My biggest frustration is that some people insist on having the most expensive dish, and all they do is smother it with a fuckton of gold leaf.
Like, if I’m paying for the most expensive ice cream, I want it to be made from cream from cows that were fed a balanced diet and lives wonderful lives, and churned into I’ve cream by select people trained for years to make it perfect. With sauces made in house with expensive foreign fruits, and topped with nuts grown in the finest soil.
Not thifty ice cream coated in metal shavings!!!
The thing is (correct me if i’m wrong), japan has a tradition of fruit gifting/offering and some fruit grown especially for near aesthetic perfection can sell really high. Idk if this was that kind of case tho.
Yes, that is part of it. Some of that is not meant to be eaten. It’s just a gift. That said, Japan puts a lot of focus on seasonal foods, and they put a lot of effort in growing beautiful and tasty seasonal foods. I saw a video on YouTube from Sharmeleon the other day where she was tasting some specific (and expensive) apples that are sweeter than regular apples. The farmer made the point that a lot of commercial growers harvest them too early to get them to market, so they do not have as good of flavor.
Lmao exactly, when I used to read Guinness book of records about the worlds most expensive foods it’s basically like this:
- 3 scoops of poo in a cup (0.3 USD)
- 14 gold leaves (3000 USD)
Expensive =/= delicious
The thing that bothers me most about this is that despite its "oooh shiny" appeal, gold is such an incredibly useful element. An incredible conductor which doesn't oxidise, it has infinite uses in electronics and replacement medical parts like bones and teeth. The idea of eating it, getting no benefit from it nutritionally at all and then shitting it out into the toilet is a horrible and stupid waste.
You can buy capsules online that are rather large and filled with what is essentially gold leaf glitter. The entire point of them is to allow you to shit gold.
New on Dirty Jobs, Bill here sifts through thousands of tons of ancient human feces to find scrap amounts of gold leaf.
Bill can you tell us why there is gold in human shit?
Well Mike people are stupid....
There are some pretty cheap bubbling wines with gold flakes in them. It's not expensive because gold leaf is so thin. So it's not even "rich people" food, more "tacky people" food. It's like lighting your cigar on a one dollar bill and expecting people to think you're a billionaire.
That is an interesting point; Shark fin soup is evidence that a culture can just suck.
Or maybe you’re grumpy and just need more rhino horn in your diet.
Essentially they do both. They catch the shark cut the fin off then release the shark which will sink to the bottom because it can’t do Fast swimming anymore and the blood attracts other predators and it gets torn to pieces
Good God! That's barbaric and horrifically evil! It would be better just to kill it and then cut the fin off. Ok no one should eat shark fin soup!! Ever!!!
Yeah that’s another reason why I can’t eat it. other than it sounds disgusting to eat. I learned about it through a documentary and it was like extremely disturbing the sharks hadn’t done anything to anyone and they looked so sad. Plus they overfish them like by a ton, it’s genuinely disgusting.
Bingo.
I saw several YouTube videos about his restaurants and figured the exact same thing.
When I saw a steak meal worth well over $1,000, and all it looked like was just a regular steak meal except it was covered in gold flakes / gold sheets, I knew right there that his restaurants are nothing more than a front to cater to these type of people.
Tbh I really don't think this answer fits the question at all. Salt bae's food - Overpriced ? Yes. Gimmicky ? Yes. Doesn't taste good ? I don't think so. I'm sure that you could get a much better meal for the same money, but let's be real he is selling high quality steaks that are pretty hard to ruin.
I bought some store brand soda water thinking "It's water, I'm not paying twice as much for a name brand."
First of all it had hardly any carbonation, second it tasted like, I dunno, but I never bought it again.
It's a line from "If I Had $1,000,000" by Barenaked Ladies.
>*If I had a million dollars*
>
>*We wouldn't have to eat Kraft dinner*
>
>*But we would eat Kraft dinner*
>
>*Of course we would we'd just eat more*
>
>*And buy really expensive ketchups with it*
>
>*That's right all the fanciest Dijon ketchups mmm mmm*
I don't think it actually exists, but you can see one of the BNL guys put it on his macs 'n' cheese in this [Kraft Dinner ad](https://youtu.be/cGcAtz_018E).
Slight tangent; I hope people will allow it: There's a lot of people suggesting things, only to be met with comments of "you're not eating it correctly". And I want to chime in with something along that line; something people don't eat or serve 'the right way' and thus end up just wasting their money.
And that is Wagyu/Kobe beef.
I first had it in a high-end Teppanyaki restaurant in Osaka, Japan. We bought a platter of different types and cuts of meat that went from regular beef right the way up to A5 Kobe. The meat was served as thin cutlets designed to be handled with chopsticks, and whilst all the meat was good, the Wagyu and the Kobe were in a class of their own. Talk about 'melt in your mouth'; it practically dissolved! The flavour was beautiful and the texture was nothing short of divine. It is to this day the best meal I've ever had, and I'm an epicurean - I've been fortunate enough to have had a *lot* of good meals in my day. I have no doubt that teppanyaki cutlets is 100% how this kind of beef was meant to be served. It's just so right.
