Best low cost meal ever...
 

Since a fair number of threads on here seem to provide us opportunities to boast how much money we spent eating and drinking on some occasion, I thought I'd ask the opposite.

Many of us have probably had the opposite happen - where we've had a fantastic local meal and paid to us what seemed like nothing for it - probably often when travelling.

My most memorable one was a little place in rural HKG. You have to have a Cantonese speaker with you, it's not at all fancy - but the food was fantasticly good, (mmm spicy aubergines and mmmm fried fish) and ISR it cost us about HKG$40 each - about £3.50 at the time.

Lau Pau Sat
 

Lau Pau Sat in Singapore ...... several meals char siu pork and chow mein .... chicken and rice ..... all at around 3 or 4 sing dollars so between one and two pounds.

Chicken kebab meal (with rice, egg, tomatoes, and chopped onion) and bottomless iced tea for PHP 100 ($2 USD) when I was in the Philippines. Sooo good, I love that place!

Most recent, 15 peso pork (any cut) tacos in Mexico (Cancun specifically, AWAY from the resorts), the stall next to the taco stall had fresh made ceviche for 80 pesos.

like uk1, many cheap hawker stall meals in Singapore, I get drooling just thinking about it.

much street food in BKK, so good & cheap.

I'd have to say that half of them, I have really no idea where I was, or whether the place in question actually had a name! One particularly memorable meal was on a bus journey to Satun Province in Thailand. It was just a chicken dish at a dusty bus station, but wow, it was quite fantastic - the kind of food that teases every sense of taste you have and leaves it tingling afterwards.

(Actually, I had a similar experience in Seoul. It was in a fairly beaten-up little shopping mall near the Namdaemun fish market, all served on metal plates. I found Korean food very good at having this kind of effect, too.)

I can also think of places near Peshawar in Pakistan (Afghan food from near the refugee camp on the road to the Kyber pass - no idea what I ate, but it was great), a shashlik vendor two streets from the Registan in Samarkand, numerous hole-in-the-wall places for "point at the bubbling pot of curry" in Himachal Pradesh, a "bring us your fish and we'll cook it for you" place near Fort Cochin where they let me into the kitchen to get some recipes, a hut selling soba near the shrines at Nikko, a rooftop café in Mumbai that does an outstanding dhal makhani, an unassuming bar near the docks outside Lisbon that did an incredible "catch of the day" platter, and a czevabdinica that was recommended to me in Sarajevo (by a then-refugee friend). I could probably find them again if I went back (or spent some time on StreetView where available...)

I also remember having particularly good rabbit and spaetlze with pine nuts, chicory-heavy espresso, flammekueches and the like at the CROUS (university restaurants) in Strasbourg (Louis Pasteur). Can't remember if they let non-students in, though.

Sounds wonderful stut .... and Sweet Willie for what it's worth KVS and I are currently good friends trying to fix a redemption trip to Oz simply to make the hawker stalls in Singapore .....

Another vote for Singaporean food. 2 years ago my brother and I just happened to stumble across an amazing small diner, full of locals, and the chicken rice was simply heavenly! The chicken broth was also amazing and all for less than £4 each including ice tea. The same in London would be over a tenner each. Why can't Singapore be nearer to London?! :p

In Vietnam, where I originally come from, I love eating a bowl of steaming delicious chicken pho in a street stall in Hanoi for around 50p. Can't get that in London!

I love eating good food for cheap on my travels and nothing excites my tastebuds more than finding a bargain treat.

1. "Lao Beijing" in Shanghai.
Awesome meal, really nice setting, delicious course after course, mind-boggling price (to a westerner).
2. Lobster in the lovely "Fonda del Angel" in pre-mega-Cancun days (30 yrs ago).

1) Ikan Bakar at a place on Sumbawa, Indonesia
2) Thai street "buffet" in BKK
3) Sichuan in Chengdu. Mmmm Sichuan pepper!
4) Roti Rolls in Calcutta
5) Bia Hoi + dinner in Hanoi. Beer at $.10/glass, food at $1/plate

banh mi in vietnam at around 8000 Dong (under US$ 0.4)....

A gigantic plate of sushi at the cafe at the MASP (Museum of Art) in Sao Paulo. I paid about $8 for it and it was the only time I've eaten sushi that I was given more than I wanted to eat (I still managed to finish though!). Great quality too, very fresh salmon.

In Alexandria, a nice sized bowl of Koshari from a corner shop where we were the only non-Egyptians - along with a liter bottle of water for 4EGP total (approx $0.73). Still my favorite meal from that trip!