wagyu finger at hundred dollar steak
Kevin Lacassin permalink | categories: food, media, newspapers, restaurantby Kevin Lacassin @ 9:05 am
Ever eaten a $100 steak?
I haven’t, but if someone offered to buy me one I wouldn’t object. Actually Laura Reiley, the new food critic at the St. Pete Times has never tried a bite of said steak, but I know she paid the price for her friend to eat one.
In case you haven’t read it, Reiley wrote an article in the St. Pete Times about her recent experience hosting a dinner for a group of friends at Chateau France in North Tampa. After the waiter rattled off a list of specials, one of the members in her party ordered the Kobe beef and didn’t give it a second thought. That is, until the bill came and Reiley found out that her friend had consumed over a hundred dollars worth of the beef, an expensive variety that comes from specially raised cows in Japan.
Most people would be outraged by being served with an excessive bill at the end of a meal, but I assume Laura Reiley decided to suck it up and use it as a great idea for a story. In her article, she spends time analyzing the price of the “special” and even calls on other professional opinions as to whether or not the entrée was priced right or if the waiter should have stated the price when the food was ordered. In my opinion, the article is all fluff and is unfair to both Chateau France and to informed diners.
I may not have a culinary degree, but as an experienced diner I know the value of Kobe beef. It doesn’t take a professional food critic to guess the approximate price of a Kobe steak. Apparently the general public agrees, as the comments from this story seem to be flowing. But is $107 too expensive for a steak? I’ve spent that much money on other things that didn’t give me much pleasure. Or, you may see it as a gimmick, as Drew Curtis, founder of Fark.com describes overpriced food items in his book, It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News:
“Mark up your hamburger 1,000 percent and every paper in the land will put your restaurant in its style section. Always get a quote from a rich idiot who bought the item and- believe it or not- enjoyed it.”
Either Laura Reiley is a rich idiot, uninformed and unqualified to be writing professionally about food, or decided that a $107 steak would make a great story. Either way, Chateau France will now have people beating down the door to try the steak and Reiley paid a fortune for a steak that she didn’t even get to try. Some will win, some will lose. Your thoughts?
Tags: food, media, newspapers, restaurant
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May 17th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I will admit that, as a friend and colleague of Laura’s, I heard the story of the $107 steak before she wrote it and have heard about reader reaction to the story from her.
That said, I think your post is a bit unfair. They key issue here is disclosure — when should a restauranteur disclose when an item is markedly more expensive than other items on the menu, and is withholding that fact an attempt to subtly pressure people into buying it without considering the high cost?
i think Laura did a good job of weighing these issues in her story. And judging by the volumnious amount of feedback we’ve received, opinions are evenly divided on the issue.
And given that Laura’s job is writing about food in a compelling way, why is it so unexpected that she would see an opportunity to turn a compelling story out of an unusual restaurant experience?
Eric Deggans
Times TV/Media Critic
May 17th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Eric,
I appreciate your feedback, but I believe my post is fair. I think Laura did a fantastic job of turning a somewhat negative experience into a pretty sensational story. She has gained readers and even “stirred the pot,” a bit. For that, she has my respect. On the flip-side, are we to believe that she had no idea of the price of Kobe beef? I think not.
I believe her story had multiple purposes. One of them was to help warn diners of the potential danger of ordering a special without first asking the price. The second I am not sure about. I don’t see any rhyme or reason for questioning the pricing scheme that a restaurant uses for its specials. Were there other motives?
I believe Laura did what she set out to do, create buzz about a story. Some of the feedback was positive, some was negative, but it was feedback, nonetheless. Some of it was aimed at her and some toward the restaurant. I believe the article was written in such an ambiguous manner and now we’ve got a bunch of people looking for someone to blame. I didn’t mean for my commentary to be unfair, but instead meant to offer a differing opinion on the situation.
-Kevin
May 18th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
This is twice now you’ve slagged Laura. I thought you were going to write about food, perhaps review some restaurants, not spend your time writing about how much others suck.
From your response you seem to be saying that Laura thought the steak would make a great story. But, from your post it seems like you’re calling her a rich idiot incapable of writing about food.
Differing on opinions is one thing, but implying someone is an idiot is uncalled for.
May 18th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
dave,
The “rich idiot” comment was quoted from a book; I didn’t write it. I hardly believe Laura is a rich idiot and this article was questioning the motives of the article, not her character or personality. Perhaps some of it was lost in translation, so I apologize. The first time I criticized her was because she reviewed two low-brow chain restaurants in the St. Pete Times. I expect more from the food critic of the largest newspaper in a region with over 2 million people.
As far as food goes, this blog entry was about food and a local restaurant, Chateu France. Not everyone will like everything I write, but I invite you to continue reading.
-Kevin
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:02 am
I cannot tell you how tired I am of Kobe beef at the current moment. First, I did taste the beef in question. Very nice. That was never the thrust of the piece. And I have had Kobe many times before (very rich, maybe my g.i. tract is a little wimpy, but I’d say it’s best as an appetizer). My friend was not evil, nor profligate, nor a weenie. He merely had heard of Japanese beef, it was described with glowing adjectives, he took the plunge. The story I wrote was not about his audacity, nor about my good graces as host. Just about our mutual stupefaction that the price so exceeded that of anything else on the printed menu. Wasn’t a think-I’ll buy-something-expensive-and-then-whine-about-it stunt. At core, this was a plea to give the dining public its dignity in the ordering process.
Kevin, I hear you about chains, and my attitude is this: I will not review a chain outpost of an existing group of restaurants. However, if a new chain has set up shop, a fair number of readers say, “What’s that new box that opened in the strip mall down the road?” My job is, on occasion, to give people a heads-up on an new chain concept. In some metro areas that would not be necessary or reasonable, but this is an area in which chain concepts are tried out, and in which people are eager to give them a whirl.
L.
February 11th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Oh guys, it may be expensive but Wagyu is worth its weight in gold. thanks Kev for the post. =)