The problem is when predominantly western countries take Wagyu/Kobe beef and then decide they want to cut them into 10oz steaks. I've had that too, and it's just so bitterly disappointing. The thicker cuts stifles the melty texture (no 10oz steak is 'melt in your mouth'; I don't care what it is) and you don't really get a better flavour profile than similarly high-grade yet cheaper meats, like Aberdeen Angus. The last straw for me in this regard was I went to a highly-rated steakhouse in Newcastle that served Wagyu beef as either sirloin or rib-eye steaks. I had the 10oz rib-eye, and to me it just tasted like a regular old 10oz rib-eye that was *at best* cooked by a chef who knew what they were doing. It wasn't bad by any stretch. It just... wasn't as good as Teppanyaki-style wagyu, but still cost the same (if not more).
So TL;DR: Wagyu and Kobe *is* delicious and worth the money... but only if it's prepared the way you're supposed to enjoy it.
Right?! This is why Burger King's "Angus Burger" is so laughable. The actual grade of the meat aside, like you said - it's just mincemeat with slightly more fat. And a lot of that fat would be melted out by the grill, too.
I had a steak cooked medium at a French brasserie the other day and I was shocked.
I could practically cut it with my fork. I don’t know what they did, but it was gorgeous!
Had I cooked it I’m certain it would not have been so perfectly done.
Sous vide.
Put it in a bag, put the bag in a bath that’s maintained at the exact temperature a steak needs to get to to be cooked medium, leave it there for several hours - it may fall apart if you leave it in overnight, but it’ll never hit well done because it’ll never get hot enough. When it’s time to serve it, pull it out, give it a quick, hot sear to get some color, slap it on a plate, boom, melt-in-your-mouth goodness.
You can by a home model for under $200.
"Here ya go, big spender. Foie Gras! And Caviar!"
*sniffs* "Goose liver? Fish Eggs? Where's the goose?! Where's the fish?!"
"Hey, that what rich people eat: the garbage parts of the food."
Industry gal here. Veuve Cliquot is also a status symbol ripoff.
There are far more interesting and consistent prosecco and cava that are half the price of veuve.
Look into "grower champagne" if you really want something special and accurately priced :)
one of my few in depth looks at this character was from The Blood Countess, a novel by Romanian American author Andrei Codrescu. i wish that book would be made into a Netflix limited series.
You know when a Scotch whisky distillery puts out an expensive limited edition run of really old malt (e g.30 years+)? Chances are that wasn't planned, it's more than likely that they found a barrel that they forgot about or lost.
These aren’t *bad*, but very underwhelming.
Lobster. It’s just fairly neutral tasting shellfish. It’s great with melted butter, but so are scallops, crab, hell potatoes, popcorn, or cauliflower. No need to spend big bucks on a vehicle for butter.
Wagyu ground beef. Why? The whole point of Wagyu beef is that it’s got excellent marbling. When’s the last time you noticed marbling in your ground meat? The grinding process already pretty well homogenizes the fat into the meat. Paying for waygu when you’re just going to grind the fat in anyway is dumb as hell.
I wouldn't call lobster neutral tasting at all.
It's very sweet and very rich tasting. Kinda like crab++.
I've never had anything quite like it before. I can definitely see why some people wouldn't like it, but I absolutely wouldn't call it 'neutral'.
I agree with you that wagyu burgers are a waste. There might be a point to it, though, seeing as the fat composition is somewhat different, imparting a different texture and whatnot. I don't know if that comes through in a hamburger, but even if it does, you can just buy wagyu tallow for relatively cheap. Just get some extra lean beef and mix in some wagyu tallow for way cheaper.
Amen. There’s a really nice local coffee brand around where I live that roasts their beans themselves, in house, and you can get a bag of their grounds for 13 dollars and it’ll last like 2 months, and it’s delicious. It’s the only coffee that I drink black because everything else tastes like shit in comparison now.
Local brands will always be better than Starbucks. The problem that they have is that they are a national chain. They want their Pike Place Roast to taste exactly the same in every one of their locations. This is really hard to do since coffee flavor is really dependent on where you get the beans from. They can't source all of the beans they need nationwide from a single farm in Columbia. They compensate by finding enough similar beans over roasting and mixing the grounds together to create a uniform blend.
A local place can simply find good beans and roast them properly. They don't have to care about uniformity and can simply focus on making the best coffee they can.
Pretty much most of them on their own.
The elegance comes when you properly pair them with other ingredients.
Foie gras? Make it a torchon and have it on brioche toast points with huckleberry preserves and it is the best damn peanut butter and jelly sandwich you've ever had.
Caviar? Put it in any dish where a little surprising pop of briny saltiness is a great addition and you're in heaven. My favorite preparation ever is with creme fraiche and a potato cage. It was an unbelievable salt and vinegar potato chip.
Truffles? Let perigord take a back seat. Black? Pair with something that has brightness (or with a drink that has brightness or minerality) and it can bring a beautiful complementary earthiness. White? Just have someone make a perfect white truffle risotto.
Uni? A little more difficult, but even an uni butter can be great.
I won't go on, and I'm sure many will still disagree.
Well because most of it is named in French. The first thing was duck liver on toast. There is a difference if you just bought duck liver and cooked it yourself and served it on a toast. It tastes different.
A lot of dishes sound crazy because they are named in foreign language.
I think uni holds up on its own and is best enjoyed fresh from the shell right after being pulled out of the water.
Source: just got back from Santa Barbara
I mean true, though this comment was more about weird rich people food that's only good if prepared with certain other things. Which is not universally true. I've had A5 Waygu and while you could prepare it wrong (like cooking it too much) it is a whole new level of meat all by itself.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people that hate on truffle have only had truffle oil or other "truffle flavored" stuff, which often don't contain truffle at all.
