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Food

Best Of 2014: The Most Delicious Meals We Ate This Year

Because no pocket restaurant guide or Yelp app could ever compare to thumbing a ride with ravenous chefs and hitting up secret (and not-so-secret) spots around a given town, that’s exactly what we did. It’s a little show we like to call Chef’s...
Photo by Diane Yoon.

It stands to reason that chefs know where to find the most delicious food on the planet.

While many of them survive on little more than simple carbs, alcohol, and nicotine during service, they refuel at the end of the night on fare that's both fine and not so fancy. And yeah, more booze.

And because no pocket restaurant guide or Yelp app could ever compare to thumbing a ride with ravenous chefs and hitting up secret (and not-so-secret) spots around a given town, that's exactly what we did.

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It's a little show we like to call Chef's Night Out.

While we shared some unforgettable (if slightly foggy) evenings with Daniel Patterson, Dominque Crenn, Enrique Olvera, Kavita Goodstar, Tom Adams and the Pitt Cue Co. gang, Kris Yenbamroong, Quino Baca, and Jamie Bissonette, we sifted through our many meals to cherry pick a few show-stoppers.

RAMEN_TAT_42_edit

Ramen? In Texas? Hell yes. Austin's Ramen Tatsu-Ya doesn't fuck around, ladling out nearly 600 steaming bowls of tonkotsu-style, chashu-topped noodles every day. The team started their evening with Jameson shots, hot toddies, and pork pate. It ended with Detroit-style pizza dunked in concentrated ramen broth, tsukemen, and even more Jameson.

CNO-henrique

For one of our latest episodes, we went out with Henrique Fogaça, a MasterChef Brasil judge and lead singer of hardcore band Oitão. His São Paulo restaurant Sal Gastronomia is famous for its soft-shell crab. "You eat everything, the brains, the eyes, it's really gross," Fogaça says. "But it's good." After service, he and his crew devour bloody rib-eye and tapioca dumplings, before wrapping up back at Sal with fried fish.

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French-Basque chef Inaki Aizpitarte is a bit of a living legend in the Parisian dining scene, where his restaurant Le Chateaubriand currently occupies the 27th spot on the world's best restaurants list. And unlike the other members of the 27 Club, he only began his career as a mere 27-year-old novice. In this episode, Aizpitarte and friends proved that they can drink themselves into stupors worthy of doomed rockstars.

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MomoSteak

Anyone who hasn't been living their entire life under a pile of takeout containers and Big Gulp cups knows the wide reach and much-deserved cred of Momofuku. Over the years, chef and owner David Chang has garnered respect for his empire of flavor the world over, including his four concepts in Toronto. After the respective crews plate up some lobster, okonomiyaki burgers, and seriously spicy noodles, they head out for pressed duck and crepes, followed by a pig's head courtesy of Matty Matheson.

catbird seat duck dish

Erik Anderson and his three-person kitchen staff at Catbird Seat manage to cook, plate, and serve a fourteen-course tasting menu to about 40 people every night. But perhaps more impressive than that is the ungodly amount of Fernet that Erik and his team drank on his night out with us.

lee_tiernan

Not full yet? Here's a little throwback to late 2013, just to round things out: Once MUNCHIES pal Lee Tiernan was done cooking up some pig's head blood cakes at East London's St. John Bread & Wine, he took us to Tooting's finest curry house, Lahore Karahi, followed by Breton cider and Jameson. The evening ends at Brick Lane to pick up some fresh bagels stuffed with ox heart and Sriracha.