The $175 hamburger

[BTM]

File this under "People who have WAY more money than sense" category.

This place called The Wall Street Burger Shoppe has a burger that costs one hundred and seventy-five dollars. 

Let me repeat that: a f**king HAMBURGER that costs $175 dollars. 

What's really hilarious here is that they just recently RAISED the price from $150 so it could keep its record as the most expensive hamburger in the world.  Here's the neat part, the price is justified because the burger includes, "Kobe beef patty, lots of black truffles, seared foie gras, aged Gruyere cheese, wild mushrooms and flecks of gold leaf on a brioche bun."

Now, if you're like me, you don't really know what most of that s**t is.  I knew what mushrooms, cheese and beef were.  I also know what Truffles are but only because they were the subject of a long ago Peanuts storyline that a friend of mine asked me to scan and send him jpgs of years back.  So, I had to do some research..

Kobe beef is basically a fancy smancy type of beef raised almost exclusively in Japan (mainly because the Japanese maintain a very tight monopoly on the product.)  The cows are feed a diet of Sake and beer and given massages (?), which, in theory, help tenderize the meet.  I'm told the stuff goes for about $300 a pound.

Foie gras is basically duck (or goose) liver prepared in a way that involves force feeding tons of food to the animals to make their liver five to six times larger than usual.  Now, I'm no PETA anti-meat nut here, but stuff that much food down some animal just to blow up its liver seems damn cruel and excessive to me. 

For Gruyere cheese, I can’t tell you too much about it, only that it’s a fancy cheese that takes about five months to a year to fully age.  According the to Wikipedia entry, “It is often described as creamy and nutty when young, becoming with age more assertive, earthy, and complex.”  More assertive with age?  So, if you try to eat an older piece of Gruyere cheese, it what, makes you put on a bid and use silverware first?

Gold leaf.  Now, this one had me confused.  I assumed “gold leaf” was just a term for a fancy and/or rare leaf-like vegetable that was yellowish in color and named for such.  I did a search on "gold leaf" and could only find references to jewelry at first.  Then I hit a page about EDIBLE gold leaf flakes.  Now, call me silly, but I did NOT know gold was consumable.  I mean, yes, I figure you could theoretically shove gold into your mouth and eat just like anything else, but I didn’t know they actually made gold for edible decoration.  I went by some sites, including www.ediblegold.com which has 23kt gold flakes you can use to decorate cakes and whatnot (along with some admittedly tasty looking pictures.)  Right now, you can get a shaker (approx 1 3/8" x 1 3/8" x 1 5/8") with about 100mg of Edible Gold for the low price $24.95.  Personally, I think I’d just with sprinkles or something. 

Oh, and, if you’re wondering, they do have Edible Silver as well.

The brioche bun, is basically really fancy bread, and, unlike the duck liver, actually looks like something I’d personally enjoy eating.

So, I guess that sort of explains how the burger is so expensive, just not sure why any THINKING person would buy one.  According to the article, they usually sell about twenty to twenty-five of these a month.

I don’t know, I find it incredible someone could waste that much money on a freaking burger when to me personally, $175 is a decent chunk of change and would go towards paying off a bill or two. The waste of it all just sickens me.  Then again, I’m not one to tell others what they can and can’t do with the money they’ve legally earned, but still...

Anyway, if you want to read the whole article, you can go here

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080520/od_nm/hamburger_dc

[Patient7]

If I ever have that much money to completley WASTE I'll probably eat it, but it had better be the best F!@#$%* burger I've ever eaten.

[indianasmith]

Man, I spent $7.50 for a Bacon Three Cheese Burger at Chili's today and thought I was uptown!

[Killer Bees]

Eating gold leaf is perhaps the wankiest thing you can do.  I prefer candy sprinkles and such on my cakes!

As for foie gras, it's just pate.  Or if you want to get really peasantlike about it, liverwurst. I hate pate of any kind.  The liver is the body's filtering system, so any crap that goes through you gets filtered through there, including all the dreck from your blood.  I've eaten pate before and it takes, literally, like s**t to me.  So any time you eat it, you're just eating the refined waste of whatever animal it came out of.  No thanks.

I've never had truffles, but anything a pig digs up with it's snout is definitely not the thing I'll be eating any time soon.  Give me basic mushrooms any day.

Brioche is nice, but any bakery will sell you one and it's definitely not worth the high price tag of the burger.  A good substitute is Turkish pide which you can buy in a supermarket for a couple of bucks.  Kobe beef is called Wagyu beef here and is delicious because it has more fat marbled through it than regular beef.  They grow it here now.  You can get a nice steak dinner with it for about $32 which isn't expensive, that includes mashed potatoes, gravy of your choice and veggies.

