Best food you ever ate in your life?

My Grandma's chowder...

Chick-fil-A

1.) My own prime rib 2.) My moms peanut butter cookies with a Reese's cup on the top.

Ribeye steak from Lily's in Louisville

Trainwreck sandwich with deli sauce from Gurney's in Harbor Springs.

Chilean Sea Bass

Cuban pork sandwich in Maui

My Mom's pizza. 100% Italian, homemade.

Poem: "Pot Roast," by Mark Strand, from Selected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf). Pot Roast I gaze upon the roast, that is sliced and laid out on my plate and over it I spoon the juices  of carrot and onion. And for once I do not regret The passage of time. I sit by a window that looks on the soot-stained brick of buildings and do not care that I see no living thing—not a bird,  not a branch in bloom,  not a soul moving in the rooms behind the dark panes. These days when there is little to love or to praise one could do worse than yield to the power of food. So I bend to inhale the steam that rises from my plate, and I think of the first time I tasted a roast like this. It was years ago in Seabright, Nova Scotia; my mother leaned over my dish and filled it and when I finished filled it again. I remember the gravy, its odor of garlic and celery, and sopping it up with pieces of bread. And now I taste it again. The meat of memory. The meat of no change. I raise my fork in praise, and I eat.

Best steak: Ribeye with a piece of fois on top at SW steakhouse at Wynn Casino. Perfect in every way. Crust, seasoning, doneness. Plus the rich piece of fois gras for every other bite.

Not in a  restaurant: Mom's beef stew, Mom's spagetti with homemade meatballs, Dad's ribeye steaks of the grill or his burgers off the griddle, my late wife's german potato pancakes with polish sausage or her split pea soup with homemade rolls, and her "chicken buns" (clat pot roasted chicken with dill, tarragon and cream with julianed carrots and scallons baked in a light roll), talk about a perfect road food when you have miles to cover and don't want to stop for lunch. 

Restaurant: Baby bay scallops in a white wine raisin cream sauce on Cape Cod. Duck breast and duck confit (Duck and Duck) in a light pesto sauce at Brrcco's in Boston, Ribeye at Smith and Wollensky's in Chicago, Beef cheeks at the Buffalo grill in Palo Alto and perhaps a dozen more.

And then there is true chinese food. A good friend of 3+ decades was a chef in China before he came here. If he's not busy he just makes me "something". Our deal is that he'll teach me about the cuisine of China by making it for me and I'll try anything he sends me. 

And then there is sushi and sashimi a recently made friend just makes me sushi of his choosing. Going on 50+ meals with no repeats. Simply amazing. Also the best quality sashimi II've eaten, as good as anything on the west coast or anywhere.

Food is like wine. As your palette become more experienced your notion of "best" evolves.

All that said, if I could sit dowm to Mom's beef stew with fresh biscuits, I'd take that meal to any other.   

Gus's fried chicken. If I'm having a last meal, that is it.

Au cheval burger is fantastic. Simple and perfect.

My own reverse seared prime rib and Yorkshire pudding. Still remember the first year I got it right.

Bootcamp Drill Instructor brought in Big Macs and Coke.  Best thing I have ever put in my mouth.  Might have been junk food depravacion though.

If we're talking restaurants... I love Zachary's Pizza in Berkeley, California.

If you haven't had Bonchon wings you are missing out on the best wings on the planet. I have yet to meet anyone that tries them and says they aren't the best they've ever had.

at Nobu at the hard rock hotel in Vegas, posing as a pharmacist with my wife so we both could get dinner free off of a drug rep. Family style; something like 7 courses. Total bill was $2200 for 9 of us, but we didn't pay a dime, which made it all twice as delicious. Now days if a rep gives you a chip clip with a logo on it they make you sign a form...

Prime rib.

I've had mole poblano and cemitas in Puebla, Mexico.
I've had pad thai and chicken satay off street carts in Bangkok.
I've had wild boar with a Vino Nobile di Montepulciano in Tuscany and lobster caught minutes beforehand on a beach in Madagascar.
All these moments, lost . . . in time.

Not sure about individual food dish, but:
For several years, my answer would have been the tray of food a friend smuggled out of the cafeteria kitchen back door to two of us when we were in college. We were broke and hadn't eaten in a few days.  He almost got caught, and we ran with the food, then finally found a spot in the outfield of the softball practice field, and had a picnic, gobbling it down.

But my answer would definitely have to be a 19-course dinner prepared by Joel Robuchon flown in from Paris and hosted by Robert Parker.  Unbelievable wine list! I unknowingly lucked into this- I was a last minute date for one of the guests because it was  a few days after my birthday, I lived two blocks from the venue, and I happened to have a tux.

To my everlasting delight, we didn't find out until a week later- the other dozen diners were paying  over $10,000 each (we were guests of the owner of the establishment). Not knowing that, and being blown away by each subsequent course and the wine it had be paired with made it a fantastic evening. We started early and left after 2 AM. I will probably never be able to experience anyhthing like it again, and whenever such a question comes up (I am normally terrible with such questions) my answer is a 'no-brainer'.

Any fruit or fish in Hawaii this year over Thanksgiving!

I had a Kobe steak in Tokyo last year. Hands down the best steak I have ever had - same goes for the entire meal. Thank goodness I wasn't paying though, price was outrageous.

A Nice Chianti

Ukrainian Borscht and Classic Beef Stroganoff at Russian Tea Time Restaurant in DT Chicago.

CRACKER BARRELL

Wagyu steak at Morimoto's Napa or cassoulet at Chapeau in San Francisco or red duck curry Spice Market restaurant, Thailand or meatball parmesean hero, Bunk Sandwich, Portland or Alaskan King Crab, Dynasty Restaurant, Vancouver BC.

I used to love subways steak and cheese, I'd load it with jalapeños, great when I used to smoke the tree.

Anything grilled over charcaol. Obviously with a decent grill master at the helm. Chicken, ribs, steak, burgers, fish, corn on the cob, pineapple, etc. Once you learn how to properly use charcoal, it's hard to go back to gas.

Just had it yesterday. Stuffed crust deep dish from ChicaGos after the Cubs game.

Fresh lobsters from a little lobster shack in Old Orchard beach Maine.