The most you've paid for a meal

[CHasR]

Arby's Big Boy: $5
Gros Garcon de l'Arbieux: $50

Fish Sandwich: $2
Ciabatta du poission Italienne: $20

Moon Pie: $1.98
Croustade del luna en sarcophage: $198

http://www.wawa.com : Priceless!

[pixyy]

When it's worth it, spending a lot of money is still not expensive.
I usually don't spend a lot on restaurants and the most expensive meals I had were probably the ones that were paid for by the company

A few times a year my wife and I like to eat at our local Italian restaurant - one of the better in Copenhagen. The price for me includes not only the food and wine, but the whole experience.
At this little Italian place it has always been a perfect blend of attention and privacy in a very relaxed atmosphere. Their food is simple and soooo delicious it cannot be expressed in money (so is the wine)
The few times we eat there, we end up spending dkk1500 (approx $300) for 2 incl wine.

We got a dinner for 2 there as a birthday present - so I'm looking forward to going there soon:
www.labuca.dk

[fel bautista]

I had to think about it, but it was with friends and we went to a restaurant in San Francisco, now closed, called Ernie's. It was unique to San Francisco, been there forever, ,etc. My wife and two close friends ( our kids-soon to be god-parents) went there for dinner. Its the kind of place that you should wear at least a sport coat and nice slacks, even for the mid 70s. So, being fresh out of school, we wore our jeans, polo shirts and sneakers. They sat us away from the bar traffic. I remember I had veal chops, and some uncommonly good red wine. I think my buddy had a steak and caesar salad. The decor could be describe as San Francisco bordello, lots of dark wood, lots of red wall paper.

I remember that the banquet in back of us had some people from Stanford, talking about the lack of play by their football team.

When we got the bill, about $150 for four of us, with wine, my wife remarked that she could get some shoes and do the week's groceries on that money. But it was a really good meal and is still in the family mythology.

[Paul]

Maxime's in Paris when I was on Term in Europe in college. The bill for my date and I was about $300.00. That was back in 1988. It sure the hell was nice, I have to say...

[Lambchop]

Weekenders' comment about a 284-GBP meal made me wonder. What's the most you have paid for a meal?

The most for me occurred the other day. I was out with some friends who are more well-to-do than I am, and they took me to a restaurant in Lexington, where the chef and most of the staff were from Italy. I ordered something with goat cheese and vegetables, plus bread, and my total came to $63.00.

The prices were not on the menu, and when I asked I was told "if you have to ask you can't afford it," so I ordered one of the only vegetarian things I could find, and didn't know it was going to be so expensive.

Luckily I had just received my housing check and I could pay for it. One woman's total was over $100, but she drank wine there which I think was really expensive.

Here are some restaurant and social facts which will help you next time.

First, one should never eat in restaurants which will not tell you the price in advance. I'm not even sure if that practice could be legal. THEY know the price -- that's how they know what to charge you, after all -- and they can tell you. If the response you get is "if you have to ask, you can't afford it," then eat some place else. Don't fall for the implied "are you good enough to eat here" ploy--it's just a manipulative, dishonest behavior.

Second, restaurants may have two menus. One is the "with prices" menu. The other is the "without prices" menu, which is given to guests when the host doesn't want them to feel inhibited about ordering what they'd like. If you are given that type of menu by mistake, just ask for the other. If you were given a "without prices" menu, it seems that your friends took you there as their guest and they intended to pay for it. Or the restaurant staff assumed that.

If your friends did not intend to pay for your meal and told you "if you have to ask, you can't afford it," that was inappropriate behavior. "Friends" don't do that--people who want to harm us do that! They were either incredibly insensitive or were deliberately mocking your financial status. Those people might have more money than you do, but that doesn't make them worthwhile. Find a better class of people to hang around with.

There is only one other situation I can think of where this sort of thing might have happened. These "friends" weren't people you hoped to work for, were they? As in a group of men, slick and possibly all of one ethnic group, who had a lot of investments or some other type of income and who were checking you out to see if you'd fit in enough to do some work for them? Because if they were, you need to vanish into the woodwork pronto and hope you never hear from them again.

[mutepointe]

Leave those restaurants guessing how much you're going to pay them for the meal.

[DCrom]

Sometimes it is worth the money for a superb meal in a wonderful setting.

But price doesn't always map directly to food quality - I've paid high prices for so/so food in pretentious settings, and I've also had first rate food - fresh, imaginative, and wonderfully prepared - for comparative bargain prices.

Also, different people have different thresholds for "I don't *care* how good it is, it's too expensive."

