UPDATE: The $55 Mac And Cheese Guy Speaks
UPDATE: The Menu Said ‘Truffles’
This guy goes to the Waverly Inn and orders a mac and cheese, the night’s special, as an appetizer. It’s the kind of place where there’s no prices on the menus. When the mac comes, a waiter slides over and grates something on it. The guy assumes it’s cheese, eats his dinner and gets his bill. His eyes explode.
The mac and cheese is fifty-five dollars.
Turns out the stuff the waiter grated on wasn’t cheese. It was a fresh truffle. Special, indeed.
Watch out at the restaurant. Just because they put the fancy on doesn’t mean they’re above sneaking charges into your meal. Our reader’s letter, inside…
— BEN POPKEN
Max writes:
- “Hey Consumerist! Funny night for both me and my roommate. Not only did the girl I am seeing not put out, but my roommate has a problem with his date as well. They had decided to go to dinner at a restaurant she liked in the west village, and they ordered the usual: Salad, tuna tar-tar, chicken pot pie, and creamed spinach. My roommate, a comfort food fan (guess which of the previously mentioned items was his), noticed that the special for the evening was macaroni and cheese. He was in the mood, so he ordered it as an appetizer. The menu had no listed prices.
They brought out the macaroni on a small plate, in a quantity he describes as “not even enough to be considered an appetizer.” A waiter came over and grated something over the top, which was assumed to be cheese, and that was that. Then the bill came. The Salad? $10. The pot pie? $18. The look on my roommate’s face as he tells me he just dropped $55 on Mac and Cheese? Priceless.
It turns out that the stuff the waiter had grated over the dish was not a cheese but a fresh truffle, and no one had thought to mention anything until the bill came. He spoke to the owner, who gave him “A few free glasses of wine for the trouble,” but the point he makes is that there’s no reason a respectable restaurant with average dinner prices should sneak in a $55 macaroni order. Naughty naughty!”
Full receipt:
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i’m with gwai lo. the whole situation is dubious, regardless of the diner’s level of expertise. put the goddam numbers on the page. it’s not the guy’s fault if he didn’t know, i’m tired of all the elitist “serves him right” comments. and i’m tired of the waverly. can’t they have a kitchen fire and close already?
Although, NYC is the center of the culinary universe as far as this country goes.
I don’t really feel bad for the diner, he could’ve asked. Truffles – in grocery stores – go for $50-$70 for a single golfball-sized mushroom. Its not his fault for not knowing that, but if you don’t know, and there is no price listed, AND price is of concern, ask!
Here here, viciouslies.
Someone with a South Park avatar telling someone to go back to the frat house no less…probably a democrat too.
Truffles cost a lot. You’re in America, they have to import them over from, presumably Italy. Average mark up for a restaurant is 75%.
If you’re not pretentious enough to know that then you shouldn’t be dining in a restaurant that serves it; let alone one that serves truffles on a burger.
You’re a fool.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/…
- £62000 ($124000~ ) for 2lb 10oz of truffles.
Why I gotta pick on Magister, I dunno. But for the record, tartare anything is NOT just a slap of that something raw. It’s minced and seasoned.
The food legend about tartare’d food that, originally, the Tartars used to chuck hunks of meat in a bag, slip it under their saddle and ride on it until dinner time. The resulting product was a) mush and b) tasted of sweaty horse.
Modern innovations include a) using a knife instead of a horse, b) flavoring it with worchester (if using beef) or toasted sesame seed oil (if using tuna.) Beefwise, I only eat the stuff at Les Halles in NYC, and Grill on the Alley in Beverly Hills. Tuna, any fusion restaurant that does a brisk trade in fresh fish.
Papercutninja – Your comment about them not ordering drinks is absolutely absurd.
I’m 21+ and I never order drinks. I do not enjoy, or consume alcohol. It seems like an almost sad comment on society to assume anyone going to a restaurant will also desire to be tipsy if they’re “of age”. I go out of my way to avoid alcohol.
Actually, I prefer the truffles on the Jersey Dogs off of Vinnie’s Cart on 42nd. And he only charges $45 for them.
Rubes! Hilly-billies! Foreigners!
The “truffle-oil infused” mac and cheese appetizer at Umami in Croton is one of the most delicious things ever. And even with the $20 peak round trip on Metro North, it’s still about three Franklins cheaper than this crap. Of course you don’t get the street cred among your gawker-reading friends associated with eating a mag editor’s food. Because, you know, they’re awesome chefs.
I mean Lincolns.
I have 2 points to make :
1. The menu CLEARLY says “truffle”. If you don’t know what something is likley to cost then you shouldn’t order it! This chap has NOT read the menu correctly and even though the prices are not mentioned he should have asked the waiter discretely. The waiter would have been polite and quiet.
2. “Like other people said, if you have to ask you can’t afford.” – This statement is sheer snobbery. I am not rich but I am wealthy (worth about $2million). However, if I saw a menu or anything without a price I’d ask. Even though I could afford it, I wouldn’t pay $50 for a bowl of tomato soup! There is a MASSIVE difference between how much something costs and how much it is actually worth. I want to be sure I get value for my money.
missdona, you cracked me up! So true with the Evian or Pelligrino! I say, I’ll have a Sprite instead! lol
I was gonna say pestie FTW, but Rectilinear already beat me to it. Instead, I’ll just say Jory for the WTF?
Center of the culinary universe my truffle-scented ass!
