(DON THOMPSON / iNFOnews.ca)

OPINION

My appetite for great food has fed my travels all of my adult life. Often - unapologetically - I have journeyed for hours and thousands of miles simply to dine. These culinary pilgrimages were not always to fancy, expensive places, but invariably where they prepared certain dishes so well that I - and others…let’s call them foodies - were drawn like moths to a flame.

Once arriving for the food, I have stayed places for other reasons…history, architecture, the chance to discover and experience different cultures…engage others of like and unlike minds…and simply enjoy an adventure.

On occasion it has worked the opposite way…finding myself somewhere, I sought unique examples of what some might call the culinary arts…but most of us simply call great food. Great food…not just good food. Good food you can always find without driving for hours or needing a passport.

That’s why most of my life I’ve been a bit of a vagabond-with-portfolio…that is, a traveller with an income and a relatively good sense of direction. I’ve found great food in countless cities, towns, villages and crossroads in 62 countries. It should come as no surprise that where you find great food…you will find interesting people, cultures…adventure.

Let’s be honest, it’s easy to find great food in, say, New York City, Paris, London, Montreal, Milan or New Orleans. Indeed, there’s a culinary expectation. Smaller towns take some effort. It’s difficult to be a culinary pioneer when thousands - sometimes millions - precede you at places like La Tour d’Argent in Paris or Restaurante Botín in Madrid.

Both were early targets of mine…the 300-year-old Paris restaurant known for its wine list and centuries of famous patrons and Botín…because Ernest Hemingway wrote of it endlessly in “The Sun Also Rises.” By the time I was 22…I had dined in both. My memory still clings to my roast suckling pig in Madrid and the pressed duck in Paris…more than a half-century later.

Places need not be fancy to earn a reputation for great food. I drove to Sausalito while on business in San Francisco just for Hamburgers Sausalito…a place with a rotating charcoal grill in the front window and an entrance and exit the width of a centre aisle in a Boeing 737. There’s no seating…so you take your burger to the park down the street or sit on a wall along Bridgeway Promenade. Again, I drove half an hour across the Golden Gate just for lunch…more than once.

Some places - like the love of your life - you simply can’t get enough of…and are worth your extraordinary efforts. Visits to these places - fancy and casual - re-play in your memory like an unforgettable song that always brings smiles.

One such place for me is in New York City…in a train station…Grand Central Station Oyster Bar Restaurant.

The main dining room of Grand Central Oyster Bar Restaurant.

Image Credit: Don Thompson

It has been open - serving the world’s freshest seafood - almost continuously since the train terminal opened on Feb. 2, 1913. It closed in 1974 for a few weeks after a bankruptcy that engulfed practically all of New York City…and again for most of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Otherwise, it has served mouthwatering dishes featuring oysters, clams, lobsters, scallops, crab, shrimp and fish to patrons through two World Wars, The Great Depression, 20 different U.S. presidents and 27 world Champion New York Yankee baseball teams.

During the 1970s and 1980s, I would have had to get a second job as a waiter to be there more often. I grabbed a place at the 42-seat oyster bar once…often twice a week…sometimes waiting three-deep for one of the stools…New York’s version of eating on the run.

The restaurant - despite being in the bowels of a train depot with nary a window - seats 440 patrons. Besides the 42 seats at the Oyster Bar, there are hundreds of red-checkered clothed tables in the cavernous main and the saloon dining rooms. There are more chairs at tables sans red-checkered cloths in the cocktail lounge and at four U-shaped counters, reminiscent of old diners.

The view was commanding…even without windows. Vaulted arches and ceilings accented by the tile work of Spanish architect and builder Rafael Guastavino provided an ambiance of an earlier, grand era. The whimsical interlocking herringbone pattern of the tiles covered every inch of the ceiling, the lighting…subdued but ample…the waiters perhaps more business-like than friendly…but knowledgeable.

I loved the entrance to the restaurant with its whispering gallery…a 30-foot circular archway… also covered in herringboned tiles. You could stand opposite a friend and converse in whispers despite the noise of passersby because of the magical arced structure.

Once a month, four friends - writers from Forbes, Business Week, The New York Times and Time Magazine - and I would meet at The Oyster Bar Restaurant just before noon on a Friday after their deadlines for lunch…what qualified as a business lunch meeting.

I had a generous expense account to entertain writers and editors. In those days, corporations could write off 100 percent of business entertainment…and since I handled media relations first for General Electric and then DuPont…a $250 lunch for five never raised eyebrows too much…even from the bring-a-sack-lunch-to-work bean counters auditing my expense reports.

Often the five of us shared a platter of raw oysters on the half-shell to start, then each ordered one of the glorious pan roasts…with either oysters, lobster, shrimp or scallops. We chose from maybe two-dozen different varieties of oysters…flown in fresh from around the world. Usually a couple bottles of French Muscadet washed them down.

One of our more memorable lunches happened in mid-December in 1982…we were in a particularly festive, holiday mood.

Technically, it was lunch…but none of us returned to our respective offices that day. Rather, lunch came dangerously close to morphing into dinner. I ordered more expensive French wines…a fine Champagne, then a fine Meursault…and I believe another fine Champagne…or two, perhaps.

We decided to dine on every oyster the place had…some from France, England, Massachusetts, Florida, Virginia and Canada. We each ate a platter of 18…then 18 more…and then 18 more…hell, there might have been yet another 18. It was a four-hour lunch…and there was much laughter.

When the check arrived, I picked it up and started doing some calculations…despite my mental efforts, I couldn’t make it total less than $900, including tip. That’s the equivalent of about $3,300 today.

I looked at my friends, almost laughing…and said, “I can’t cover all of this, guys!” I passed the check around…and each of my friends stared…as if it might change somehow. Eventually, I covered half of it…and my four friends split the other half. I threw in an extra $20 tip because the waiter had to write five new checks…the waiter who was still rolling his eyes as we left.

Fortunately, any deception on our part has long exceeded the statute of limitations for any crimes in New York.

Fast forwarding to last week, my wife, Bonnie, and I gathered with some wine friends in Gainesville, FL. to celebrate the holidays. One friend - Cristina Whitehouse - grew up in New York and remembered fondly her trips to GC’s Oyster Bar as a young girl with her dad to eat oyster pan roasts.

Cristina’s eyes light up and she smiles like a kid anticipating Christmas at the mere mention of GC’s Oyster Bar. She knows I have the recipe…and after years of “we should make ourselves oyster pan roasts”…last week we solemnly swore we would feed our fond memories of glorious times in 2025.

When we dine on those divine oysters, our respective memories will no doubt flood over us…and bring smiles…even as we make new memories…treasures that only those willing to travel far and wide for a favourite dish can fully understand.

— Don Thompson, an American awaiting Canadian citizenship, lives in Vernon and in Florida. In a career that spans more than 40 years, Don has been a working journalist, a speechwriter and the CEO of an advertising and public relations firm. A passionate and compassionate man, he loves the written word as much as fine dinners with great wines.

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