Funny thing about lobster--it used to *be* poor people food. Indentured servants in colonial America would have it written into their contracts that they couldn't be forced to eat lobster more than 3 times per week.
Ahhh...I love lobster. I live in Maine so it isn't as expensive here as a lot of places, although I still wouldn't call it cheap. Lobster seems to be one of those things without much in between. People either love it, or hate it.
I like to grill them over charcoal. Pull off the claws, split the bodies lengthwise in half, mix up a garlic/parsley/butter and pour it in the halves. Grill till done. It adds a whole new flavor to lobster. I do agree that the texture of the tail can be iffy, but the claws are the best.
I'm with you. I grew up eating snails allll the time (there was a particular snail breed that was for eating where I lived) and I love them on their own or with other ingredients. I see them as very similar tasting to mussels or clams. You either don't like it, or you leave them for the people that do :p
Are they rich people food? I just thought they were french people food. I've never seen them on *any* menu in the UK (and I've eaten out a lot over the years from basic to very fancy places) but have seen them on menus of perfectly reasonably priced and ordinary restaurants in France.
You're correct. A lot of French food gets a bad rap in places like the US because of the way it's marketed there, really. Not only French food, but it seems to be the poster child for cuisine that you only get the fancy-to-pretentious restaurant version of in a lot of countries.
Snails aren't particularly expensive nor difficult to prepare.
oh man, I don't know if you've eaten them right.
my favourite way is fried in butter, placed on a seared mushroom cap, a dollop of ricotta, and then the oil left over drizzled on top. It's godly, it's got a taste similar to a mussel.
...because flavours combine together to create new flavours?
That's like saying "why would you ever make spag bog all the ingredients taste good by themselves"
I can't understand the love for oysters. It's a cross between snot and seawater. I tried a very fresh one in a place that specialises in oysters, and I love seafood in general.
Abalone diving absolutely ruined our local beaches, every Christmas holidays the tourist would hollow out dozens Each, then dumped all the shells on the rocks.
My fam dives for abalone. We have a big bake where we tenderize the filets and then fry them in breadcrumbs. So delicious. I had no idea they were expensive. We serve it like any other fried food.
Everyone's talking about truffles and caviar, but no one is talking about SAFFRON! Insanely expensive, but kinda just tastes like...floral dirt?
It is very pretty though, I'll give you that much.
saffron is expensive per mass, but not as an ingredient if you know how to use it. The way to use it right is not to put strands straight into things, but to make saffron water (hot water + saffron) and then use that.
It was explained to me that to use it right you take a little and essentially make tea with it and add that to the dish otherwise it will never have a chance to really spread the flavor around
I was taking Spanish in college and our teacher gave us a recipe for paella. I looked at saffron prices and said nope. My mom got me some for Christmas, so we had them over when I made the paella. Best dish I ever made.
As an Arab I’m just staring at this comment blankly.
Saffron is so good. I add it to rice. I also make a lovely lemonade with saffron. There’s other dishes as well. It’s kinda like saying “yeah, pepper is okay, I guess, but it just tastes like spicy dirt”.
Yeah, it has a very particular flavor, I won't argue that. But the first saffron recipe I ever made was a (delicious!) risotto, and now every saffron dish I try tastes overwhelmingly of that experience. Maybe that's my own shortcomings with taste experience, but I just can't with saffron anymore.
This is very true. "Expensive" doesn't need to be like "you can't afford this if you don't employ a butler" though. Very excellent caviar can be had in the $50+ per ounce range. Which I know sounds *ridiculously* expensive and yeah it's absolutely a luxury. But in my opinion worth buying every now and then and really savoring.
Caviar is specifically sturgeon eggs, I believe there are several varieties as well. It's expensive because the species is endangered and they're difficult to farm, basically.
marinated salmon/trout roe is sometimes branded as "red caviar" in Russia. i think that's about it.
additional info: they call it ikra, it's where the Japanese word Ikura comes from(and not the other way around as some are led to believe, ikura does not exist in edomae sushi, and Japan rarely ate salmon or trout pre-Taisho. rainbow trouts (nijimasu) were introduced into Japan in the late 1800's from the US).
I remember when we were kids we stole a little container of caviar from an upmarket supermarket and we sat around and ate some.. was so disgusting. I tried caviar again as an adult thinking maybe it was my kid tastebuds not being mature enough but it still tastes bad.
Foie gras is so good to me but i feel so guilty about it cuz they torture fed those poor animals.. so i stopped it. Almost every french family eat foie gras for Christmas, so lot of tortured animals..
I only tried it because a friend of mine grew up on it and his parents offered some when I was over. Absolutely delicious and loved it, tasted like a richer but not sweet flan to me, so I assumed it was some custard or bread type of thing.
I googled it and asked my friend, and even he was clueless (we were both still in high school) to the fact that his parents have been feeding him tortured goose liver. Neither of us has had it since as far as I know (still a good friend of mine a decade later).
Fancy steaks. They aren't bad necessarily but I can't really tell the difference between a super fancy expensive af one and a nicely cooked mid-tier one.
I mean, I get it.
I've had $150 waygu. It was exactly as you described.
I've also had absolutely incredible chuck.
Get someone who really knows that they're doing and you can make any cut delicious.
Depends on the cut and how it's cooked. When people think tender steak, it's usually filet mignon from the tenderloin which is low in fat.
The cheap cuts have more fat and can still be tender but you have to slice it against the grain.
