Random Best Restaurant Experience?

Over the years, Donna Elena and I have been fortunate enough to have so many wonderful dining experiences that I wouldn't even attempt to try to determine which restaurant was "the best." I'm not alone in expressing such reluctance. Indeed, I can't recall ever seeing a review from any highly-regarded restaurant critic that proclaimed the meal that he or she had at a particular restaurant to be "the best." (Perhaps that's why there are quite a few dining establishments in the world that have achieved three Michelin stars, while there aren't ANY with four stars.) Nevertheless, earlier today, the New York Times' legendary reviewer, Mimi Sheraton (who is now retired) wrote about some dining experiences that, over her illustrious career, were so exceptional that they would pass her most stringent test; That is, would you get on a plane and travel many hours and many time zones, just to have a meal there? You can read about which restaurants met her lofty expectations if you click on the following link:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/travel/26personal.html

Hi Trabzon! Thanks for the link to R.W. Apple Jr.'s article, which was very enjoyable to read.

At the end of his article, Mr. Apple apologized that he had not included any restaurants in Turkey, Thailand or Japan. Well, Donna Elena would like to add to his list a recommendation for Thailand that she says is worth getting on a plane just to eat there. It's the Mayflower Chinese restaurant at the Hotel Dusit Thani in Bangkok:

http://www.dusit.com/en/hotels/thailand/bangkok/dusit_thani/restaurants/the_mayflower.html

Elvedon - please be assured that I never intended, nor did I mean to imply, that your saying that you had one restaurant experience that shines above all others simply marks you as being inexperienced. I'm sorry if you got that feeling after you read my post. Please allow me to elaborate.

What I believe I said was that, after all these years, and after so many wonderful dining experiences, I wouldn't want to even attempt to determine which restaurant was "the best," and that I couldn't recall ever seeing a review from any highly-regarded restaurant critic that tried to single out just one establishment that he or she thought was "the best." The link that I provided in my post, as well as the link that Trabzon supplied, discussed an alternate approach that was taken by two separate reviewers to try to meet the challenge of looking back and choosing what were some of the most extraordinary dining experiences they had ever had.

But, if you think about it, perhaps you and I were interpreting the question posed in the discussion topic (Best Restaurant Experience?) in different ways. (Surely, the three words associated with the discussion topic provided ample room for ambiguity.) What I discussed in my post was why the challenge of determining, over the course of many years, in many different countries, over a wide variety of different cuisines, which restaurant was "the best" was perhaps an impossible task. However, since, in your post, you discussed going out to a fine restaurant on your first "real" date with a boy you had fallen in love with, who would eventually become your husband, I think you were telling us about your best experience IN a restaurant. In such a case, I completely understand your point. Most certainly, that dinner in that restaurant was an experience that could never be matched again.

Said another way, I met Donna Elena for the first time while riding a bicycle. Looking back, that was by far the best bicycling experience of my entire life.