When you get to the level of income that makes it okay to pay $175 for a burger, reality ceases to resemble what you and I know.  Sometimes you can earn so much money that it loses it's meaning and value and you become so sad and farty and wanky that you believe it's cool to brag about spending so much on a burger.

They can have it.  I'll take my home made double bacon double beef, double cheese, burger with everything on it any day.

Still I'd love to visit the store and take footage of the idiots coming out who just paid $175 for a burger and put them on You Tube under the heading - "Wankers and Their Money Are Soon Parted" .   

[CheezeFlixz]

The Wall Street Burger Shoppe has a burger that costs one hundred and seventy-five dollars.

Does it come with a side order of slutty blond? If so, in this case I'll pass on the SUPER SIZE.

[asimpson2006]

As for foie gras, it's just pate.  Or if you want to get really peasantlike about it, liverwurst. I hate pate of any kind.  The liver is the body's filtering system, so any crap that goes through you gets filtered through there, including all the dreck from your blood.  I've eaten pate before and it takes, literally, like s**t to me.  So any time you eat it, you're just eating the refined waste of whatever animal it came out of.  No thanks.

I'm not a liver fan myself either.  The first time I had liver was in Iwakuni Japan about 6 years ago.  My friends mother worked as a DoD civilian and had to go to the Marine Corps Base in Iwakuni for a few days so we stayed in this business hotel and they had a restaurant on the top floor of the hotel.  I didn't realize at the time it was liver and though it was okay, but it was so grainy tasting. Then my friends mom told me what it was, then I did not eat it after that and haven't since.   

When you get to the level of income that makes it okay to pay $175 for a burger, reality ceases to resemble what you and I know.  Sometimes you can earn so much money that it loses it's meaning and value and you become so sad and farty and wanky that you believe it's cool to brag about spending so much on a burger.

That's sorta like a person would buy the $1,000 a lb truffle that Wegmans sells in their stores.  I have yet to see it, though a friend of mine has seen it alreayd. 

[BTM]

Okay, my experience with "fine" dining is really limited, but in my limited experiences, with the exception of things like beef, ice cream and certain types of breads, the really "fancy" food tends to taste like crap, and makes me wonder why anyone would PAY that much extra for junk that tastes bad.

Then again, maybe it's just cause I'm used to "peasant" food, and wouldn't know what fine dining is.

Course, I don't frankly know why anyone would want to "get used to" drinking coffee, so maybe my dietary tastes are just completely messed up compared to "normal" as well as supposedly "high society" people.

[Raffine]

The Wall Street Burger Shoppe has a burger that costs one hundred and seventy-five dollars.

Does it come with a side order of slutty blond? If so, in this case I'll pass on the SUPER SIZE.

I wonder if you at least get curly fries and a Coke.

[asimpson2006]

Okay, my experience with "fine" dining is really limited, but in my limited experiences, with the exception of things like beef, ice cream and certain types of breads, the really "fancy" food tends to taste like crap, and makes me wonder why anyone would PAY that much extra for junk that tastes bad.

Then again, maybe it's just cause I'm used to "peasant" food, and wouldn't what fine dining is.

Course, I don't frankly know why anyone would want to "get used to" drinking coffee, so maybe my dietary tastes are just completely messed up compared to "normal" as well as supposedly "high society" people.

I think different people have different tastes.  I just think like people of high society might think cheap food is not as good as high priced food.  I can be happy with a cheap burger from a fast-food restaurant, or a small diner, as compared to the other chain places that sell burgers (Applebees, Chili's, etc)  While I still enjoy the latter's food, I can be happy with cheaper food.

When I was a training meat cutter a few years ago I used to get tired of what we call foux rich people who would b***h to our face if something wasn't just right.  It took nearly everything in me to not tell these people "There are a lot of people who are a lot worse off who would bend over backwards just have to this."

[Hammock Rider]

Wow, I've never agreed with communism, but when you hear stories like this you can understand why so many people were attracted to it. What an abomidible waste of money. I have no problem with people having money, but spend it on something worth while.This is almost like something the rich, decadent Victorian Lords and plutocrats would eat in their secret clubhouses. Or maybe Hedonist -bot from Futurama. The owners of this restaurant must have read their P.T. Barnum.

[BTM]

Well, in fairness, it's not just the rich that waste money, I mean, after all, bottled water is a BILLION dollar industry.

[Killer Bees]

Well, in fairness, it's not just the rich that waste money, I mean, after all, bottled water is a BILLION dollar industry.

Yeah.  What's up with THAT?  I bought a Brita water filter jug and a $10 filter last about 8 - 10 weeks in my house.

Like another poster said, I'm a peasant eater as well.  I appreciate a well parepared meal but there are limits.  Give me steak, salad and fries or a rice side dish any day.  Something that's worth the money and not so expensive and tiny you're afraid to eat it.  I think the fanciest thing I'd eat is risotto.