Quick, think of the best meal you ever
had!
…
…
Time's up!
Did you think of something? Was there
one meal, one bite that you specifically remembered, right away? As
if it were right on the tip of your tongue?
When I do this with people, it's a
rarity for them to have something in mind right away. I've gotten a
lot of responses involving the company kept at thanksgivings and
other holiday meals, but not a whole lot about a truly stellar
eating experience.
But I have one specific meal in mind
for myself. It was that good that I still remember it... there's a
story (of course).
It was from when I was living in
Arkansas. My fiancee was visiting for a week, and we decided to go
for a weekend getaway to Eureka Springs. Fantastic little town built
into the cliffsides of a narrow valley in northern Arkansas. Very
quaint place, very colorful, and a surprisingly high ratio of
lingerie shops. The town was clearly built well before cars existed,
as the streets and avenues were quite narrow, and teeming with
people. We navigated our way through them all, and found our hotel
smack dab in the middle of town. It was Flatiron Flats, a three-sided
building in the vein of the Daily Bugle.
Finding parking was a minor ordeal, and
we had to make a few phone calls to get someone who could
check us in to our hotel room, but
otherwise they were great. I asked our guy (who was one of the
owners) if he had any recommendations for places to eat. He directed
us to a few places, and we settled on the fanciest of them... I think
it was called The Bavarian Inn... dammit, I hate that I can't
remember the name! [turns out, it was The Grand Taverne] That really throws off the believability of my
story if I can't even remember where the hell it happened!
Anyway, it was a nice place, and we
were pretty much the only people in there, so service was fantastic!
I ordered the roast duck because I never had duck before, and I had a
Manhattan to drink along with it for the very same reason. Turned out
to be a stellar combination! A Manhattan, for those who do not know,
is a cocktail involving bourbon and grenadine (a few other things,
but those two are essential for the story here). The bourbon is
delightfully bitter, oakey and smokey in flavor, and the grenadine
leaves a nice, lightly sweet finish to the drink (all of this is of
course when made properly). The experience is a rolling taste that
evolves over the course of just a few moments. The duck, it turns
out, matched very well. It too had a deep, smoked flavor to it, along
with the gamy and rich nature of the duck meat itself, but there was
a cranberry sauce drizzled over it that really made it something
special.
Essentially, I would take a bite of
duck, which would start sweet, then salty, then earthy and smokey.
That I would follow with a sip of the Manhattan, which would match
the smokey sense and follow it up with straight bitterness that, just
before it would be sharp, would turn sweet and fruity with the
grenadine. Then, following that with a bite of duck would start it
all over again. The flavors would build on one another, in a rolling
campaign over my tongue until I was finally finished, exhausted from
the orgasmic ordeal.
So yeah, that's the best meal I ever
had.
We finished our weekend nicely, touring
the town (up and down many, MANY stairs) and doing a little shopping.
Any more than two nights would be pointless, though, as the town is
so small that there's not much to do beyond eat and shop and walk.
There wasn't even any swimming to be had!
Anyway, I'm out; click ads!
No comments:
Post a Comment