Best Meal Ever with Boys

As I was compiling the 50 meals you must have this year list, I was trying to think back on the best meals I've had and why.

Why these meals and not others? What made these meals so special, tops above all else? The only conclusion I found was the people I shared my table with.

Happiness, I've discovered, makes my sensories heightened. So does fear. On a date, my senses go from guarded to uninhabited within a drink, three more I go from caution to lust. And when that happens my tasting threshold stretch to both spectrums of extreme.

So here is my personal, uncensored, list of best meals ever.

Bone marrow with Professor
He made me my first gin and tonic. And I know I could trust his taste from that point forward. We would have roasted bone marrow on toast points and salt and parsley salad before our class. Sucking slightly cooked fat from the inside of a chainsawed section of bone is never a sexy look, but he made it effortlessly elegant. With pinch spoons we would scoop out the fat, and sometimes blood, then lay the lumps of fat on toast and spread it like butter. It went on the tongue like the sweetest, smoothest cream you've ever had. Th salt and parsley salad only freshened the breath and cut the grease so to feel less guilty of eating pre fat. He taught me how to eat, not like a college student, but as a young adult.

Steak with Blake
Blake, in hindsight, might have been the love of my life. I stupidly broke up with him because throughout our relationship he was a vegetarian. And a life without meat was not a life I wanted to have. During our annual meet up/ one upmanship dinner, I was shocked to hear he chose a steak house. Over a shared Tuscany porterhouse, he told me he's always wanted to eat meat but just couldn't afford it right out of college. He chewed each piece of meat with 18 bites to get the maximum flavour out of each taste. "You would think after a decade of being a vegetarian your body would reject meat, but mine is loving it," he said savourying the New York strip.I did as he did and slowly chewed on every bite, tasting the flavours of the fat of the cow and followed his comments of how th eblood tasted fresh, not aged, how the charring so too much on such a high fat content piece of meat. I'd never tasted meat like I was drinking wines. I'd never tasted meat until i was with a vegetarian.

Scrambled eggs with Josh
Any meal with Josh would always be rushed. He was a workacholic and shuttled between cities most days of the week. When he knew he had a morning in town, we would always meet up, and usually between 5 and 6 in the morning. Options were slim at this hour, but we found haven in 24 hour cafes around town. Sometimes I would be too excited to sleep or too worried I wouldnt wake for our date. I was usually exhausted when we met, but immediately perks at the sight of him. We would almost always share one plate of greasy scrambled eggs, then order another because we would still be hungry. Then for the next hour I would sip milk tea, him coffee, and talk about a future we never had together. When we weren't together, we would seek out new cafes to visit and have endless conversations about them for the sake of a conversation. Though what we were really saying is we were happy to have eachother's company, even if it was only one hour a week.

Steak with Thomas
Stuck on an assignment, I was dining by myself at The Oakdoor in Toyko. I had no idea this was a date spot. Great. The manager gave me a two top right in the middle of the grand dining room and along with my bread basket he brought out a selection of magazine to entertain me as I was without company. No thank you, I told him and then I let him order for me. He brought out a lushious piece of A8 wagyu, a beautiful glass of bordeux and gorgeous geltin tartin. The food just tasted better because my hormones were heightened. He came by every so often to entertain me with stories during pockets of lull on the floor. We ended on a drinking tour of the city’s best speak easys until the next morning. And from there a beautiful courtship emerged.

Yakitori with Dick

After a fight, you long to see the person you care for to make sure they are ok because your world is in wrecks knowing the other is hurting. We hadn’t spoken in days and so many days had passed and we weren’t certain why anymore. It was so good to see him. We shared four bottles of sake to calm the edges left between us. There were savory meats on sticks, and heavily salted lamb chops which made us drink even more. The staff even bought us a bottle to see how much we could drink on a school night. It was the best meal of our relationship. It was even good when he held my hair back as I tossed up in his bathroom.

Fake Mexican with Ben
I never cared much for Mexican food in Hong Kong. Mostly because I was spoilt by the real thing in the Mexican kitchens of Los Angeles. So to have pretend Mexican food here never proved fruitful. We spent an afternoon drinking beers in the winter sun and tasting an array of fake Mexican food at Tequila. There's little that I won't, but an childhood incident with peppers had put me off them for life. I gag with the force of life when one sneaks itself in my mouth. I've manufactured a lie I tell myself that they make my fart. Even when they touch my food, or worst when it is blended into, say, a soup or a sauce, I walk away. He orders peppers, four of them, stuffed with cheese. Now, if I didn't like him so much, I would've objected. Instead, when they arrived I gracefully accept one. Fork in hand, I dive. I closely examine the treat before me.The pepper did not smell of that familiar barf-inducing scent, the skin was coated with so much cheese and a layer of beer batter, I bare noticed the green slimy skin. In a baby bite, I taste nothing but XXX cheese and batter. Another bite revealed the same. By a few more, I had finished the whole thing and reaching for another. I dig this, I could do this, I like this, he likes this, we like this. he broke me of my fear. I'd never thoguht my first whole pepper would taste so good.

Salmon lettuce wrap with Mark
It was our second dinner of the evening. No matter how much we love food as foodies, we just could get into our first meal at The Pawn. I was excited to taste their roasted bone marrow with parsley salad appetitiser, and he was excited to try their sucking pig. After a drawn out flirtation period, we had out first date, Friday. We both had high expectations of our perspective dishes, both disappointed greatly. So much so we got up to have a second dinner elsewhere. It was our own fault, we had been talking up this meal to epic portions. So the only conclusion was disappointment. Though after a three course meal, neither one of us was hungry, but neither were satisified being true gluttonists. We roll into Sushi Kuu for a shot of salmon lettuce wrap. This might be perfection in a lettuce. In two bites, we were sated. In two bite, this helper did more, much more than what our previous three-course meal had done. The salmon, butter-like. The lettuce- crisp and held the sauce and juice from the fish. The secret sauce mixed with thin sliced onion created what was said best by my date, "This tastes like a burger." Forget the fancy, a burger is what good first dates are all about.