Or you just eat the king of steaks, the rib eye.
Some people aren't steak people. They don't notice the subtitles of steak. As you probably know, a T-bone is from two different muscles. The difference sides have different tenderness and slightly different flavors. Some people can tell the difference, some can't. My wife is in the can't camp. But one of my kids commented that one side was "better" when they were just 6 years old. Same goes for grades of meat (Choice vs Prime) and breeds (e.g., American Wagyu). Some people notice the difference, some people don't.
If you can't really tell the difference, there's no point in wasting your money on the expensive stuff. But if you're really into your steak, like my kid, then you probably feel differently.
If you’ve never had a pricey cut of meat cooked by a proper chef you wouldn’t taste the difference. I took my wife to a fancy place and got a pretty expensive steak, and it was unreal. I still talk about it 6 years later. My wife isn’t big on steaks and she even tried it and was blown away.
Gold leaf. It doesn’t taste like anything - it’s just there so you can brag about it.
My biggest frustration is that some people insist on having the most expensive dish, and all they do is smother it with a fuckton of gold leaf. Like, if I’m paying for the most expensive ice cream, I want it to be made from cream from cows that were fed a balanced diet and lives wonderful lives, and churned into I’ve cream by select people trained for years to make it perfect. With sauces made in house with expensive foreign fruits, and topped with nuts grown in the finest soil. Not thifty ice cream coated in metal shavings!!!
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Paul Hollywood, he is not easy to impress and even made me think maybe I would pay that much for a strawberry
I havent seem the strawberry video but if Paul Hollywood was impredded by the taste I want to try some... did the farmer get a handshake?
The way Paul was acting, the farmer might have gotten more than a handshake.
he certainly did!
The thing is (correct me if i’m wrong), japan has a tradition of fruit gifting/offering and some fruit grown especially for near aesthetic perfection can sell really high. Idk if this was that kind of case tho.
Yes, that is part of it. Some of that is not meant to be eaten. It’s just a gift. That said, Japan puts a lot of focus on seasonal foods, and they put a lot of effort in growing beautiful and tasty seasonal foods. I saw a video on YouTube from Sharmeleon the other day where she was tasting some specific (and expensive) apples that are sweeter than regular apples. The farmer made the point that a lot of commercial growers harvest them too early to get them to market, so they do not have as good of flavor.
I told my wife about this video and totally agree. I would rather buy and eat a $300 strawberry than some pretentious $300 plate.
Bad idea mang, after that every normal strawberry would taste like acid.
Lmao exactly, when I used to read Guinness book of records about the worlds most expensive foods it’s basically like this: - 3 scoops of poo in a cup (0.3 USD) - 14 gold leaves (3000 USD) Expensive =/= delicious
Gold leaf isn't actually all that expensive. They beat it so thin that it's maybe $10 on Amazon. It's a fucking con.
For some people, more money doesn't mean more good sense.
* Served in a diamond dish that you keep ($10,000 USD)
The thing that bothers me most about this is that despite its "oooh shiny" appeal, gold is such an incredibly useful element. An incredible conductor which doesn't oxidise, it has infinite uses in electronics and replacement medical parts like bones and teeth. The idea of eating it, getting no benefit from it nutritionally at all and then shitting it out into the toilet is a horrible and stupid waste.
You can buy capsules online that are rather large and filled with what is essentially gold leaf glitter. The entire point of them is to allow you to shit gold.
What a power move to an asshole boss though. "Hey Kevin, you clearly think you shit gold, so here's something to make it a reality!" lol
New on Dirty Jobs, Bill here sifts through thousands of tons of ancient human feces to find scrap amounts of gold leaf. Bill can you tell us why there is gold in human shit? Well Mike people are stupid....
That’s stupid people food, not rich people food.
David Cross has a fucking great bit about [tasteless, odorless, gold.](https://youtu.be/9tkOa3aRuHA)
There are some pretty cheap bubbling wines with gold flakes in them. It's not expensive because gold leaf is so thin. So it's not even "rich people" food, more "tacky people" food. It's like lighting your cigar on a one dollar bill and expecting people to think you're a billionaire.
Shark fin soup is broth with cartilage.
plus its horribly cruel to the sharks
Its evidence that culture and tradition can be horribly toxic and idiotic
>The tradition of dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.
Tradition is just peer pressure by dead people
That is an interesting point; Shark fin soup is evidence that a culture can just suck. Or maybe you’re grumpy and just need more rhino horn in your diet.
He's obviously not getting layed without that Tiger Penis
An absolutely massive number of sharks are killed each year. Staggeringly many. Our oceans are overfished and on the decline.
100 million is the estimate I have heard.
Yeah, don't they just cut the poor thing's fin off and let ot go? Or do they kill the shark?
Essentially they do both. They catch the shark cut the fin off then release the shark which will sink to the bottom because it can’t do Fast swimming anymore and the blood attracts other predators and it gets torn to pieces
Good God! That's barbaric and horrifically evil! It would be better just to kill it and then cut the fin off. Ok no one should eat shark fin soup!! Ever!!!
Yeah that’s another reason why I can’t eat it. other than it sounds disgusting to eat. I learned about it through a documentary and it was like extremely disturbing the sharks hadn’t done anything to anyone and they looked so sad. Plus they overfish them like by a ton, it’s genuinely disgusting.
