****Silks’ braised abalone with webbing from duck’s feet: $1380 per kilogram
****To spend as much money on food as fast as you can, head to Crown’s high-end Cantonese restaurant Silks and order a portion of the braised abalone with webbing from duck’s feet. At $138 per 100 grams (or $1380 per kilogram), this is a rare luxury. Half the price, but still a heady spend, is Neil Perry’s 200 gram wagyu rib eye at Rockpool Bar & Grill: it’s a “mere” $110. For sheer dollar-per-gram outrageousness, it’s hard to avoid Grossi Florentino’s plate of oscietra caviar: $120 gets you 15 grams of the precious roe, crème fraiche, grated egg and toast. Lovely breakfast.
Silks, Crown Entertainment Complex, 8 Whiteman St, Southbank, Vic, (03) 9292 6888.
**
Otto’s taglierini all’aragosta: $140
**Technically, Astral’s $425 caviar service (50 grams of farmed sevruga with traditional garnishes and blini) is easily the most expensive dish we’ve seen in Sydney but it’s so easy to blow the big bucks on caviar, truffles and anything else priced by the gram that we thought we’d look further afield. Which brings us to Otto’s – a 650 gram Tassie lobster, direct from the tanks to you, cooked with vermouth, Joseph extra-virgin, chilli garlic, parsley and fresh taglierini. Oh. Yeah. Baby. Then again, there’s always Rockpool (fish)’s $145 mud crab (around $12.50 per 100 grams) – and that doesn’t include noodles.
Otto, area 8, 6 Cowper Wharf Rd, Woolloomooloo, NSW, (02) 9368 7488.
**Double-boiled bird’s nest, Yú, Perth: $138
**Put your mind to it and you could spend a substantial amount of dosh here at Perth’s most opulent Cantonese restaurant. Authentic artefacts and golden cutlery all contribute to the ambience. Peking duck is here, of course, along with shark’s fin and jellyfish. The most expensive dish on the menu, however, is the Chinese delicacy of bird’s nest. When the imported nests are cleaned and soaked, the swallow saliva from which they are constructed takes on a fine, gelatinous texture. Yú offers a sweet version with rock sugar and coconut, or you can try them in a savoury soup with lobster, crab or chicken. Given they sell for $138 a pop, you might just have to take our word on that.
Yú, Burswood Entertainment Complex, Great Eastern Hwy, Burswood, WA, (08) 9362 8238.
WORDS JANE CORNES, JOHN LETHLEAN AND PAT NOURSE PHOTOGRAPHY MARCEL AUCAR
This article appeared in the April 2008 issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller.