This article caught my eye as I perused the Australian news yesterday. Everyone at some point in their gastronomic adventures leaves a restaurant with a bill that reflects what was eaten, but with a price tag that suggests you ate a prize pomeranian instead of a steak.
A Western Australian man had such a moment earlier this week when he visited Black Tom’s restaurant in West Perth. He ordered a pint of Hoegaarden and a serving of chips and received this rather conservative meal:
By my count that is a whole 8 chips on the plate. Understandably the meagre meal didn’t quite sate the diner’s appetite, and so blissfully unaware of the price he ordered the same again. Upon finishing he was presented with this little piece of insanity:
$18 per pint of Hoegaarden, and $8.50 per serving of 8 chips. Math isn’t exactly my thing, but I’m pretty sure that works out to more than $1 per chip. This ran our now not so cheery customer a total of $53.
Suffice it to say he was less than impressed, and decided to mass email his thoughts on the expensive snack around Perth. To the credit of restaurant’s owner (who had purchased and refurbished the existing restaurant, reopening it 5 days prior to this visit), he recognised the absurdity of the pricing, or at least the legitimate critique of his business, and quickly did some price restructuring.
A new offer was created to replace the anaemic 8 chip diet, with a self-styled ‘mountain of chips’ and a bottle of Carlton Draught at $9.95. Still uninspiring, but at least residing in the realm of the real.
Fifty three dollars! It seems like some businesses believe that in spite recession or economic downturn, there is divine mandate to envision an alternate reality in which price needn’t correspond in any way market value. Think of the long standing tradition of movie cinemas fashioning hysterically painful prices for a bag of popcorn and carbonated water with syrup. Vent over. Just another reason for me to homebrew when I get back to Australia.
Heh, yeah changing hoegaarden to carlton draught is the most distressing part of the story for me. Thinking of home brewing duvel, you should get into that with me when you brew.