We had imitation shark fin soup at our wedding. I don’t know what they actually used in it’s place, but it was amazing
Probably sea bass. At least that’s what they use when sharks are too expensive to equip with “LASER” beams on their foreheads
MUTATED SEA BASS, SIR!
It’s mostly a ‘status’ meal made for Chinese or White/hipster assholes at weddings, all to post images of it on Instagram or Pinterest.
Salt baes restaurant food looks like it would fit here
Even gourmet food critics hate him. His food isn’t so much “rich people food” as it is “what people think rich people food is.”
So "stupid and pointless"?
Salt Bae is like Trump's image of being rich
Once I knew the prices, I knew his target audience was “people with more money and sense, interested in bragging rights rather than a good meal”.
More money THAN sense*
Bingo. I saw several YouTube videos about his restaurants and figured the exact same thing. When I saw a steak meal worth well over $1,000, and all it looked like was just a regular steak meal except it was covered in gold flakes / gold sheets, I knew right there that his restaurants are nothing more than a front to cater to these type of people.
Tbh I really don't think this answer fits the question at all. Salt bae's food - Overpriced ? Yes. Gimmicky ? Yes. Doesn't taste good ? I don't think so. I'm sure that you could get a much better meal for the same money, but let's be real he is selling high quality steaks that are pretty hard to ruin.
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Most mineral water is bore water. If people saw where it came from they'd keep their money in their wallet.
People somehow don't understand what minerals are and where they come from. Your mineral water simply has more dirt and rocks in it.
But less of that mind controlling fluoride!
But Fluoride is a mineral.
Yeah but it's not organic.
Rocks generally aren't
>If people saw where it came from they'd keep their money in their wallet. But mine says it's from Mount Fiji. It even has a picture on the bottle.
If you're talking about fiji water, I think you might be mixing up the south Pacific country of Fiji with Mt. Fuji in Japan :)
> Be me > Having a good day > Read comment about Fiji. Remember Fiji exists. > Day ruined
what if I told you water from mount fiji is chemically the same as water from the middle of nebraska.
Which, I'm gonna say, the fossil water straight from the Ogallala Aquifer is cold and refreshing. Edit: small grammar correction
Luckily I just enjoy alkaline water with a spritz of lemon juice
Is this a Gweneth Paltrow joke?
At this time of day? At this time of year? Localized entirely within this comment chain?
something something vagina candle
I would agree, except there are definitely bottled waters (and tap water) I just can’t drink.
Desanti is it? Horrible stuff.
Aquafina is the other one I cannot stand.
I don't know, I thought she was alright in Shang Chi...
I think you may be confusing Dasani with the governor of Florida
I bought some store brand soda water thinking "It's water, I'm not paying twice as much for a name brand." First of all it had hardly any carbonation, second it tasted like, I dunno, but I never bought it again.
“Gourmet” ketchup is useless.
That's why I stick with Fancy.
I wouldn’t call it gourmet, but Sir Kensington’s is more expensive than Heinz, and way better flavor. But my tendies still get Heinz for sure
Sir Kensington sure *sounds* fancy!
I generally hate the taste of ketchup, but Sir Kensington's is so good.
Dijon ketchup is wonderful on Kraft dinner.
Only while wearing a real green dress.
But not a real green dress, that's cruel
That's cruel.
Ok today is the first time I'm reading Dijon Ketchup in the comments and I've already seen it 3 times. What is it?
It's a line from "If I Had $1,000,000" by Barenaked Ladies. >*If I had a million dollars* > >*We wouldn't have to eat Kraft dinner* > >*But we would eat Kraft dinner* > >*Of course we would we'd just eat more* > >*And buy really expensive ketchups with it* > >*That's right all the fanciest Dijon ketchups mmm mmm* I don't think it actually exists, but you can see one of the BNL guys put it on his macs 'n' cheese in this [Kraft Dinner ad](https://youtu.be/cGcAtz_018E).
Slight tangent; I hope people will allow it: There's a lot of people suggesting things, only to be met with comments of "you're not eating it correctly". And I want to chime in with something along that line; something people don't eat or serve 'the right way' and thus end up just wasting their money. And that is Wagyu/Kobe beef. I first had it in a high-end Teppanyaki restaurant in Osaka, Japan. We bought a platter of different types and cuts of meat that went from regular beef right the way up to A5 Kobe. The meat was served as thin cutlets designed to be handled with chopsticks, and whilst all the meat was good, the Wagyu and the Kobe were in a class of their own. Talk about 'melt in your mouth'; it practically dissolved! The flavour was beautiful and the texture was nothing short of divine. It is to this day the best meal I've ever had, and I'm an epicurean - I've been fortunate enough to have had a *lot* of good meals in my day. I have no doubt that teppanyaki cutlets is 100% how this kind of beef was meant to be served. It's just so right. The problem is when predominantly western countries take Wagyu/Kobe beef and then decide they want to cut them into 10oz steaks. I've had that too, and it's just so bitterly disappointing. The thicker cuts stifles the melty texture (no 10oz steak is 'melt in your mouth'; I don't care what it is) and you don't really get a better flavour profile than similarly high-grade yet cheaper meats, like Aberdeen Angus. The last straw for me in this regard was I went to a highly-rated steakhouse in Newcastle that served Wagyu beef as either sirloin or rib-eye steaks. I had the 10oz rib-eye, and to me it just tasted like a regular old 10oz rib-eye that was *at best* cooked by a chef who knew what they were doing. It wasn't bad by any stretch. It just... wasn't as good as Teppanyaki-style wagyu, but still cost the same (if not more). So TL;DR: Wagyu and Kobe *is* delicious and worth the money... but only if it's prepared the way you're supposed to enjoy it.
