Sex And The City's Top Food Moments Ranked Worst To Best

On HBO's "Sex and the City," the hijinks of Carrie Bradshaw and her three best friends — Samantha Jones, Miranda Hobbes, and Charlotte York — were usually fueled by cocktails, cosmopolitans specifically. But in addition to all those drinks, memorable culinary moments were often key parts of their storylines. In fact, "Sex and the City's" most significant romantic arc, the on-again-off-again relationship between Carrie and the commitment-averse Mr. Big, was bookended by meals, starting with their first date at a Chinese restaurant in Season 1 and ending with their post-courthouse wedding brunch in the last scene of the "Sex and the City" movie. 

Fans can even pay to go on a "Sex and the City" bus tour around Manhattan, which makes stops at some of the character's favorite eateries, including one of the cafes they frequented and the bakery that served their favorite cupcakes (via On Location Tours). Thankfully, some of the restaurants we saw in the series were fictional. We'd hate to think the fancy French bistro that gave Charlotte and her paramour Harry Goldenblatt a vicious bout of food poisoning was an actual place of business. Nevertheless, in celebration of the show's new revival series, "And Just Like That," we give you some of "Sex and the City's" top food moments, ranked worst to best. (Warning: major spoilers ahead.) Cheers!

By now we all know that in the "Sex and the City" movie released four years after the series ended, the over-the-top wedding Carrie and Big had originally planned was called off when Big got a case of cold-feet (via YouTube). The evening before, however, the couple hosted an opulent rehearsal dinner at the upscale Manhattan restaurant Buddakan. Miranda, for her part, was feeling less than celebratory, having recently separated from her husband Steve, who had admitted to cheating. Stepping away from the table, she ran straight into Big. "You two are crazy to get married," she told him. "Marriage ruins everything."

Now, whether or not her sour warning was the reason behind Big's next-day freakout is up for debate. Once Carrie found out about the exchange, she blew up at her friend, blaming her for the canceled nuptials, which some fans disagreed with. "If your fiancé leaves you at the altar because your broken-hearted friend says one disparaging sentence," a Redditor commented, "then how solid is your relationship?" By the end of the movie, Carrie ultimately worked things out with both her friend and man. But considering how much misery and chaos this dinner caused, it ranks lowest on our list.

In an effort to lose the weight she put on while pregnant, Miranda joins Weight Watchers in Season 5. After meeting a sweet, chubby man named Tom in one of her group meetings, they head to a diner, where they treat themselves to a single Krispy Kreme donut, splitting it in half (via YouTube). The vibe gets romantic and Miranda starts dating him. This is where things start to get messy.

Tom is a little, how do we say, rambunctious for her style, getting uncomfortably close to her face after a dive between the sheets. According to Elle, "Miranda went out with an overeater, and he over-ate her," an amused Carrie quipped later. Miranda tries to address the issue, but ends up humiliating Tom, prompting him to quickly cut her loose. Many fans on Reddit argued that she didn't belong at Weight Watchers in the first place and that she carried her postpartum curves just fine. Given all the embarrassment that ensued over that one donut, Miranda probably would have been better off eating the whole thing on her own.

McDonald's plays a role in scenes involving two of Carrie's boyfriends. At the end of the show's second season, she shows up at Big's, gamely donning a beret and bearing a bag of Mickey D's to-go. "Bonjour," she exclaims. "Voila le French hat, voila le French fry. And it doesn't stop there. I have Le Big Mac and Le filet de fish" (via YouTube). It's an endearing attempt to handle the news that he needs to move to Paris. At first, Carrie is under the impression he wants her there as well. When he balks at the idea that she accompany him, she becomes understandably irate, hurling the food at the wall. The two end up splitting yet again as a result.

