1. For dessert, my wife ordered, cannoli in balsamic vinaigrette.

...looking @ the menu, we were puzzled. How on earth does this work?!? Let’s just try it if nothing else. I said, I have to try it even if I hate it, I have to try it. I want to see how they make that work.

Not only did they make it work, it was GREAT! A dessert to remember. Just goes to show you, have an open mind & don’t be afraid to try something *new/different” before rejecting.

By the way: Maestro is a great place & I recommend highly. You will drop some money there, but it is memorable. Top 10-15 on my list (so far).

2. Vietnamese/French restaurant in NJ: the chef is a good friend. She made especially for us: filet mignon in espresso coffee beans. It’s unreal how GREAT it was! She ran one of my fav restaurants, period! But, that can also be because she prepared dishes especially for us (whenever we dined there).

Sadly, she closed that place & now works as a Consultant for high-end restaurants. Good for her, bad for us.

A nice, talented little lady who wanted to change careers to become a lawyer. And, I always told her, too few of us have some kind of a talent. You have a talent, stick with it. There are lawyers dime a dozen. You have a talent/skill & it is hard to find.

You gotta love chefs with such creativity. These 2 dishes stand out.

I once had a salad made up of only flower petals.

I had broiled grapefruit for dessert at a restaurant; it was awesome.

Too bad I can't have it anymore. Damned Zocor...

I put nasturshum flowers from the garden im salads all the time. They have a great spicy zing to them.

The strangest dish I had in a restaurant was sweetbreads. However I was pretty young and this was before I knew what sweetbreads were so when they showed up I was a little bit shocked to say the least. I ate them but I'm not a fan.

I'm sure I'll come up with a lot more but at the moment the first one that popped into my head was the Sauteed Ant Eggs I had in Mexico City once.

fried crickets were weird.

garlic kangaroo was ok.

chicken feet were useless.

i dunno about "strangest". i may not have hit that one yet.

Not unusual to eat but an unusual preparation:

Small neighborhood restaurant in Bangkok.

Drunken Shrimp

Start with 4 or 5 jumbo shrimp ALIVE.
Dump the live shrimp into a large bowl of hi-proof vodka.
Light the vodka and let burn until the flame goes out by itself.

You could do this at home

Quote:

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chicken feet were useless

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Not to the chicken!

Parmesan sorbet.

Got another one on my trip to Amsterdam @ the Vermeer Restaurant:

Soufflé with vanilla ice cream in extra virgin olive oil, olives, carrots, & celery. You read my dish correctly, no mistakes on my part.

It was awesome. I would never imagine it & I don’t know how these chefs come up with such combinations but it was awesome & it all worked. The olives on top of the ice cream with olive oil & carrots on the bottom was awesome. Though, the celery did not work for me, I have to say. I could do w/o it.

And, as I mentioned in the past @ Maestro in Wash DC/Virginia: cannoli in balsamic vinaigrette & black pepper.

To go along with a 3rd such unique dish/pairing: Vietnamese/French restaurant in NJ: filet mignon covered in espresso coffee beans.

Pig intestine in hot pot of bubbling pig blood- one little nibble, then I ordered something far more Americanized