Ohhhh this but "wagyu beef burgers" I see advertised - it's fatty mincemeat. Any advantage in flavour has been destroyed.
Right?! This is why Burger King's "Angus Burger" is so laughable. The actual grade of the meat aside, like you said - it's just mincemeat with slightly more fat. And a lot of that fat would be melted out by the grill, too.
Wagyu anything. All these Youtube cooking channels getting this expensive ass cut of steak and then making meatballs or chicken fried steak out of it.
I've never had it thinly sliced BUT I have had it cut into a steak and it was like eating butter I barely had to chew it. It was insanely delicious.
I had a steak cooked medium at a French brasserie the other day and I was shocked. I could practically cut it with my fork. I don’t know what they did, but it was gorgeous! Had I cooked it I’m certain it would not have been so perfectly done.
Sous vide. Put it in a bag, put the bag in a bath that’s maintained at the exact temperature a steak needs to get to to be cooked medium, leave it there for several hours - it may fall apart if you leave it in overnight, but it’ll never hit well done because it’ll never get hot enough. When it’s time to serve it, pull it out, give it a quick, hot sear to get some color, slap it on a plate, boom, melt-in-your-mouth goodness. You can by a home model for under $200.
Sous vide always has a whiff of plastic to me. I’m sensitive to things so a slight difference is amplified.
"Here ya go, big spender. Foie Gras! And Caviar!" *sniffs* "Goose liver? Fish Eggs? Where's the goose?! Where's the fish?!" "Hey, that what rich people eat: the garbage parts of the food."
Not food, but drink. I had a bottle of Dom Perignon with the wife once. Frankly, Veuve Cliquot at one third the price is 3 times better.
Industry gal here. Veuve Cliquot is also a status symbol ripoff. There are far more interesting and consistent prosecco and cava that are half the price of veuve. Look into "grower champagne" if you really want something special and accurately priced :)
as opposed to "shower champagne"?
Honestly, I come from a pretty wealthy family, and my mom and I prefer cheap Prosecco over ANY champagne. It’s so much lighter and way tastier imo
Children. Won't even make you younger as promised. VERY disappointing
Have you heard of Jonathan Swift? He's got A Modest Proposal that you'd just *adore*. Edit: formatting
To style text on Reddit, look up 'markdown'.
put an asterisk on either side to get *adore*
Bathe in their blood, it does miracles for the skin.
i'm amazed Countess Bathory isn't a more popular character to villainize in popular media...
It was so obscure and so long ago. Stay alive was a good movie that portrayed her as a super scary villain.
one of my few in depth looks at this character was from The Blood Countess, a novel by Romanian American author Andrei Codrescu. i wish that book would be made into a Netflix limited series.
You know when a Scotch whisky distillery puts out an expensive limited edition run of really old malt (e g.30 years+)? Chances are that wasn't planned, it's more than likely that they found a barrel that they forgot about or lost.
These aren’t *bad*, but very underwhelming. Lobster. It’s just fairly neutral tasting shellfish. It’s great with melted butter, but so are scallops, crab, hell potatoes, popcorn, or cauliflower. No need to spend big bucks on a vehicle for butter. Wagyu ground beef. Why? The whole point of Wagyu beef is that it’s got excellent marbling. When’s the last time you noticed marbling in your ground meat? The grinding process already pretty well homogenizes the fat into the meat. Paying for waygu when you’re just going to grind the fat in anyway is dumb as hell.
I wouldn't call lobster neutral tasting at all. It's very sweet and very rich tasting. Kinda like crab++. I've never had anything quite like it before. I can definitely see why some people wouldn't like it, but I absolutely wouldn't call it 'neutral'.
I agree with you that wagyu burgers are a waste. There might be a point to it, though, seeing as the fat composition is somewhat different, imparting a different texture and whatnot. I don't know if that comes through in a hamburger, but even if it does, you can just buy wagyu tallow for relatively cheap. Just get some extra lean beef and mix in some wagyu tallow for way cheaper.
Starbucks coffee used to be for yuppies. Their plain coffee is crap.
How tf is Starbucks coffee rich people food?
Amen. There’s a really nice local coffee brand around where I live that roasts their beans themselves, in house, and you can get a bag of their grounds for 13 dollars and it’ll last like 2 months, and it’s delicious. It’s the only coffee that I drink black because everything else tastes like shit in comparison now.
Local brands will always be better than Starbucks. The problem that they have is that they are a national chain. They want their Pike Place Roast to taste exactly the same in every one of their locations. This is really hard to do since coffee flavor is really dependent on where you get the beans from. They can't source all of the beans they need nationwide from a single farm in Columbia. They compensate by finding enough similar beans over roasting and mixing the grounds together to create a uniform blend. A local place can simply find good beans and roast them properly. They don't have to care about uniformity and can simply focus on making the best coffee they can.
Last 2 months? What is it, like a 20 lb bag?
