Friday, September 2, 2011

The Best Meal of My Life Revisited After 6 Years


Back in 2005 I was hardly what you would consider a foodie. However, I was heading out to LA on a trip and wanted to eat at least one really good meal. After doing some research on the Internet Spago in Beverly Hills came up as not only one of the best restaurants in Los Angeles but one of the best in the country. So I made reservations for what would become the best meal I had ever eaten in my life.

I still remember how everything tasted to this day. The first course was an organic vegetable soup, followed by grilled prime ribeye steak for the main course. The dessert was some sort strawberry and ice cream concoction that was phenomenal. 

Wolfgang Puck came over and asked how everything tasted.

"This is the best soup I have ever eaten", I told him.

"You're still young. You still have many great meals left to eat", He told me.

And so a few years had past. I had since traveled many more places and eaten many great meals just like Wolfgang Puck said I would. However, that meal at Spago still held the top spot in my memory.  

Then a funny thing happened. I started to question if I ate there again if the meal would be as good as I remembered. I knew some people that recently ate at Spago in Las Vegas and they didn't seem to rave about it like I was expecting. So I decided as soon as I returned to LA again I would go back to Spago and try to order the exact same meal and see if it was just as good.

So last week I made the return trip to Spago. Wolfgang Puck was there again making the rounds the same as six years ago. I looked at the menu and saw the vegetable soup was not on there this time, so I ordered the Chino Farms tomato soup for the first course.

 
I casually took a picture with my phone so as to not draw attention to myself. I was a little embarrassed taking pics of the food, and honestly these pictures can never do justice to how amazing this food actually is. 

Anyway, after the first spoonful I knew it was just as good as I had remembered the other soup being. Rich, smooth, pure... delicious. A cracker placed on top to balance the rich flavor of the soup. Absolutely magnificent!    

I was excited about the main course because they still had the grilled prime ribeye steak, the exact same main course I had ordered six years ago.



Buttery, rich, tender. The steak was so delicious that I can only pray that the food in heaven is half as good. It was just as wonderful as I had remembered. Even as I became full I just wanted to eat this dish forever. By this point I knew this meal was the best meal of my life.

So lastly, even as I was bursting at the seams, I had to have dessert. I ordered the melba, which consisted of raspberries, golden raspberries, Tahitian vanilla ice cream, and other various goodies. Wolfgang Puck himself delivered it to the table making it a perfect end to a magnificent meal. 

I didn't get a picture of the melba, which was a shame considering it was not only the highlight of the meal but probably the best food item I have ever consumed in my life.  

All in all Spago was just as good as I remembered, and it still remains the best place I have ever eaten.