Most expensive dinner?

I'm surprised at these totals given the line of work most of us have been in (or might still be in). Shit, I cringed at my $250 tab on my first anniversary.

 

Oh, I attended a $250,000 wedding at The Plaza around 1999 or so if that counts.

Let's just say my buddy married well.

 

Same. I can't remember every spending more than $300 on dinner. And that's rare. I once split a $450 bar tab with a buddy in NYC.

 

The most expensive meal I ever went to in the line of duty was dinner at the Palm in LA during the 1984 NBA Finals. Writers and NBA PR head Brian McIntyre, maybe 10 of us. Don't know the tab, as Brian paid, bless him, but I'm pretty damn sure it was way up there. Chateau Lynch-Bages for six (four peon beer drinkers in party) adds up.

 

We've had pretty big tabs for a large group, but as far as my hubby and I are concerned, we dropped $270 at Tavern on the Green on our honeymoon many moons ago.

 

Several years back, a local restaurant hosted a meal re-creating the last dinner on the Titanic. I was a food writer, and he invited me and my wife. Since he invited, I figured he was picking up my tab. Wrong. At the end of the meal, I got the bill: Two dinners at $175 each. The paper ended up reimbursing me half.

Better story: This summer, I went to a wedding of a guy who was chosen in this year's NFL draft. Full dinner -- pork, chicken, steak, fish; your choice of one or all -- for about 700 people. Probably a $200,000 event.

 

I dropped well over a $1,000 (including tip) in March taking a group of about 14 out to eat at a place called Elements, which is the restaurant at the Sanctuary Resort in Paradise Valley. Great night. Beautiful place near the top of Camelback Mountain. I had met the chef there, Beau McMillan, at an earlier event and he treated us really well. Fourteen people splitting five or six nice bottles of wine can drive up a check. Plus, it was near the end of spring training, so I was concerned the waiter would bring my credit card back and tell me I was over my limit.

 

I have always maintained that papers would be a lot better off if they gave people who travel a per diem. I once brought that up and was told, "Well, everybody would just pocket the $$$." My response was, "Yeah, but you wouldn't be seeing writers going to steakhouses either."

 

I worked for one paper that did not cover meals on road trips.

True story.

 

That's insane.

 

Not even McDonalds.

 

The first dinner we had on the first date with my first wife.

Cost me half a house.