According to Screen Rant, in Season 6, Carrie's late-night McDonald's run is a bit more lighthearted. Her new boyfriend Aleksandr Pestrovsky literally sweeps Carrie off her feet, surprising her with a designer dress she had been coveting and tickets to the opera. Outside the performance, however, his over-the-top overtures overwhelm her and she ends up fainting right on the sidewalk. Instead of a black-tie evening, they end up at McDonald's, where she introduces him to the Golden Arches and feels a lot more like herself. Listen, fast food rarely needs to be quite so dramatic, but we give points to Carrie for staying loyal to her burger of choice.

Miranda's weight was a frequent storyline that probably wouldn't have made it to air these days. In fact, many fans, including these Reddit users, now agree that her fat-shaming was wholly uncalled for. During the height of the show's popularity, her issues with food were often played for laughs, including a Season 4 episode in which she struggled to stop overindulging in chocolate cake. In an effort to curb herself, she chucked the cake in the trash, only to creep back into the kitchen and continue nibbling on it anyway.

While doing it, she calls Carrie's voicemail to confess her chocolate sins. "I know you're probably busy having mind-blowing sex right now," she says while licking her hands, "but I feel that you need to know your good friend Miranda Hobbes has just taken a piece of cake out of the garbage and eaten it. You'll probably need this information when you check me into the Betty Crocker clinic" (via YouTube). We love this scene not only for its humor but its relatability as well. After all, who among us hasn't given in to a sweet-tooth impulse we'd rather take back?

Carrie and Big's first date came after their first time in the sack. Unable to keep their hands off each other, they had sex first, dinner later, but the casual Chinese restaurant he chose was a let-down. To Carrie, it wasn't exactly the kind of place you'd take a woman you were trying to impress. Her fears were confirmed when a male friend they ran into later admitted he had picked the same restaurant in an effort to keep his date a secret. The reason? He didn't believe the woman was pretty enough (via Tumblr).

Feeling slighted, Carrie confronts Big about it, demanding to know if he too had been trying to hide their romance for the same reason. Shocked, Big explains that he simply likes the food, no more and no less. Look, Big acted like a jerk plenty of times, but lots of fans agree that this wasn't one of them. As one Redditor opined, "I think it shows that Big felt comfortable being himself around Carrie. She was unpretentious compared to his usual type of woman, and I think he genuinely enjoyed being able to go for greasy Chinese food without feeling embarrassed or having to explain himself." Another who took his side agreed. "I actually believe he liked their food. Sometimes you just want good Chinese food."

Charlotte was reluctant to date her divorce lawyer Harry Goldenblatt, but once she gave in to his nebbishy charm they turned out to be a real match. Perhaps no scene better demonstrated their devotion than the stomach eruption that followed what was supposed to be a romantic meal at an upscale French restaurant. To impress his new girlfriend, Harry ordered a seven-course dinner that included a cheese cart (via YouTube).

When they arrived back at Charlotte's place, both were turned on and ready for some action, until their stomachs started churning. Harry made a dash for the toilet first, but Charlotte wasn't far behind. Instead of getting tangled in the sheets, both spent the night on the bathroom floor with a serious case of food poisoning. However, the moment proved to basically everyone that this was true love indeed. As Buzzfeed noted, they "went through food poisoning together and still want to bone." Fans on Reddit agree. "It was so cute and romantic," one person wrote, "in a weird way." So while this decadent meal did make them sick, we love it for bringing them closer together.

This memorable dinner wins points not only for its laughs, but for steering Samantha into her most substantial relationship of the whole series. Noticing a very cute waiter working at a raw-food restaurant, Samantha becomes determined to take him to bed, even if it means sitting through a cold, four-course meal she finds revolting. She plants herself at one of his tables, ready to wait patiently until she is the last person there. To her surprise, she realizes she isn't the only woman in the restaurant with the exact same plan (via Reddit).

