Surprisingly good food where least expected (freezer, pizza, cookies, diners)

[Texas Ag 93]

Originally Posted by Sand&Salt

When we lived in Moab, Utah, there was a funky little diner from the 50s called "Milt's". They had/have the best burgers we've ever eaten. And tater-tots! Ohhh, Santa Fe burger with Swiss and a green chili....

Milt's Stop and Eat is still there (at least it was the last time we were in Moab 4 years ago). And I agree, their burgers are great!

[ddeemo]

When I was hospitalized for 11 days for a lung infection (pre-Covid) - they implemented a new menu about 4 days in, the old menu meals were fairly good but nothing special. The new menu was a huge improvement - they were actually better than most restaurants. I had most of the choices, I actually looked forward to the meals. Ordering was through an app on the big screen TV.

One of the best Salmon meals I ever had was when I was in first class - smoked to perfection with a fabulous dill sauce.

[clevergirl67]

Originally Posted by Parnassia

local hospital...chicken noodle soup

When I was admitted after a TIA, they gave me dinner of sliced turkey and dressing with gravy, and that dressing was some of the best I've ever had.

[prospectheightsresident]

Originally Posted by Parnassia

I had an outpatient surgical procedure at the local hospital yesterday. To my surprise, instead of the predictable few pages of hospital forms, the discharge nurse handed me a paper bag containing instructions plus a container of frozen "get well" chicken noodle soup from the cafeteria. How good could hospital cafeteria soup be? Still, not one to let food go to waste, I microwaved it for dinner. Not only did it smell delicious, it WAS delicious! It wasn't just because I was ravenous from my pre-op fast either. It was probably the gosh darned best chicken soup I've tasted in my life. Packed chock full of everything to the point it was almost a stew. So good I'm currently trying to find out how to score more!

OK, OK, anyone who knows me knows I'm no gourmet and I don't play one on TV. Maybe my palate isn't super discriminating, but this soup was a true pleasure.

Anyone else care to share a pleasant surprise like this?

Actually now that you mention it, we were at a major Buddhist hospital in Taiwan for routine checkup and there was a vegetarian cafe there. Vegetarian pho, sandwiches, cakes, breads, and all sorts of other dishes. The food was actually delicious.

[Parnassia]

Another one. The most generous king crab dinner I've ever eaten was at a mom-pop steakhouse in Kearney Nebraska of all places. About as far from an ocean as you can get. Once a month they'd fly in a massive order. People drove from surrounding states just for it. I was working with another biologist studying Platte River sandhill crane migration. He'd been a religious attendee for years. Having lived and worked in the PNW and AK I was skeptical and had eaten my share of fresh-off-the-docks crab before, but that meal was fantastic! The hodge podge variety of heavily used, vintage farmhouse tools they supplied so patrons could crack the crab was a nice touch.

[H8t3rs]

Gas stations in southern Mississippi have the best barbecue

[jcp123]

I mean, we could do hole-in-the-wall food for ages. Laredo Taco had an entire container of food for $5, and while not actually awesome would have been well worth double that from a real restaurant. And honestly I miss being able to pick up a plate of tacos from basically anywhere and be able to count on them being at least good down in Texas. We found a little Pupusa shop in DC which was so small, it was a hole in the wall. One person wide and the ordering window was maybe five people from the door. Another DC thing was a hotel in Crystal City/Pentagon City with a diner which is no longer there. They had maybe the best milkshake I’ve ever had, made by an African lady who probably had her own little secret sauce she added to it. I went to a little Korean place in Syracuse which had almost no signage, four tables, and which was waitresses by the chef’s wife. Their son took up two of the tables with his college friends talking and hanging out and drinking beers. The food? Oh my, it was good. It’s the only place I want to go to when I am in Syracuse again. Locally, there’s a kinda shady-looking diner I’ve been to three or four times so far, and I tend to get something different every time. It’s all some of the best breakfast and diner food I’ve ever had, good enough that I don’t care if the biscuits and gravy aren’t quite right.

[SnazzyB]

Originally Posted by H8t3rs

Gas stations in southern Mississippi have the best barbecue

Truth! We were on our way to New Orleans and stopped at a gas station in Jackson, MS. My husband got ribs, and I got pulled pork. OMG, it was so good!

[Parnassia]

There was a battered "Mexican" cafe in a little burg along the Columbia River, OR friends and I usually tried to eat at when returning from the east side's wilds. We would dream about those tamales during our adventures, but our hopes were often dashed. We'd arrive with growling stomachs only to find the place closed. Apparently, members of the owner/operator family were often in feuds with each other, arrested, or in jail. The front window was cracked, the lino floor scraped clean of its original pattern, menus were hand typed on a typewriter desperately in need of a new ribbon and price changes scribbled over in ink, none of the chairs or tables matched, the teenaged family daughters who served spoke marginal English and the parents none. Rows of questionable no-name Mexican sodas and fireworks lined the shelves, it was dim and dingy, but the food was wonderfully authentic. All the locals ate there which was enough for family members who weren't serving time at the moment to keep the place going.

One memorable wildland adventure was a 10 day whitewater raft trip during our college spring break. The March weather and river water were icy. Two of us ended up with trench foot which made the diagnosing college doctor wax nostalgic about his WWII military service. We ate like starving convicts, so we'd run out of food a couple of days before we met up with our downriver-ferried cars again to head back to civilization. Dreams of the much-anticipated Mexican feast floated us down the highway. Unfortunately, the place was of course closed. Not because of jail this time, but because it was Easter Sunday. A couple of us almost broke down in tears right in the parking lot. The ordinary roadside diner we located next was a sorry second best. They almost refused to seat such a grimy bunch. Everyone else was in their Easter Sunday best. We were wind and sunburned, limping from cold-damaged feet, hands blistered by sweep oars and water, without showers or laundry for a week and a half so you can imagine our entrance.

Another favorite place wasn't exactly unexpected, but it was still wonderful. Lok Far Lo's Chinese Restaurant in an LA suburb, CA. It was a mouthwateringly odorous, mysteriously dark, greasy hole-in-the-wall with a koi pond out back near the dumpsters. I remember having to drag my youngest sister out of it a couple of times when she tried to pet the fish. My parents usually ordered take away (we'd scream bloody murder if their hot mustard touched anything else on our plates) but once in a while we'd actually eat there. Almost no one spoke English. It was there for many years...long enough to saturate the whole building with cooking oil. When it eventually caught fire, the resulting inferno made the local news. It took down the entire block.

I seem to recall some radio host sharing that his favorite predicter of how good a restaurant's food would be was the wall calendars. The more calendars they had in the place, the better the food.

[steiconi]

I spent three weeks in hospital this summer, and early on had some delicious broth.

Then I got an NG tube, and couldn't eat for a week. I looked forward to that broth!

The broth was nothing like it had been a week before. I'd had an infection at that point, I guess it made the broth taste better. None of the food was particularly good.