We need something like to kick-start the economy!!

"not terrible" --what a resounding endorsement LOL.

I'd prefer she get the sexy handbag.

You know, it's really the pink, Himalayan rock salt that really make this burger "over the top."

Seeing as BK can't even make a consistently good burger in their U.S restaurants,it's not surprising that the best compliment that this thing received was " It's not terrible"

Something they should strive for here.

BTW- The tomato pickers that BK tried to screw out of a half cent per pound are taking home more $$$ but amazingly, thecompany still survives.

@ironchef: That's the line I loved as well. The first guy was also great. "Thanks for the opportunity to try a 95 pound hamburger... because I'd never do it with my own money."

I sincerely hope that this is all a gag because the more I see of overpriced swank like this, the more I become a socialist.

I think the problem here is not that it's a $185 hamburger -- but the fact that it's a $185 hamburger served to you in a fast-food joint.

Funny how MTV Cribs is all I associate Cristal (usually pronounced "kris-tl") with anymore...

What bugs me about most of these "most expensive" food stunts is that they just grab a bunch of high priced ingredients and throw them together without any real thought on if they actually compliment each other or can even be noticed in the flavors.

Take a turd slice some truffles on top, put some caviar around it and sprinkle with gold dust. Charge $1000.

@witeowl: This kind of crap while people can't afford health care here and people around the world can't get enough to eat is turning me into a raving socialist too.

Clearly that chef picked ingredients by price and not by taste. Total failure of a chef(Would you even call someone willing to make something so stupid a chef to begin with?)

@dry-roasted-peanuts: Cristal, Louis Vitton, Burberry get associated with ghetto/trailer, chavs and low class trash.

If you want to torpedo a brand get some tacky sub culture to embrace it.

The economy sucks all over the place, but here you go, everyone! A nice big middle finger from BK to you! That will be $95 please.

I must confess that I'm in agreement with some of the other commentators here. I'm rather embarrassed as an American when I see these types of things -- and especially those disgusting eating competitions -- all the while half of Africa is starving to death.

Isn't this a sign of something or other?

I make a more expensive burger at home so where the hell is the Guinness Book of World records?

My special sauce is the secret to the price ;-)

@laserjobs: I hope it's not bull semen at like $24,000 a liter (at least I hope it's not the whole liter).

@Snarkysnake: I know, utterly, utterly shocking that an extra cent or two per pound of tomatoes didn't send the company into a death spiral nor force steep price increases as some commenters here would have had you believe. Shocking.

I'm waiting for hundred dollar fries to go with it.

@Cranky Customer: While it's nice that you do care, comments like "half of Africa is starving" isn't helpful (nor truthful) either, and at worst, counterproductive.

While the high profile African aid campaigns of the 80s were needed and successful in raising awareness, the downside is that they've created this image of Africa as this hopeless continent. There's a reason why humanitarian groups have shifted their focus to more specific programs like debt forgiveness and fair trade (and Africa is one area the Bush Administration has actually done great work, distributing mosquito nets and HIV drugs).

With functioning governments and proper land management, sub-Saharan Africa can survive, and I wish people wouldn't bring out the ol' "Think of the starving African kids!" to make a point. Waste is bad, whether there's a famine in Ethiopia or not, and you don't need to repeat a myth to make that point.

@Cranky Customer: There was an ad for some show on G4 where people gorge themselves on massive quantities of food and then they do things like put them in a gyro machine to make them puke.

All I could think of was how horrible this was in light of people starving in other parts of the world not to mention people who are struggling to afford food here. Everyone else in the room was trying to avoid sympathy puking while the guy in the commercial yakked up his guts.

No wonder the rest of the world hates us.

@spinachdip: How about rice rationing in the Phillipines?

Someone should try the 'Destroying Angel" from Porter's Place in Lehi Utah. A full-plate sized, 1 lb hamburger (*after* it's been cooked) with an extra pound of thick, chewy bacon if you ask for it.

And at $12, it's a much better deal.

I must say, this $185 burger is WAY out of brand character for Burger King.

This is usually the kind of publicity stunt some trendy, way overpriced restaurant pulls, not a fast-food chain.