She outlasts nearly everyone, until, finally fed up, she dabs her mouth with her napkin and approaches her final competition. "Honey," she tells her. "You've put up a very good fight but you have no idea who you're dealing with. I'm going home with him and you're going home with key lime custard. So what do you say I buy your dinner and we call it a night?" The diner folds. Rather than a typical one-night stand, however, the waiter — a sweet, hunky actor named Smith Jerrod — ends up being Samantha's partner for the rest of the show's entire run.

Getting dumped always sucks, but in Season 6, Carrie is on the receiving end of a breakup in the worst way possible: via a Post-it note. After spending the night with Jack Berger, a fellow writer with insecurity hang-ups, Carrie awakens to a message he leaves stuck to her table. "I'm sorry, I can't, don't hate me," he writes, leaving her dumbfounded. "Boy, do I have news," she tells her pals. "Berger broke up with me on a Post-it. Read it and weep my friends" (via YouTube).

Adding insult to injury, Carrie gets hauled into a police car that night, having been caught smoking pot in public while trying to forget the humiliation. Attempting to wiggle out of the ticket, she tells the cop what happened, but even he doesn't believe a man would stoop that low. She procures the note as proof and, upon reading it, the officer takes pity and promptly releases her. She and her pals end up celebrating with a banana split. This sundae is significant not only for the terrible day it topped off but because the post-it note and its message quickly went viral. According to The Cut, even today, "I'm sorry, I can't, don't hate me," remains one of the show's most classic lines.

In Season 6, Miranda's sexy neighbor Robert quickly became her boyfriend. And he appeared to have it all: good looks, a great job as a sports doctor and no problem committing. The only issue? Miranda was unknowingly still hung up on Steve, her ex, which made things awkward when Robert was ready to take things to the next level. To let Miranda know how he felt, he left her a box with a giant cookie that had the words "I love you" spelled out in frosting (via TV Maze). Unable to return the sentiment, Miranda freaked out, devouring the entire thing in an effort to stall.

"How can I love him," she later bemoaned to Carrie, "if I can't even say the words?" Turns out, she could say the words, just not to Robert, blurting them out during an impromptu moment alone with Steve. That paved the way for the former couple to reconcile, eventually marrying each other later that season. This cookie was not only enormous in size, it ended up having major significance as well.

This scene, to be honest, would place number one on the list, if only it hadn't led to a heart-wrenching breakup. After moving to Los Angeles to support boyfriend Smith Jerrod's acting career, former power player Samantha finds herself bored and unhappy (via Screen Rant) Things reach a boiling point on Valentine's Day, when she plans the most erotic of meals to celebrate with her man: a raw sushi dinner placed all over her bare body.

Samantha waited. And waited and waited. By the time he showed up several hours later, she had not only eaten alone, but she was also ready for a fight. Hurling rice and raw fish at his head, she unleashed on him. Letting him know she "got wasabi in places where one should never get wasabi," she bellowed that she was not the kind of woman who slaves all day in the kitchen only to wait for a man. The scene is a delight and re-established Samantha as someone who suffers no fools. Unfortunately, the couple — who had been together for years at this point — ended up splitting soon after, but the image of flying hand rolls will live forever in our hearts.

Call us corny, but we're topping this list off with a happy ending: the post-wedding brunch after Big and Carrie, finally, after over a decade, tied the knot. After a year of not speaking in the wake of their ruined first wedding, they finally said, "I do," in a small courthouse ceremony (via YouTube). Shortly after, they celebrated with a casual brunch with their friends, a scene which was shot at real-life Brooklyn restaurant Junior's, according to Spoon University.

It was hardly the blowout affair they had originally planned for nearly 300 people at the New York Public Library, but the plates of diner fare sure looked good to us. "It wasn't a fancy dinner reception either," Carrie noted, "just food and friends." Junior's claims to serve "The World's Most Fabulous Cheesecake," which is probably a lot better tasting than your average wedding dessert. And again, maybe we're just being sentimental, but in terms of top "Sex and the City" food moments, this meal definitely takes the cake.