.


Fish is also very regional. Names and fishes change from location to location. It's quite exciting to be presented with something for the first time (sea urchin?), or to have something you can't have in many places.


There is an absolutely fab fish restaurant in the port of Algorta, near Bilbao (N coast of Spain). I was introduced by a distant cousin who is a regular and lives around the corner. It only has about eight tables. It doesn't even have a restaurant sign outside. You eat what they have, what was good for the chef to buy at the fish market that day. It's food, food, food, and none of the performance. That is I think what a good restaurant should be.


I find it so difficult to cook for people here, though it used to be worse in Brighton: 'I don't eat this', 'I *can't* eat that'...


I mean, how do you cook when three people won't eat fish, another won't eat any meat, another will only eat white meat, one won't eat 'anything green except edamame', one won't eat vegetables, one won't each root vegetables, one won't eat nuts, two won't eat milk products, three won't eat 'anything hot', one won't eat pulses/legumes, most won't eat wheat, and one will only eat cheese if it's made from potatoes and wants to bring their entire dinner to yours in a set of tupperware!


One tradition that is very strong in the Basque Country - well, at least since the 19th century - is dinner clubs, where everyone takes turn to cook. I think it would be great fun. Any takers?

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