I would challenge Burger King instead to come up with a $1.85 burger for the rest of us that is filling and made with top-quality ingredients.

What's that stunned silence I hear? A king peeing his royal vestiments?

@jpdanzig: Maybe they've skipped into the future from Demolition Man.

@spinachdip: I whole-heartedly disagree with your assertion that Africa is an area where the current administration is succeeding. When you actively campaign against the distribution of condoms in areas like this, you are a villain, plain and simple.

What are the odds that the few Burger Kings that carry this end up throwing out half the ingredients as they expire? If I were a store owner, I wouldn't want to write off $500 in truffles a month.

@bohemian: Eh. I just hate the "What about the starving people in ____?" argument in general. I mean, it's not like the people who need food now would have been eating Wagyu even in a good year. Compared to more resource-hogging endeavors like auto racing or golf, this hardly registers a blip. I try to waste as little as possible, and I think people who let food go to waste are immoral, but this burger is nothing. At least they've made something that's apparently "not terrible".

@mgy: Not to get all semantic-y, but I never said the Bush Admin was successful. Condomphobia aside, they HAVE done great work on the continent, especially with mosquito nets. Yeah, the Iraq war has handcuffed them from doing anything about Darfur, but compared to all of other Bush policies (or absence thereof), Africa is a success all things considered - not a complete success, maybe, but a success nonetheless.

I can make a more expensive burger... but diamonds are really crunchy.

@spinachdip: But it does bother me when a company (or anyone else) would be promoting a $185 hamburger. That money could buy a huge amount of food aid or basic food for someone. People in a third world country are not eating Wagyu but that money could buy lots of rice and lentils and such. The $185 burger is just another sign of mindless self absorbed wasteful consumption.

The Bush Admin has not been a boon to Africa. Many things have declined since the 90's as far as aids due to Bush's ideological polices being pushed over sound practices.
[www.npr.org]

I think what's going to kill this burger is employee theft. Internal food theft is already pretty common at most fast food places. If I was some £8/hr burger flipper at BK (or whatever is a menial wage in the UK), I would totally rip off the Waygu beef to eat at home. The rest of the ingredients I'm not that concerned about, but I do enjoy a good burger.

@bohemian: You do realize that it's a publicity stunt though? They're not expecting people to actually spend $180 during their lunch break or for the burger itself to be a hit product, but they do expect a return on whatever they're spending to promote it.

So unless you expect Burger King to spend every spare dime on humanitarian aid (which would be awfully nice, but won't happen), it's simply not reasonable to argue that the money could be going to aid. It's a business expense - you might not agree with the reasoning, but it's how they chose to bolster their bottom line.

@ludwigk: Well, it's a shame that the Wagyu is being all ground up and packed into a patty, but yeah, if I'm working at a BK in UK and no one's looking, I'd run off with the beef, cook myself a nice dinner, and look for a new job the next day.

Ugh... Wagyu should not be ground up - and at BK they probably overcook it and cook it too fast. Poor meat :( Really, Wagyu just needs warmed and left solid - albeit, no matter the butcher you will always end up with some stew meat or hamburger meat, so that may be where they are getting it. Even then, a Wagyu burger needs cooked slowly. It's as bad as the local restaurants that sell Kobe then cook it so fast all the oils leach out. :(

Now, what I want to know is how many months does that Wagyu have to sit around frozen before someoen ats it.

"MMM, great Wagyu-freezer-burned-burger with dried-out-dessicated-truffles." and other crap that is better off as a complimentary flavor than a blended flavor..

Hey, @ least the profits are going to charity ... so what if Burger King makes a little publicity out of it.

Haute cuisine aficionados just don't get that rare and pricey does not automatically equal delicious. I'll bet there are dozens of mom-and-pop burger joints that would blow away the Pretentious Whopper in a blind taste test, even among those with fancy palates. I'm reminded of an old Mad magazine cartoon which stated that you wind up paying more for all the adjectives, and this bit of wankery is a perfect example.

Honestly, why was Africa even brought up? Giving aide to Africa is like using money for firewood.

I fucking hate that accent.

