sazy rock's top 10 best restaurant dishes (to date) around the world

If you haven't figured it out yet, I really like to eat - and not necessarily healthy foods - when I travel. Eating while traveling makes me happy. In this first of my top 10 series, I will be sharing my top 10 restaurant dishes so far. I've excluded the US because I live there. I also reserve to change my mind about what should be on the top 10 tomorrow -- only because there's so much tasty food out there. So, without further ado, here they are:

1.  Various dishes at Azurmendi near Bilbao, Spain
This restaurant just outside of Bilbao served delicious, local, seasonal and beautiful food. The lobster on lobster dish was absolutely simple yet so tasty. The truffled egg was not simple but, biting into the yolk just showed how a great chef can elevate a simple egg into something ridiculously good. Oh, and the foie gras ash was so rich and creamy I thought I died and went to heaven. Okay, I loved a lot of dishes at Azurmendi, which I reviewed here. In fact, I'll just say that, in the past five years (and probably more), Azurmendi served the best dishes I have ever eaten anywhere (including in the United States).

Five of around 19 dishes served at Azurmendi. Clockwise from top left: lobster with lobster cornet,
foie gras ash with a block of foie gras underneath, squid, mullet, and egg yolk infused with black truffles.

Gran Reserva Jamon from Joselito's.

2.  Jamon Iberico de Bellota at Joselito's in Madrid, Spain
Technically, Joselito's is not a restaurant but a store where you can get Jamon Iberico to take home or eat in the store. When I visited, they offered different kinds of Jamon Iberico de Bellota, which came from black footed Iberian pig fed on acorns while freely roaming the dehesa of the Extremadura region of Spain. The best kind I tasted was the Grand Reserva, which was aged for up to five years before being carved. The resulting ham was nice and fatty (I'd like to think that the fat was good for me because you know, it's acorn fed). When I ate it, the thinly hand sliced piece practically melted in my mouth.

restaurant review: azurmendi

I can't say I'm a food critic, because I'm not.  But, I like to eat... a lot.

On a recent trip to Bilbao, Spain, the hubster's friend suggested that we check out a restaurant called, Azurmendi, just 30 minutes outside the city in a town called Larrabetzu. It has three stars from the Michelin Guide. About a month or so after we dined there, the 2014 San Pellegrino's 50 Best Restaurants in the World list came out and identified it as the 26th best restaurant.  Now, I don't know whether that's true but this is what I know: Chef Eneko Atxa knows what he's doing.

The scene

The Azurmendi Greenhouse
where we tasted pumpkin seeds.

Azurmendi has two restaurant buildings: one perched on a hill and one below. They use the bottom restaurant for special events and casual dining, and the top restaurant for fine dining. The top restaurant is very modern with floor to ceiling windows so you can view verdant hills... and a freeway. Multi-lingual staff members immediately greeted us when we entered the restaurant. The waiting area (or garden) has a high ceiling with a lot of plants, a tree and a fountain.  We could see the kitchen from there.  We were told that if the restaurant was not busy, they regularly took diners on a tour of the greenhouse above the restaurant where they grew a lot of their produce.