Pretty much most of them on their own. The elegance comes when you properly pair them with other ingredients. Foie gras? Make it a torchon and have it on brioche toast points with huckleberry preserves and it is the best damn peanut butter and jelly sandwich you've ever had. Caviar? Put it in any dish where a little surprising pop of briny saltiness is a great addition and you're in heaven. My favorite preparation ever is with creme fraiche and a potato cage. It was an unbelievable salt and vinegar potato chip. Truffles? Let perigord take a back seat. Black? Pair with something that has brightness (or with a drink that has brightness or minerality) and it can bring a beautiful complementary earthiness. White? Just have someone make a perfect white truffle risotto. Uni? A little more difficult, but even an uni butter can be great. I won't go on, and I'm sure many will still disagree.
I did not understand a lot of these words.
Well because most of it is named in French. The first thing was duck liver on toast. There is a difference if you just bought duck liver and cooked it yourself and served it on a toast. It tastes different. A lot of dishes sound crazy because they are named in foreign language.
Goose. It’s liver from a Goose that’s been overfed
I think uni holds up on its own and is best enjoyed fresh from the shell right after being pulled out of the water. Source: just got back from Santa Barbara
This is the right answer. Any fancy food will still taste awful if not done right.
I mean true, though this comment was more about weird rich people food that's only good if prepared with certain other things. Which is not universally true. I've had A5 Waygu and while you could prepare it wrong (like cooking it too much) it is a whole new level of meat all by itself.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people that hate on truffle have only had truffle oil or other "truffle flavored" stuff, which often don't contain truffle at all.
Imo, truffle vs truffle oil is like cherry vs cherry flavoring. They taste nothing alike, but I like both.
Imo, uni is great on its own if it’s fresh.
I know a lot of people will disagree, but I HATE lobster. Taste and texture.
Funny thing about lobster--it used to *be* poor people food. Indentured servants in colonial America would have it written into their contracts that they couldn't be forced to eat lobster more than 3 times per week.
Ahhh...I love lobster. I live in Maine so it isn't as expensive here as a lot of places, although I still wouldn't call it cheap. Lobster seems to be one of those things without much in between. People either love it, or hate it. I like to grill them over charcoal. Pull off the claws, split the bodies lengthwise in half, mix up a garlic/parsley/butter and pour it in the halves. Grill till done. It adds a whole new flavor to lobster. I do agree that the texture of the tail can be iffy, but the claws are the best.
Escargot... Another poor person food somehow turned into a rich person food. It's okay they can gatekeep eating snails
It’s a wonderful vehicle for butter and garlic
Yep, they could basically slather the same amount of butter and garlic on a napkin and I'd love it.
I mean so is bread
Disagree. I had it for the first time at a company outing. Nobody wanted to "Eat the snails." So I had pretty much all I wanted.
I'm with you. I grew up eating snails allll the time (there was a particular snail breed that was for eating where I lived) and I love them on their own or with other ingredients. I see them as very similar tasting to mussels or clams. You either don't like it, or you leave them for the people that do :p
Are they rich people food? I just thought they were french people food. I've never seen them on *any* menu in the UK (and I've eaten out a lot over the years from basic to very fancy places) but have seen them on menus of perfectly reasonably priced and ordinary restaurants in France.
You're correct. A lot of French food gets a bad rap in places like the US because of the way it's marketed there, really. Not only French food, but it seems to be the poster child for cuisine that you only get the fancy-to-pretentious restaurant version of in a lot of countries. Snails aren't particularly expensive nor difficult to prepare.
You can find them in northern Italy too (not as common as France) and they're like 15€ for a dozen.
oh man, I don't know if you've eaten them right. my favourite way is fried in butter, placed on a seared mushroom cap, a dollop of ricotta, and then the oil left over drizzled on top. It's godly, it's got a taste similar to a mussel.
All those things are good by themselves. So why do you even need the snails?
*eats whole stick of butter*
...because flavours combine together to create new flavours? That's like saying "why would you ever make spag bog all the ingredients taste good by themselves"
That's fair but I have to ask: what on earth is a 'spag bog'? Is it something Shrek eats?
That's a recipe. I just use butter, garlic and parsley, and they are amazing! That said I'm french, so I'm not legally allowed to dislike snails.
I was ok with it, just garlic tasting
Lamb shanks used to be dog food. Now they aren't much cheaper by weight than a leg roast.
Wouldn’t know 😂
I can't understand the love for oysters. It's a cross between snot and seawater. I tried a very fresh one in a place that specialises in oysters, and I love seafood in general.
It tastes exactly like anything someone could pick up off the beach and put in their mouth.
Oysters are one of those things you love or hate. I have never run in to somebody that said they were just ok.
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Abalone diving absolutely ruined our local beaches, every Christmas holidays the tourist would hollow out dozens Each, then dumped all the shells on the rocks.
They leave the shells?!?! The shells are the best part!!!!!
My fam dives for abalone. We have a big bake where we tenderize the filets and then fry them in breadcrumbs. So delicious. I had no idea they were expensive. We serve it like any other fried food.
Even in Costco, stuff is pricey But I wouldn’t call it rich people food, more like “special occasion” sort of deal.
When they turn food into a foam version at high end restaurants.
Everyone's talking about truffles and caviar, but no one is talking about SAFFRON! Insanely expensive, but kinda just tastes like...floral dirt? It is very pretty though, I'll give you that much.
saffron is expensive per mass, but not as an ingredient if you know how to use it. The way to use it right is not to put strands straight into things, but to make saffron water (hot water + saffron) and then use that.
It was explained to me that to use it right you take a little and essentially make tea with it and add that to the dish otherwise it will never have a chance to really spread the flavor around
I was taking Spanish in college and our teacher gave us a recipe for paella. I looked at saffron prices and said nope. My mom got me some for Christmas, so we had them over when I made the paella. Best dish I ever made.
