Most expensive dinner?

While I enjoy a good steakhouse, I do get more excited to try a restaurant with with a hot chef and/or where there's some artistry going on in the kitchen.

The only problem is that most of the really famous chefs own so many restaurants that they're rarely there to actually make you the food. (This was previously the case at Tru, which you'll see if you read the article.)

Steakhouses don't even really employ chefs. They have cooks.

And, it's easy enough to do a little research online before you go to a hot, expensive restaurant that you should be able to order any number of dishes with confidence.

 

A few years ago I went to Las Vegas by myself on vacation. I had filet mignon in Binion's Steakhouse at the top of Binion's Casino in downtown Las Vegas. After tip, it was $60 total, and I didn't have any alcohol to drink. It was great. Oddly enough, the best thing about the meal might have been the salad. The salad was easily the best I've ever had. I remember being hungover as fuck and looked like pure ass. I'm sure the server was questioning what kind of tip he was going to get from a single hungover male wearing jeans and a t-shirt in the steakhouse.

 

Bingo. That's what I was saying early on. A trained chimp can cook a steak.

Nothing wrong with steakhouses but they're McDonalds with better food and higher prices.

Oh, and they serve you at the table.

 

I'm known around my former and current digs as being a foodie and a luxury hog. I'm always the one who puts together the food itinerary on road trips as well as the one who determines if we're going to bill our bosses or the client -- sometimes a tricky endeavor.

It was the 2006 Samsung World Championship in the desert. Because Michelle Wie was there a year after her pro debut/DQ, the swinging Richards of the golf writers were present. Under such circumstances, we're "encouraged" by our bosses to take as many of them out as we can -- orders I don't need to hear more than once.

One of my favorite restaurants in the desert is the Chop House, a very underrated steak house in Palm Springs and Palm Desert. I put together a dinner with five prominent golf writers and the three of us running the media center.

Well, duties in the media center made us late for dinner. When we arrived, one of the writers -- who is known as a prominent wine snob -- had already ordered and helped polish off one $115 bottle of Sea Smoke pinot noir. The second bottle arrived at the same time we did, meaning I was $230 in the hole before I sat down.

Dinner, drinks, appetizers and tip came to $796. The only reason we didn't crack $800 was two of the writers didn't order dessert. I billed my bosses when I turned in the receipt and my bosses didn't bat an eye.

 

Speaking of Tru, Gale Gand, partner/executive pastry chef there, is a judge tonight on Top Chef Desserts.

 

I've participated in some legendary L.A. Times dinners back before, well, you know.

But my biggest tab wasn't a restaurant, simply a bar. Rounds and rounds and rounds of shots in a bar in the Intracoastal in Fort Lauderdale. People gave me some money toward it, but you know how that goes:

$900.

This kind of thinking is why I'm where I am today financially.

 

JR JR the restaurant czar

 

And I get to do the dishes, which ain't.

 

Beautiful day in Chicago. Was walking through Viagra Triangle a little while ago and who was sitting outside at Gibsons but the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

 

Michelin announced their ratings for their upcoming Chicago dining guide. Here's Sam Sifton of the Times on Alinea, one of the two restaurants to receive three stars:

 

Lots of restaurants in DC don't list change.

 

What do you guys think of the Palm? For some reason growing up, I always wanted to visit the Palm in downtown Chicago. There is one in DC, but there's also the Capital Grille, BLT and Charlie Palmer to compete with.

I doubt I'll be dining there anytime soon unless I get a pay raise of $10k or so or I have a few people from other cities who I'd take there if they came to visit.