I have been to this place and although it has good and bad aspects it is not off market with its contemporaries. The dish is clearly called “Macaroni and cheese with fresh shaved truffles” (image here) on the menu and as described 55$ seems in line with the current value of the dish as described.
Truffles are seasonal and the prices fluctuate between type and breadth of the season so not listing a price is also in line with the current market situation. It is surprising people reading a website called consumerist are so willing to forgive a guy that clearly ordered something he didn’t understand and got mad at the situation for his obvious ignorance. Not all lessons come cheap.
The truth is things are worth what people will pay for them, that’s what a free market is. Don’t like the current state of truffles don’t buy them, if there is a glut as there was last year the price dips. So far this year they haven’t been very good anyway and the season is almost over. Complaining you happily ordered something you didn’t comprehend makes little sense.
If your hope is to make truffles more affordable for the starving masses learn all there is to know so you aren’t paying for off market truffles. For example the prices have stayed artificially high this year in spite of low quality mostly thanks to the success of last years affordable pricing and a couple hero sized specimens that sold for record prices. I personally stopped buying them early in this season feeling the cost and experience were out of line.
Had this guy complained that he got moist chewy aroma-less truffles and felt that the price was out of line with an experience he understood, some good may have been done. But just announcing something costs more than he thinks it should does little good and possibly some harm, there are after all people that buy truffles just to appear to understand something others don’t. It is not unlike bitching that you went to a store on 47th street and the guy wanted 8k for an old piece of charcoal on metal band, sure that all it is but it is worth the prices the market will support.
The link did not attach the image of the menu is here:
http://augieland.blogs.com/augie_land/2006/11/the_waverly_…
Unfortunately, Longacre, your 20 dollar round trip to Umami is not even for real truffles. All truffle-oil is olive oil mixed with a chemical flavoring. No truffles even make it into the mix. This is why you can pay several bucks for a bottle of truffle oil but the real stuff will require you to pimp out your girlfriend.
[www.nytimes.com]
I could be a billionaire and I’d still be pissed about getting gouged for mac and cheese.. But then, that’s why I cook my own meals.
I still wish I was a billionaire, but I’m still a cheap bastard.
NY is the center of the culinary world? You can’t get good Tex-Mex anywhere other than, well, Texas. And there are no food, no matter how hoighty-toity they are, that can match the sheer pleasure of good Tex-Mex. Fuck the rest of the nation if they think truffles are better (I don’t think they do, though).
Am I the only one that sees something wrong with paying $18 for a pot pie and $10 for a salad as well?
@janelle: The prices were reasonable on everything. And it sounds like they ordered a mac and cheese without looking at the menu because it was a special offered up by the waiter. Clearly a mac and cheese is just that. The waiter should have said a mac and cheese and truffle. I would have said I will not pay for the truffle and they can charge 13 bucks for the mac and cheese or nothing. Hell it’s not like they can even prove it was even a truffle grinded up on your dish because the evidence was eaten. Restaurants lose the ability to call it theft if the prices aren’t up front.
@Mary Marsala with Fries: OMG…we are one in the same. I swear you had me laughing out loud in my cube! I’d do the SAME thing tho…
@Harlan: Amen…WTF RU KIDDING?…lol
@KarenUhOh: I was drinking water when i read that..WAS is the key word. Its on my desk now..
@MissNikki: Yeah, I’m right there with you. The entire thing is redonkulous!
@Jory: Jory, New York has a shit load of rivals these days. Portland, San Fran, Chicago, Minneapolis have been kicking some Culinary ass. Chitown is the center of that whole molecular gastronomy. Hell even Las Vegas is giving the big apple a run for its money.
Oh and Mr. Know it all truffles ain’t shrooms dude different family of fungi.
@augieland: the market demands you use paragraphs
@augieland: Whereas I and most of us here probably appreciate your knowledge, 99% of the population probably thinks the idea of “being seriously in the know about truffles” is a ridiculous proposition.
Personally, I do not like “fancy” restaurants, because all you pay for is the privilege to be seen at one. And I’m not saying this as a poor college student. I can afford it; I’ve tried, it; I don’t like it.
I can guarantee you that a little cookin’ shack off the highway in the country somewhere can make you better Mac and Cheese than the stuff the OP had.
I also firmly believe that nobody orders truffles without at least part of the reason behind it being “Hey, I’m ordering truffles, and they’re expensive.” That is, if the price of truffles went down to nothing, I bet you wouldn’t see them on menus at fancy establishment, “culinary value” be damned.
In short, very, very few people go to restaurants like this because the food quality is better or worth the price. It’s absolutely not. They go there to see and be seen, and to broadcast that they have money to burn. Period.
The OP was out of place. Most of the restaurant’s regular patrons probably would be embarrassed if the bill was UNDER $100 for two people, not upset that it was expensive.
Lydia Alcock’s bank statement People, always check your bank statements. Eighteen-year-old Lydia Alcock was checking her Visa statement online when she saw that her off-peak Metro-North ticket from Grand Central to Goldens Bridge cost $23,148,855,308,184,500.
One of the missions of Shitshow Week 2009: Find the biggest ripoff on an NYC menu. Every day we’ll pit at least two reader-recommended rip offs against each other. On Friday, the winners of the four winners will face off. Have a really good ripoff to recommend? We’re listening.
[photo via Consumerist] One of the missions of Shitshow Week 2009: Find the biggest rip off on an NYC menu. Every day for the last week we’ve pitted reader recommended rip offs against one another, and now the winners face off.