Posted by SaabKen on 8/24/04; 12:58:46 AM
From the Features dept.
[ ROLAND's NOTE:
Thanks, Ken - Sorry for posting this so late. I would post a link
to the original article but the Vancouver Sun doesn't believe in being
a paper of record on the web. As a result, the original article
is no longer freely accessible (as of this writing the Google cached version
still is). I think that this policy is misguided but what can you
do? As for $34 burgers, it sounds great but call me a traditionalist; I
would rather spend that money on Diva's excellent "normal" food rather
than spend it on a burger. I prefer "normal" burgers from Vera's or Moderne.]
Since there's no "hamburger" category, I'll
place this Vancouver Sun write-up here. Quite a step up from a Vera or
Moderne Burger !
Ken
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City's priciest is big, meaty and exotic
Mia Stainsby
Vancouver Sun
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Super-sized and super-expensive, the DC Burger at Vancouver Diva at the
Met restaurant, at a stratospheric $34, is the priciest in town
And what do you get for a $34 burger?
House-made cheese bun, five ounces of ground flank steak, two ounces of
foie gras, two ounces of a mixture of short-rib meat and portobello and
oyster mushrooms, truffle aioli, tomato and shallot fondue, along with
gaufrette potatoes (waffle-cut) and tempura Cipollini onion rings. It's a status burger -- the more designer, the more expensive, the better. The trend started in 2001 with the DB Burger at New York's DB Bistro
Moderne, one of the city's hot spots run by celebrity chef Daniel
Boulud. The Guinness Book of Records has declared his burger the most
expensive in the world. It ka-chings in at $29 US, or about $40 Cdn.
During truffle season, between December and March, the bistro offers
the DB Burger Royale, which costs $50 US, or $99 US for the
double-truffle version. The DB Burger created a "burger war," with other restaurants
offering even more expensive burgers with designer ingredients. Diva at
the Met freely admits its burger -- created by and named after its chef
Damon Campbell -- was inspired by Daniel Boulud. "The DB Burger created a splash and everyone loved it," Boulud's publicity manager Gail Simmons says from New York City. "There's a reason for our prices. It has about 40 different
ingredients. When a steak house started making a burger with Kobe beef
for over $40, Daniel thought, well, it's truffle season so we'll add a
layer of truffles, and thus began what the press likes to call the
burger wars. It was the busiest week of my life." (Fresh truffles cost
the restaurant about $350 US a pound, she says.) Surprisingly, Diva's DC Burger is mostly ordered by women. The
restaurant has been selling three to five DC Burgers a day since it
started offering them about a week ago. "It's been all women. No men," says publicist Judy Ahola, a petite
woman who's tried it herself. "Um, I ate probably three-quarters of it.
It was delicious and I really tried to plow through it." Asked about the calorie count, she replies honestly: "It's certainly higher than the Big Mac."
Marlee Wright-Elles, a fine wine consultant for Mark Anthony Wine
Merchants, is a fan, too. "When the flavours combined, it was just
amazing," she says. "I ate it with a knife and fork, though, because if
I put it together, my mouth wouldn't have fit around it. "I thought the presentation was lovely and I would have liked to
have eaten the whole thing but I might have fallen asleep in the
afternoon. I finished about three-quarters of it." Asked why she chose it, she said, "it sounded amazing when it was described." The famous DB Burger at DB Bistro Moderne contains three ounces of
shredded short rib meat, preserved truffles, foie gras inside seven
ounces of ground sirloin steak between a parmesan and poppy-seed bun.
It's served with pommes frites or pomme souffle. Says Diva at the Met restaurant manager Robert Herman: "The Diva
kitchen has a playful side to their repertoire. . . . The food trend of
remaking classics and adding a touch of the restaurant's personality is
alive and well."
Copyright The Vancouver Sun 2004
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