There's a fine dining restaurant ("La Foret") near our home. Dinner for 3, with dessert for 2 and wine for 1 came to about $220, including tip. For the quality of the food and the setting, I thought it was well worth it, even if I wouldn't go back often. My wife and daughter enjoyed the food, but wouldn't go back because they felt it was overpriced. But a very similar experience in a different local restaurant ("The Wine Cellar"), while still expensive ($180 for 3, I think), had them agreeing that we would return for the next special occasion dinner.

Asian food is often less, but there are high-end Chinese restaurants around that can end up costing $40-50 a person. The food *is* good, but you're paying for the decor and (sometimes) expensive ingredients chosen as much for prestige as flavor. While, because it isn't at all pretentious, the place that we believe may have the best Peking Duck in the SF Bay area can serve a feast for 3, including desert if you have the room, for under $70 total.

The best Chinese seafood I've ever had was in what felt like a concrete floored warehouse next to a fishing harbor in Hong Kong. The tables had bare formica tops with newspapers spread over them, and we sat on folding chairs. The room was large, noisy, and filled with blue collar workers, many of them fishermen and their families, and the prices matched the customer's budgets. I've had the chance to eat in some of the well known seafood houses in Hong Kong, too - fine decor, impeccable service, fine wine selection - but despite all these advantages they never quite matched the taste of that simple fisherman's restaurant by the harbor.

[Flyingcursor]

emmline I haven't tried their fish sandwiches yet. I had a Checker fish sandwich Saturday.

missy I used to love Big Boy fish sandwiches. I'll have to go back and see if they are still as good.


cranberry Your mother knew a good thing!

[mutepointe]

Fly didn't mention me. I feel righteously slighted.

[gonzo914]

Bacon, egg and cheese sandwich plus coffee at the van for breakfast -- $3.00

BLT Sandwich with a Diet Pepsi at the van for lunch -- $4.50

Three hotdogs and a bag of Cheetos from the van for supper -- $3.75

Expensing $46.00 a day for meals because I'm in a high cost area -- Priceless

Management shows up periodically and takes us somewhere nice as a special bonding moment. Even in expensive restaurants, I can usually find something under twenty bucks, which allows plenty of room for a few guilt free glasses of nice claret, and a post-prandial scotch or cognac or two. Or three.

But when at home, I'll take the BBQ at the Miller Mart Stop and Rob over just about anything. More BBQ than you can carry for five bucks, and it's the best I've ever had. And I've had Kansas City barbeque.

. . . and my total came to $63.00.

$64.50 once the tip was added in.

[Denny]

The best Chinese seafood I've ever had was in what felt like a concrete floored warehouse next to a fishing harbor in Hong Kong.

oh yeah, January 1972. blue collar restaurant deep in Kowloon.
Communal tables for 8. Two round eyes with no Chinese. Over a hundred Chinese with no English. Pointing at bowls of stuff. Almost got a standing ovation for refusing something that we hadn't pointed at. Under $2.00. Best Chinese food I've ever had.
Although there was a local Szechwan that was good after we made friends with mama san.....and papa.....and the kids....and

[Flyingcursor]

Fly didn't mention me. I feel righteously slighted.

Terribly sorry but I must have missed your comment about fish sandwiches. The next time your in town I'll treat to your favorite fast food joint.

[Jack]

They just rebuilt a Long John Silver's restaurant here, and every time I go past it (I walk past it about once a week) it smells so good. But being that I'm a vegetarian and allergic to shellfish, I can't eat much from there.

[dwest]

[Jack]

They just rebuilt a Long John Silver's restaurant here, and every time I go past it (I walk past it about once a week) it smells so good. But being that I'm a vegetarian and allergic to shellfish, I can't eat much from there.

My wife is allergic to just shrimp. In Wisconsin Fridays are still a big seafood day. Most restaurants and bars have some type of seafood every Friday. A number of years ago we had gone birding early on a Saturday morning and were out in the middle of erehwon when we came across a bar right around lunch time. We had a couple of bar burgers and my wife had fried onion rings with hers. We spent the rest of the afternoon looking for herps and getting a little muddy in the process. On the way home she began to get itchy. But we thought it was the mud. By the time we got home she had some small hives. We washed up and she seemed to be fine. During the night I felt her get up and go into the bathroom and then heard and felt a big thump as she fell. When I got into the bathroom she was on the floor unconscious and she had hives on every square millimetre of her skin. I carried her to the car and drove into town like a proverbial bat out of hell to the hospital. One shot later and she started recovering although it took weeks for the hives to disappear. Anyway I called the bar up later that morning and discovered they had a shrimp fry Friday night in the same fryer and oil that the onion rings had been cooked in Saturday.

I'm glad she was ok. People die from allergies like this sometimes. I've never had a reaction that bad. When I accidentally ate some kind of seafood at a Chinese restaurant, I was sick for days.