Immaculate Consumption Part II
In another week of grim news from several fronts, one story brought joy to my heart. A restaurant in New York City was shut down by the health authorities for being infested with cockroaches and rat droppings. That in itself is no big deal. After all, it's New York, where finding cockroaches and rat droppings in a restaurant is as common as getting a Middle Eastern cab driver. What makes this story so deliciously different, if you'll pardon the pun, is that it offers on its menu a chocolate sundae for $26,000, a Guinness Book record, edging out, I'm guessing, a $19 flan at some faux-French place in Vegas. Of course, the sundae features 27 different types of rare cocoa and "edible" gold gilt, and comes served with a take-home gold and diamond bracelet. Whereas with the flan you can't even keep the limoges china it comes in. What's dispiriting is not that there are people who are able to afford such a concoction, but that there are folks so relentlessly crass that they'd want to.
posted by John M Crowther @ 7:47 AM
5 Comments:
Good one John. I read about this. You may find comfort- I do_ in the liberties taken in the kitchens of such places. Roger
I couldn't agree with you more John! What has happened to the "moral compass" here?! How is it that someone with any inkling of a conscience could callously purchase such a trinket knowing full well the dire state of impoverished communities within our own country,(let alone the world)? One who is so grossly immune to such moral consideration is a pitiful person indeed. Leave it to those damn liberals to play the part of the killjoy...someone's got to!
The other day, Frank Bruni, the critic for the NY Times, had this to say about the chain of restaurants in New York run by the Cipriani clan, who began with Harry’s Bar in Venice, but have since spread their tentacles throughout the island of Manhattan :
“Over the years the Cipriani restaurant family and its employees have faced charges of sexual harassment, insurance fraud and tax evasion, the last leading to guilty pleas by two family members in July. But the crime that comes to mind first when I think of the Ciprianis is highway robbery... In this gleaming room in the Sherry-Netherland hotel, the Ciprianis charge $22.95 for asparagus vinaigrette — 12 medium-size spears, neither white, truffle-flecked nor even Parmesan-bedecked — and $34.95 for an appetizer of fried calamari. That’s at dinnertime, I should clarify. At lunch there’s a whopping $1 discount per dish.”
What's for desert?
The chocolate sundae at $26,000 makes the asparagus vinaigrette sound like a very good deal Il Prof!!! John's right the real killings made on dessert! LOL
I guess it's the old adage... something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it? eek
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