My best lobster so far was consumed at the original Palm Restaurant on 2nd Ave in New York City - the late 1960s. I was dining with Ray Schillmoeller, a hotshot, national sales rep for TRW. I was a poor pedagogue - he picked up the tap. Our waiter was surly, the table covered with newspaper and the lobster so large it should have been returned to the sea to breed. But it was delicious, ingested with copious amounts of butter and draft beer. The worst lobster was a slightly smaller crustacean served up at a restaurant on Cayo Largo, Cuba in 2006. What it lacked in flavor it made up for in tensile strength - try chewing on Teflon body armor.
The finest pasta dinner ever occurred in the late 1950s, on a sunny Sunday afternoon at the Nicotera family camp near Hinckley Lake, N.Y. I had been courting Annette, my future wife. As was then the tradition all the men - uncles, cousins, Annette's father Louie and guests were seated on two benches on each side of a twelve foot table. The table, benches and extra chairs filled the spacious screened-in porch. The women - aunts, cousins, Annette, sister Madeline, their mother Josephine, began serving the meal - rigatoni with a perfect marinara sauce, spicy sausage, plump garlic meatballs slightly crisp in one spot, beef marinated in sauce, herbs and rolled up and crusty Nicotera Italian bread. To drink a satisfying red wine and Genesee Cream Ale. The pasta course was followed by a magnificent anti-pasta. Finally, coffee and Nicotera Bakery cookies - almond nut were my favorite. Sexist as it may sound now I remember thinking, "Boy! This is great!" In addition to wonderful food what made this dinner for me exquisite - three aunts, Agnes, Petrina and Tina and two uncles, Frankie and Arthur - each went out of their way to call me "John" for the very first time. I then understood that I was under serious scrutiny as a possible match for their beautiful niece.
Best fish dinner - a Chinese restaurant on Massachusetts Ave in Cambridge - a short walking distance from the Harvard campus - late 1970s. Accompanied by daughter Cathy, I ordered a Hunan Crispy fish. What arrived was a whole carp. I know the joke, "Bake carp on an oak board for 8 hours at 500 degrees. Remove from oven, throw away the carp, eat the board." But this carp as prepared was beyond delicious. To this day I scan every menu looking for a comparable dish - which leads naturally to a recollection of a fish dinner nightmare.
On Longboat Key, Florida there is a respected restaurant the (something) House. In 2013, Carol Hanlon and I were dining there for the first time. The menu offered "a whole fish" prepared with a sales pitch of ingredients. My memory flashed with that crispy fish of long ago - I bit. The fish that arrived was indeed lips to tail but had been deep fried so long that the fish was literally gone - what remained was brownish skin stretched over bones. Respectfully I pointed out to the waitperson that I could indeed tell the difference between a fine dinner and garbage, strongly suggesting I was in the presence of the latter.. The trash was removed, the financial charge quashed, apologizes received and I skipped the main course. But my quest continues for that now mythical carp dinner of yore.
Kagoshima, Japan 1970, dinner with eight Japanese businessmen and one American, David Mosher. We sat on tatami mats in a "L" formation. A geisha clad waitress (five in total) sat directly in front of two men and was charged with keeping our Saki cups full. There was much laughing, toasting while exotic dishes kept appearing before us. I was drinking and eating everything in reach. I gingerly picked up a hot ceramic bowl and with my sticks pulled the contents up and partially into my mouth. I tried to bite through the contents but failed. And the portion between my teeth was connected ropey-like to everything below in the bowl. So moving my lower jaw back and forth I tried sawing through - unsuccessfully - then my first wave of panic. The contents were slippery, greenish and sinewy as hell. I thought of kelp rotting on a Maine beach. Sawing! Tiny beads of sweat popped out on my forehead. Dave was watching my anguish with a perfectly straight face. "Well I think I am going to pass on that dish" and then he smiled and reached for his Saki cup.
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