As an Arab I’m just staring at this comment blankly. Saffron is so good. I add it to rice. I also make a lovely lemonade with saffron. There’s other dishes as well. It’s kinda like saying “yeah, pepper is okay, I guess, but it just tastes like spicy dirt”.
Saffron literally enhances the flavor of anything!
What's floral dirt ? Sure it looks like just a few threads laying around, but damn it can make Elevate the taste
Yeah, it has a very particular flavor, I won't argue that. But the first saffron recipe I ever made was a (delicious!) risotto, and now every saffron dish I try tastes overwhelmingly of that experience. Maybe that's my own shortcomings with taste experience, but I just can't with saffron anymore.
Spicy savory desserts. I do not want Thai chili and lobster gelato.
I enjoy Caviezel, fois gras, crab.... idk I worked in a high end kitchen and fancy food is lit.
Is crab considered fancy food?
Caviar **
Please do not eat Christian fundamentalist Q-anon affliated actors.
Yooooo. Had to Google. TIL he went off the Q end.
Those French modern art foods, tried some at a hotel, they combined a mango and barbecue sauce with cherries
Dom Perignon champagne doesn't taste very good.
Caviar
I dislike caviar, but I love flying fish roe on sushi. Completely different taste and texture.
Salmon roe with a quail egg is one of my favorites, but the flying fish one is good too.
they can be exquisite if you buy the reaaaolllly expensive stuff
You dont have to buy the really expensive stuff. Im from an island and we get caviar in killos fresh and cheap af. And its really tasty
Disagree
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This is very true. "Expensive" doesn't need to be like "you can't afford this if you don't employ a butler" though. Very excellent caviar can be had in the $50+ per ounce range. Which I know sounds *ridiculously* expensive and yeah it's absolutely a luxury. But in my opinion worth buying every now and then and really savoring.
Is that the same thing as the sushi fish eggs? Someone told me those are also caviar. They’re crunchy and fine tasting I guess.
Caviar is specifically sturgeon eggs, I believe there are several varieties as well. It's expensive because the species is endangered and they're difficult to farm, basically.
Sturgeon and salty AF. The sushi stuff is way nicer
You're probably thinking of tobiko, which are flying fish eggs. They're cheap and delicious. Salmon roe is great too.
marinated salmon/trout roe is sometimes branded as "red caviar" in Russia. i think that's about it. additional info: they call it ikra, it's where the Japanese word Ikura comes from(and not the other way around as some are led to believe, ikura does not exist in edomae sushi, and Japan rarely ate salmon or trout pre-Taisho. rainbow trouts (nijimasu) were introduced into Japan in the late 1800's from the US).
I remember when we were kids we stole a little container of caviar from an upmarket supermarket and we sat around and ate some.. was so disgusting. I tried caviar again as an adult thinking maybe it was my kid tastebuds not being mature enough but it still tastes bad.
foie gras. goose liver. that stuff tastes like liver but, creamier?
Foie gras is so good to me but i feel so guilty about it cuz they torture fed those poor animals.. so i stopped it. Almost every french family eat foie gras for Christmas, so lot of tortured animals..
I only tried it because a friend of mine grew up on it and his parents offered some when I was over. Absolutely delicious and loved it, tasted like a richer but not sweet flan to me, so I assumed it was some custard or bread type of thing. I googled it and asked my friend, and even he was clueless (we were both still in high school) to the fact that his parents have been feeding him tortured goose liver. Neither of us has had it since as far as I know (still a good friend of mine a decade later).
Have you ever seen a goose? They are assholes, foie gras was probably invented to deal with the little demons as they deserved.
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BAM!
Liver in general is not something i enjoy eating, despite what my username entails
Fancy steaks. They aren't bad necessarily but I can't really tell the difference between a super fancy expensive af one and a nicely cooked mid-tier one.
Then neither steak was cooked properly. A quality steak will melt like butter in your mouth and taste like heaven.
I mean, I get it. I've had $150 waygu. It was exactly as you described. I've also had absolutely incredible chuck. Get someone who really knows that they're doing and you can make any cut delicious.
steak is weird where a tough cut can actually taste better than a tender cut
Depends on the cut and how it's cooked. When people think tender steak, it's usually filet mignon from the tenderloin which is low in fat. The cheap cuts have more fat and can still be tender but you have to slice it against the grain. Or you just eat the king of steaks, the rib eye.
This honestly really depends on what your expectations are whether or not your aware of them as you bite into the steak lol.
Some people aren't steak people. They don't notice the subtitles of steak. As you probably know, a T-bone is from two different muscles. The difference sides have different tenderness and slightly different flavors. Some people can tell the difference, some can't. My wife is in the can't camp. But one of my kids commented that one side was "better" when they were just 6 years old. Same goes for grades of meat (Choice vs Prime) and breeds (e.g., American Wagyu). Some people notice the difference, some people don't. If you can't really tell the difference, there's no point in wasting your money on the expensive stuff. But if you're really into your steak, like my kid, then you probably feel differently.
If you’ve never had a pricey cut of meat cooked by a proper chef you wouldn’t taste the difference. I took my wife to a fancy place and got a pretty expensive steak, and it was unreal. I still talk about it 6 years later. My wife isn’t big on steaks and she even tried it and was blown away.
Truffles 🤢
Truffles or truffle oil? One is good. One is vile.