By Request: Best All-Time Food Experience

I believe it is very fitting that my best all-time food experience was had with The Man and The Girl Who Ate Everything!

The year was 2006 and I was living large. As a regional sales manager for an international company, I was wining and dining all over my territory. I never imagined that I would rack up so many frequent flyer and Marriott points.

My boss, Lori, and I had meetings in Miami and Orlando and so I arranged to meet my brother John and SIL Christy for dinner our first night in Florida. John used the Dolphins concierge to secure us a reservation at a major Miami Beach hot-spot, Prime One Twelve. There's an unspoken pressure to be chic and cool in Miami Beach...so Lori and I did our best to fake it.

One of my favorite things about an expense account was the freedom I felt to be a little adventurous sometimes...so when the appetizer recommendation was the Stuffed Lobster (broiled, steamed and stuffed with jumbo lump crab and bay scallops, finished with butter), it seemed like a no brainer.

It's been a few years, so it's possible that I'm exaggerating, but in my memory that Lobster was as big as a two-year old. It seemed to occupy the entirety of the table. And, again if I recall correctly, once it was splayed before us, it was doused in at least a pound of clarified butter. I recall a moment of reverence passing over us as we stared buggy eyed at the dish. And then...I was in a trance. A buttery, lobstery, decadent trance. There was nothing chic or cool about any of the four of us. The only thing on our minds was consuming this most ridiculous of appetizers.

Something about that dish was intoxicating because the rest of the meal is kind of hazy. I know there were very flavorful and tender steaks, some expensive truffle oil sauces...maybe a potato dish? Even though I believe we were all full from the lobster, the perfection of everything that kept coming to the table made it impossible to stop eating. It seemed almost like a duty to enjoy every morsel.

In a Pavlovian type response, my mouth can't help but water every time I think back on that lobster. I would urge everyone I know to partake...except I think Christy said a repeat visit later did not measure up to our first experience. I think that there must have been something magical in that first meal...so while I would love to partake again, I might just leave this perfect memory alone.

Christy, any crucial information I left out? Friends, what are your best food experiences? Any "can't miss" locations or recipes to pass on to us?