What fictional meal would you love to eat?
From breakfast at JJ's to a burger from Jack Rabbit Slim's to a cherry pie at the Double R Diner, this menu of fictional foods makes our mouths water
TV Features Peter Pan
Clockwise from bottom left: Crazy Rich Asians (Screenshot: YouTube), Twin Peaks (Screenshot: YouTube), The Bear (FX), Pulp Fiction (Miramax) Graphic: The A.V. Club
Even before The Bear returns for season two on June 22, Hulu’s food-centric show has our stomachs rumbling. Obviously, delicious-looking dishes are going to appear in a show about a restaurant, but sometimes mouth-watering meals pop up where you least expect them, too. Take, for example, the veal parm from Satriale’s in The Sopranos, or the frosting feast from Hook. These fictional meals make us want to say, “I’ll have what they’re having.” So we asked our writers: What fictional meal would you love to eat? Here’s what they ordered.
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Big Night. Obviously.
Big Night. Obviously It’s the omelet in the last scene I want. Beautifully filmed, and if Stanley Tucci didn’t really make that thing in real time I don’t want to know.
Re: The Menu, Chef makes the point that American cheese is the best cheese for a cheeseburger because it melts without separating.As a Canadian, I’ve become embroiled with both my compatriots and my friends south of the border about what our local equivalent of American cheese is. We have “processed cheese,” the best known brand being “Kraft singles,” and as far as I can tell it is similar but not identical to American cheese. But I’ve encountered people who swear that it’s the exact same stuff and those who say it’s very different. The Takeout had a bit on it and it didn’t clear anything up, nor has anything I’ve read online been definitive. It’s been a while since I went down to the States so maybe I’ll have to do a fact-finding mission…
As an American, Kraft singles = American cheese for me and everyone I know. I know that American cheese exists behind the deli counter, but I’ve never bothered to buy it there.
I’ve been to the actual RR Diner, and the coffee & pie ain’t all that, sadly. That probably means the Pulp Fiction burger & shake would take the win for me in this list.However, the lack of Hannibal in this list is appalling! Sure, there’s probably people in it somewhere, but every episode has what look like the tastiest people-centered dishes imaginable. Dr. Lecter knows what he’s doing in the kitchen.
Even without the people, I’m not sure I want hummingbird tongue or whatever.A lot of it sounded pretty offputting on their own (IMHO).
That diner is on my bucket list, but obviously I would not have any high expectations about the actual food. And it won’t be the same without Norma serving me anyway.
Anything from the Soup Nazi is my choice, a glaring omission here. I guess it really is, “no soup for you!”
Just remember, if you don’t get bread, don’t ask for it.
youtube recently served me (ha!) a clip of that prison cooking scene from goodfellas, i instantly got hungry
Bring me the Breakfast Menu from Milliways, and another pan-galactic gargleblaster, I need to have a think about that.
On that note, I’d go for Harga’s House Of Ribs.They say’s there’s bits of now-extinct animals in the fryer grease.
Some of these don’t really seem that fictional. Singapore Street food is just something you eat if you are in Singapore.
soft pretzels and cheesesteaks aren’t really that big a deal if you’re from Philly.
If you’re from the center of America, everything is mythical.
“So you mean people eat food other than corn? Amazing.”
I’l also say that the street food wasn’t what really got me hungry in ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, it was the homemade bao in another scenes. Maybe it was just the loving care that went into each one being made, but I was salivating.
How come you never make me fresh bao?
Mmm…Singapore street food.
Speaking of Singapore, on my only visit I also went to the Raffles Hotel’s Long Bar and ordered a Singapore Sling. It arrived pre-mixed and delivered by one of those snake things that dispense mixers. Not really what I was expecting.
Yep and, if I recall, it wasn’t cheap. I have been in over a decade but I think it was like 30 Singapore dollars(like $20 USD). It’s very much a tourist trap but the bar and hotel are cool to check out.
My visit was over 15 years ago so I’m guessing things may have changed (and it will certainly be a lot more expensive). But it was a cool thing to do, especially as my dad used to talk about the place a lot, having been there in the early 40s, before being required to leave at rather short notice…
When you make the counter-list for worst fictional meals, might I suggest The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.
Try the cock, you know where it’s been!
Try the cock!
No love for Aunt Meg’s steak, eggs, mashed potatoes, and gravy? GTFO.
FUCK’S SAKE FRANK WE WENT OVER THIS.
No steak & eggs with mashed potatoes & gravy from Twister?
Demetrius and Chiron Pie from Titus Andronicus.
Everlasting GobstopperDoozer ConstructionsSpace-Age Moon Waffle
Jackrabbit Slims does look like a really fun place to eat. Was there ever an attempt to make a real life version, even as a popup? Honestly, that scene in the film plays like a setup for a real life chain. As for fictional meals, I’d sure love to experience the feast in Babette’s Feast. Just a sumptuous multicourse meal with the finest French food and drink.
There are a lot of faux 1950s diners like that around, although more so in the 1980s-1990s when there were more people around who remembered the actual 1950s though. But for example, Ed Debevic’s in Chicago is still around.
I’ll cop to being a fan of Johnny Rocket’s. All criticism of their food being valid, I just love the aesthetic.
Yes, Johnny Rockets does do the aesthetic well even if the food is nothing to write mother about. What places like Ed Debevic’s offer (besides better food) is that the waitstaff are all wannabe actors and do their whole bit in character, which is fun.
What about Chidi’s Peeps Chili from The Good Place? I know it says “best fictional meals” and on first glance it might seem like a bad meal. But guys, it has M & Ms in it too!
And it has its own theme song!
“Dip your little paws in my peep chili.”
