Written by Jennifer Lawinski on CafeMom's blog, The Stir.
It's not your mother's Christmas dinner. Nor my mother's. Nor mine. Because I don't have $200,000 to shell out for the world's most expensive Christmas dinner for four cooked by British chef Ben Spalding. But looking at the menu makes me wish I'd won that Powerball jackpot a few weeks back, mostly because I think this is the only time I've ever seen anyone offer to make anyone a Wagyu beef heart.
Spalding is cooking one Christmas dinner and selling it through luxury e-commerce site VeryFirstTo.com. What's on the menu? I haven't even heard of some of these things before, but some of it sounds absolutely delicious. Some of it though, seems pretty weird.
The meal begins with a $3,200 bottle of Diva vodka (diva is right!) and a bottle of Piper Heidsieck 1907 Champagne worth nearly $60,000. Whoa. Each course, of course, is paired with a wine that probably costs more than one of my mortgage payments.
The first one is a bird's nest full of Almas caviar with 150-year-old balsamic vinegar and Pata Negra Iberico ham. The second is a whole white Alba truffle served with a $4,000 melon from China. I have no idea what could possibly make a melon worth $4,000.
The meal's centerpiece is a rare breed of turkey served with Wagyu beef heart and fillet served with Perigord truffles and $8,000 worth of pistachios. And it's all wrapped in a $9,600 gold leaf. Because all turkey tastes better wrapped in gold. (Also, are those magic pistachios? They have to be magic pistachios to cost that much.)
Dessert, suffice it to say, is served on a "gold Ugandan vanilla plate" and incorporates the beans of coffee berries "excreted by the Asian Palm Civet cat," and Densuke watermelon, "a seedless fruit grown only on the island of Hokkaido, Japan, where up to 10,000 watermelons are produced every year."
It's the kind of extravagance that borders on the bizarre. Who wants to eat beef hearts or pieces of gold? It's like they're making it excessive and fancy just for the sake of being excessive and fancy. For bragging rights. "I had the world's most expensive dinner!" Which just makes it tacky.
I'll stick to my plain-old roasted organic turkey and Brussels sprouts with Parmesan, thanks.
Do you think the $200,000 Christmas dinner sounds like the meal of a lifetime or a waste of money?
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