Ours was in Botswana. Another really cool thing is that our driver stopped during the morning game drive. We asked him what was going on and he said “Tea.” So we had tea and biscuits on the Savannah. 
A dozen oysters on the half shell and a chilled half-bottle of Chablis at a cafe in the French Atlantic coastal town of Archachon. It was in 1980, I was 19, and I was blowing half a week’s food budget. My traveling companion thought I was nuts, but…mmmm, Archachon oysters.
My 16th birthday dinner at Peter Luger’s in Brooklyn. Still an unmatched experience and the best steak I’ve ever had.
Christmas dinner with the mayor of Cancun and their family in 1979, before most people even knew where Cancun was. Traditional Yucatan cuisine with shrimp, lobster, etc. An unforgettable experience.
On a very stormy day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we found a little oyster bar within and spent a couple of hours eating some of the freshest oysters I’ve ever experienced, washed down with a bucket of ice cold Anchor Steams.
As a Peace Corps Volunteer in northern Thailand in the 1980s, some Thai friends ran the now-defunct Good Luck Restaurant (where I met Mel Gibson while he was there filming Air America, but that’s another story). There has never been a phat thai – I think in the West it routinely gets spelled pad thai – as good as hers. And thanks to Israeli backpackers, the wife could make a number of Israeli dishes along with some very good pita bread. I almost always order her phat thai and two pieces of pita bread with butter and jam.
A Burmese dish common in northern Thailand is called khao soy, but the best I’ve ever had is in Bangkok, at a local chain called Noodle House. For decades, I would order only the khao soy at Noodle House, and I’ll be scarfing it up whenever I go back fora visit.
Chile rellenos at Tomasita’s Restaurant in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
I’ve eaten there! Alas, I was just (comparatively) a lad at the time, and food was mere fuel in those days. Maybe later this spring, I’ll take Mrs. and Guestling on a weekend road trip just for a meal.
Strangely enough, the most memorable meal I’ve ever had was while in the Army. We were out in the box at the NTC in Mojavia. It was our 1SG’s birthday and as a surprise, our CO requisitioned an A-rat, had the cooks whip up a cake with frosting and everything. Gristle laden crap quality GI Ribeye steaks with fresh baked cake out in the desert of SoCal in January.
Jesus. If some of you guys broke out a thesaurus, we’d have the latest issue of the J. Peterman Catalog here.
I remember a particularly tasty Bourbon Chicken at the Century III mall back in '95. What a day.
There was also that pizza at some Albanian pizza shack outside the KFOR (or was it UN) building in Prishtina, Kosovo, that I so fondly remember as being the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life. I’m sure a lot of that has to do with hunger and just generally low expectations, but I swear it was the best. Runner-up would be the first time I had a pizza from Pizzeria Bianco here in Phoenix, AZ, after waiting in line for two and a half hours. But that’s less J-Peterman worthy. 
Oh, also the first time I ever had cevapcici at a muscular dystrophy camp I volunteered at in 1996 in Isola, Slovenia. But the best was a few months later, in Sarajevo.
Man, I used to have an interesting life.
You and me both.
Back to Peterman: We had a great lunch at the Hatcher Pass Lodge outside of Palmer, AK. It included a great slice of wildberry pie. But the best part was the scenery out the window.
Our high school concert band toured Norway back in 1986. We had to “buddy up” with someone and go no where alone. Luckily for me, my buddy and I didn’t get along, so we escaped each other as much as possible. In Oslo, I found Papa’s Pizza, which was so different from American Pizza. It had very buttery croissant like crust. It was a combination of being alone and having such a different type of pizza that remains stuck in my mind.
And pretty much every time we’re at the cabin, the menu includes hobo potatoes and burgers on the grill, served with baked beans and corn-on-the-cob out the deck. If we do not have it, something is wrong. For us, I guess you would call it iconic. As spring comes through, I anticipate that first weekend at the cabin with my ultimate comfort food.
A few years ago we rented kayaks in St Martin and paddled over to Pinel Island, a beautiful little white sand island without electricity. Most people who visit Pinel boat over on a ferry. There is a restaurant that serves gourmet meals even though they bring everything over in dozens of coolers (no electricity) each day.
We arrived in our kayaks and one of the beach attendants explained that no sooner had they set up for the day then they found out the ferry would not be running. So, they set everything up and were now breaking down to return top the mainland.
Before leaving, the 10 workers decided to set us up for a wonderful afternoon. They put 12 bottles of Carib beer in a container of ice and made us each a huge sushi salad of fresh raw fish, lettuce, fruit, along with sliced mango, baguettes, etc. When their boats motored away we were left as the only two humans on the island. What a day, what a meal!!
My new wife and I were spending the summer of 1964 touring England (with a couple days in Scotland too) and France. In Marseille, we went to a 2-star restaurant called Relais de Porquerolles and had an absolutely wonder full bouillabaisse that was worth every franc (and there were a lot of them). When the next Michelin Guide came out, the restaurant was dropped entirely, the chef committed suicide and, I assume, the restaurant disappeared.
In Japan in 1998, my Japanese host invited my wife and me to a restaurant in the hills somewhere overlooking the city of Tsukuba we were staying at. It was a kind of boiling water fondue in which we all (including his wife and daughter) cooked bits of meat and veggies on skewers. At the end of the meal, noodles were added to the cooking water which then produced a wonderful soup.
There is a middle eastern (I think it is Syrian/Lebanese) restaurant in Montreal that we go to several times a year and always get the same thing: first a load of appetizers, followed by a sharing a dish of roast lamb with rice and house-made yogurt. Called Alep if any of you are interested.
Around 1970, I had a truly memorable dinner at an out of the way restaurant (at the terminus of one of the metros) called Chez Bardet, which bit the dust a long time ago. What I recall is spending over $100 for four, about like $1000 today.
And three times my son has treated my wife and me to a meal at a restaurant called Herb Farms outside of Seattle. They have only one seating and only one menu which is different every night and is based nearly entirely on what is locally available (a lot of it grown on the attached farm). All the customers arrive at the same time, you sit at a table with other people and they bring out the courses (about 8 of them, IIRC, each with a wine) at the same time. A meal takes about 3-4 hours. The cost varies a bit with the day of the week, but runs north of $150. But truly memorable meals.