Top 10 Restaurants!

So H and I love good food, and we were talking about this last night as we were enjoying a fabulous meal at the Ubiquitous Chip in Glasgow. Here's our list of our top 10 favorite restaurants and why. What are yours?

In no particular order of merit :

1) Gordon Ramsey, London - a special treat where the food is gorgeous and the service/presentation brings the term "food opera" to life. The experience, and the price, were truly eye-opening. And no, we didn't see Mr. Ramsey come out and harangue the guests

2) Gramercy Tavern, New York - we wandered across this place on our first trip to New York. Despite being underdressed, we managed to grab a reservation in one of the most popular restaurants in NY. It was the first truly classy food and service experience we had at a decent price

3) Ubiqitous Chip, Glasgow - this just got added to our top 10 list. The Chip was started in 1971, focusing on locally sourced, well done Scottish fare. An amazing concept in 1971, and still a really great experience even now. I had a steak au poivre (ie. cooked in its own juices) that was the best steak i ever had, along with the most flavorful cherry tomatoes ever! And i can still taste the white rice pudding from last night as i type this note...

4) Cheesecake Factory, US - yes, i know this is a chain. But H and I had some really nice experiences here, the cheesecakes are AMAZING, and the portions are great value for money. If you count t
he number of times we walked out of here ready to burst... you'll understand why this is here...

5) Chili Padi, Singapore - this is the only Singapore restaurant on this list because you can really only have good Peranakan in SE Asia. This is a consistently good restaurant that serves our favs like Kue Pie Ti and Beef Rendang, and an absolutely amazing sago with gula melaka.

6) Inopia, Barcelona - hands down the BEST Tapas place we've ever been to. it's a diner like restaurant where you get to see the cooks making your tapas in front of you. we loved it so much, we went back twice during the trip! I still recall the waitress trying to explain what a sea urchin was (cos we couldn't understand the menu) and making oinking noises...

7) Zingerman's Roadhouse, Ann Arbor, US - www.zingermansroadhouse.com. seriously, go check it out. H and I have never had a bad experience there, and H swears by the pulled pork. Me, i swear by the donut sundae (actually both of us do). AMAZING!

8) Japanese tapas in Vancouver - don't recall the name of this place but the japanese tapas were amazing. still the most succulent squid i've ever had....

9) Helena's Hawaiian Food - a diner which won a James Beard award for best local food. Like Chili Padi, this offered a great experience, made special by the fact that you could only get this in Hawaii.

10) High tea at the Empress, Vancouver Island and the Ritz, London - we cheated a bit here as we couldn't decide. The Empress had the best experience, with its high vaulted ceilings and windows and tremendous amount of natural lighting, all overlooking the shore. The Ritz, on the other hand, had some truly amazing tea and scones (clotted cream!!!!) and desserts.

Honorable mentions :
Valentino's, Singapore - loved the food, and definitely grea in Singapore, but perhaps not the best that we've ever tasted.

Les Amis au Jardin, Singapore - this pales in comparison to Gordon Ramsey

Oonetheque, Singapore - a new place we tried out that's pretty good (in Suntec City)

A kaiseki meal that we had in Japan

Slanted Door, San Franciso - a great Vietnamese place by the Bay. Still the best paper rice rolls i've had!

As we put this list together, we realised that we had yet to taste really amazing dim sum or Chinese food. Also, it was sad to see that we didn't really have too many Singaporean dining experiences in there. Any recommendations?

Anyway, hope to add more to this list in future years!