The best dishes I had in 2018

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2018 was particularly good to me from a culinary perspective.  I made a long-overdue return to Europe and hit a few places I had been meaning to visit, and I also managed to scratch a few itches in Japan.  I'm grateful to all the chefs who, no doubt, have spent countless hours creating amazing dishes for us to enjoy.

As in previous years, this is simply listed by chronological order.  These were the dishes which brought out the strongest emotional response from me.

Le canard : Challans duck breast and foie gras duo, mango with ginger vinegar and fresh coriander from Robuchon au Dôme, Macau - I had the proper "tournedos Rossini" a few weeks earlier, but the version made with Challans duck was arguably even better than one made with beef... as the duck breast fused with foie gras seemed more "natural".

Europe 2018 day 4: 3-star farmhouse

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We got up bright an early to take the train from Antwerp to Bruges.  Like other days in our itinerary in Belgium, we are only staying one night here.  And for this one night, we chose Hotel Van Cleef and got ourselves a canal view room.  As we browsed through TripAdvisor, Hello Kitty and I were amazed to find that out of more than 500 reviews for this hotel, not a single person gave it a "one star", and only one person gave it "two stars".  For that reason alone, we were curious to check it out.

It was immediately apparent to us after we arrived at the hotel.  While it was too early to check in, the receptionist gave us a tour of the hotel premises, offered us a voucher for a free tour of the historic center of the town - which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in its entirety - and offered us coffee and breakfast on the hotel's patio facing the canal.