My Top Ten Dining locations - 2010

On The Road

Top Ten Dining Locations 2010

Note: I'm trying to catch up and finish the 400 or so posts I started and never finished. They've been languishing in my blogger line-up as "drafts." I doubt we'll ever have a year like this one again. 

2010 was not a year of fine dining for us. I can't make a list of meals that knocked my socks off from a culinary standpoint. We did, however, eat some meals in wonderful settings any one of which I'd be happy and grateful to repeat. 

1) Barbecued chicken and rice in a goatskin tent in Wadi Rum, Jordan on Richard's birthday. We reclined on carpets and leaned up against huge pillows, eating while a camel herder entertained us on the guitar. Dinner was followed by an evening of stargazing like nowhere else on earth. Maybe I held back from posting this because I look so terrible in the photo .

2) In the lovely Hotel Tribunal, Mortagne France, in their formal but comfortable dining room - the three course set meal - a pleasant surprise two nights in a row with perfect service and something new for us: veal brains. 

2) Amid fragrant hubbly-bubbly pipes (houkas) at Naranj in Old town Damascus, we ate wonderful Syrian food and in particular, a fabulous tray of sweets.

3) Rumah Kecik breakfasts on the Indian Ocean, listening to the birds sing and looking out at Lombok strait in Candidasa, Bali

4) On the bay in Honfleur, in a setting familiar from countless paintings of the scene, we ate skate wing in a tourist joint served by a kind and gentle, but professional waiter. 

5) With a one hundred duck chorus, we enjoyed a hearty breakfast of homemade cereals and breads with superb coffee, in the lovely sitting room of Moulin de Fresquet, a 14th-century mill where we stayed in Gramat France in the Dordogne.

6) With good friends, a fabulous Fondue on a mountainside on a rainy day in Gruyere, Switzerland.

7) Grilled fish at La Lucciola on the beach in Seminyak, Bali, listening to the surf roar.

8) On a cold rainy night in Annecy, France in a cozy fire-warmed inn, we ate Raclette and Tartiflette- ah, the crusty breads and stringy cheese.  

9) Our first meal in our new house—a picnic lunch with friends in our office (the only room with furniture).

10) Perhaps I should have removed this because I got food poisoning at the buffet—but the location was spectacular. If you go, have a drink only. In Palmyra, Syria on the terrace of Zenobbia Charm Palace, suffering through terrible buffet food but gazing out at the most thrilling ruins.