The first time I saw that episode I could have sworn he said “balls”.
I instantly flashed to this scene from X Files.“Uh, since this is farewell, when nobody was looking I used to dip my boys in the cole slaw.”
kinda hot 😉
Chocolate in chili isn’t that unusual.Pink marshmallows are more rare.
Babette’s Feast, of course. (Too old?)
I was scrolling through to see if someone had posted this.
How is a feast at Hogwart’s not on this list?! Or even just Butterbeer at The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade? I also don’t mean the bullshit they serve at Universal in Florida. I mean the goddamn real butterbeer!
i never understood the moist-maker in the turkey sandwich – an extra piece of bread soaked in cold, jellied gravy? bleah. no thanks.
Adam’s Ribs from M*A*S*H. That strudel with cream from Inglorious Bastards.
Don’t forget the coleslaw.
This is literally the exact thing I thought of
All I really want in life is a bowl of ramen from Tampopo.
Especially after all the work that went into it…
Not really a “meal” but this is still what I think of when asked what movie food I’d want to eat, especially that teacup at the end, which I always imagined was the perfect cross between butterscotch and caramel.
I think I would have been tempted to jump in the chocolate river before Augustus Gloop tainted it.
The correct answer is anything from Spirited Away.
Most food from a Ghibli movie, really. The feast that turns you to a pig, Calcifar’s breakfast from Howl, any of it.My choice would be the ramen from Ponyo.
There are so many good looking meals in anime and manga.“Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill” is a recent favorite that makes me curse having celiac disease even more than usual.
I’ll take a pie of the day from The Pie-Hole, please. (Pushing Daisies, I luv u.)
That’s my choice!
2nd choice: anything from ‘Eat, Drink, Man, Woman’.
I’d have to go with (almost) any meal described in detail in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” books.All the while the courses came and went. A thick soup of barley and venison. Salads of sweetgrass and spinach and plums, sprinkled with crushed nuts. Snails in honey and garlic. Sansa had never eaten snails before; Joffrey showed her how to get the snail out of the shell, and fed her the first sweet morsel himself. Then came trout fresh from the river, baked in clay; her prince helped her crack open the hard casing to expose the flaky white flesh within. And when the meat course was brought out, he served her himself, slicing a queen’s portion from the joint, smiling as he laid it on her plate. She could see from the way he moved that his right arm was still troubling him, yet he uttered not a word of complaint.Later came sweetbreads and pigeon pie and baked apples fragrant with cinnamon and lemon cakes frosted in sugar, but by then Sansa was so stuffed that she could not manage more than two little lemon cakes, as much as she loved them.
I’m not super big on seafood but I need to try this stew: The beer was brown, the bread black, the stew a creamy white. She served it in a trencher hollowed out of a stale loaf. It was thick with leeks, carrots, barley, and turnips white and yellow, along with clams and chunks of cod and crabmeat, swimming in a stock of heavy cream and butter. It was the sort of stew that warmed a man right down to his bones, just the thing for a wet, cold night.
Mmm… Frey Pie
As someone who is always so, so tired, I think I’d love it if I could eat one of those stamina-boosting meals from ‘Breath of the Wild’ and suddenly have enough energy to get through the day. Maybe one of the mushroom skewers, they look pretty good.
How about the “left side of the menu”, including the chicken dinner, from “Diner”?
I’d like to try ambrosia.And by that I mean the mythical food of the gods, not the jello salad.It must have been referenced in some show/movie.
The only answer I’ll accept is the pie from Thinner …
You can eat the ratatouille from Ratatouille. Pixar had Thomas Keller come up with an actual recipe that would have interesting preparation and look attractive. The New York Times published the original recipe but now there are adaptations all over the internet (search “confit byaldi”.)https://www.pbs.org/video/chefsteps-get-creative-pixar-style-ratatouille/
I’ve made it, a bit time consuming but if you like ratatouille it’s an especially tasty rendition of the ingredients with nicer textures. Just do it in summer when everything’s in season.
the apple pie from American Pie
Soylent Green please.
Agreed. All these years later and this moment still sticks with me, lol.
Can’t eat spaghetti without thinking of Goodfellas
Yes
The meal from the opening scene of “Eat Drink Man Woman,” no doubt.
Most of the anime I have seen have a very detailed depiction of food – I recall salivating during several spots in Summer Wars and episodes in Psycho Pass – but let me go with the classics and wish I could enjoy the dinner in Babette’s Feast.
There’s unauthorized anime cookbooks floating around at those geek tchotchke stores, and I’ve mulled about getting them. But I suppose at that point, I could get a proper Japanese cookbook that includes both entrees and desserts instead of trying to recreate recipes from shows I mostly don’t watch.
I also laughed in retrospect, realizing Ratatouille is very much a sneaky attempt to get kids to eat their vegetables. That’s really all ratatouille is.
A lot of the anime, especially Spirited Away, I would like to say are really inspired by Tampopo (1985). Ironically enough, I wanted to say I would love to try anything from Babette’s Feast and Tampopo.
The Van der Luyden dinner in The Age of Innocence.
Monster Hunter meals… especially if served by fancifully costumed cats.
As a fan of live sashimi, I would like to try Klingon Gakh.
anything from “eat, drink, man, woman” or “wakakozake”(live action because those are real restaurants)
I basically checked to see if Big Night was on the list, and it was, so all’s right in the world.
Freddy’s Ribs from House of Cards and the Cress soup from The Witches.
The only one that matters is Big Night
The correct answer has suddenly occurred to me. Any menu served by Bertie Wooster’s Aunt Dahlia’s chef Anton. Especially the nonnettes de poulet Agnes Sorel.