I think the market that would buy this thing would be more willing to buy it in a gemstone-laden burger box ala Most Expensive Spirits and also make burger king an even heftier profit on the suckers.

@spinachdip: I understand auto racing, but how is golf resource hogging? Watering the greens? Not spending the $20+ green fees on stimulating the rest of the economy?

oh, i forgot -- if this was the american pound, rather than the british, a 95 pound burger would definitely be worth the $180

@bohemian: I totally agree with you. There's some "most expensive sundae" or something that comes with a ring or bracelet as decoration which you're supposed to keep and wear. Clearly the only point of this is to raise the price so they can get the "most expensive" title.

...

Probably this is only being offered at a very small number of locations, and they are planning to have only a very small amount of orders--so there is absolutely no effect on starving countries. You are welcome to object based on the principle, but this certainly isn't harming anyone (except the cows).

i hope it comes in the same cardboard box their other crap comes in. i would enjoy the saffron on the bun though.

@edcrowle: Water and land, mostly. It takes something 2.5 billion gallons of water a day to irrigate all the golf courses in the world. Granted, some places require golf courses to use recycled water, but still. If you want to get really picky, you could talk about how almost all golf courses require private transportation.

And I wasn't actually thinking of this, but conversion of farmland to golf courses in Southeast Asia is partly blamed for the rice shortage, so there's that.

@edcrowle: "You know what they call a 95-pounder in France?"

You can spend your economic stimulus check on it, and help fight terrorism. Go America!!!

I think I can find better things to blow $180 on rather than an un-appetizing burger made from meat that looks as cheap and fatty as what the discount stores sell here for 1.99 a lb! (Yes I realize I am about to be slammed by wagyu and kobe beef lovers.) I would rather have a burger made from venison, on a homemade kaiser roll, with fresh lettuce, tomato and vidalia onion etc. anyday-and thanks to having 3 deer in the freezer, and excellent local farmer's markets, I can!

ROFL. This is ridiculous. Such an extravagant waste.

I think all the "Think of the starving people in ____" people are outraged at this, not because that food could be going to those starving people, but because of the principle of the matter. It's basically like saying, "Hey we have so much food here, look what we can do with it! Completely waste it! Sucks to be you, 3rd world!"

Also, they obviously just added ingredients with the most exotic-sounding name, and highest price tag, without any regard to taste, and how these different ingredients compliment each other. Pink Himalayan rock salt? Truffles on a burger?

I think I'll have one with a nice, stiff Louis XIII de Rémy Martin and coke.

@bohemian:

@Cranky Customer:

WHile I think this BK stunt is asinine.... I hate it when people say things like "that's why the world hates us!... because we waste food!"

They sound like my mother when she would tell me there were starving kids in africa that would LOVE to eat brussel sprouts (I'm sure they's love to eat cow intestines and bugs aswell, but that doesnt mean I am going to).

You just cant compare. We have a lot of food here in the west so we waste a lot of it. Its just that simple.

I cant stand some of the drivel that self-loathing americans say. Should the japanese hate themselves because they are electronic-gadget-loving-freaks? No... its a part of their culture. As large fast food portions & food eating contests are ours. Yes, we waste a lot of food.

@Cranky Customer: People can spend money that they earn however they want. If they want a $200 burger, they can have it. You can go earn your money and spend it however you'd like. That's our way, and in this rare case, it's the best way.

Also, I don't see any of you freaking out at the thousands of restruaunts that offer $75-$200 plates of American Kobe/Kobe beef EVERY DAY in EVERY MAJOR CITY. Once again, the internet has brought you to outrage because you didn't care until it told you to care!!

Also, the $75 Alaskan King Salmon I had this past weekend was delish. I'd feel guilty, but I earned the money and can spend it however I'd like. Idiots.

@ImCrying:

BOOOOO! HISSSS!!!!!

You are a HORRIBLE american!

Didnt you know that to be a good american you must hate yourself , your country & your prosperity!?

/sarcasm

Looks tasty.

Wagyu is the Japanese term for beef. So the BK is making a hamburger made of beef beef? Fantastic!
Why aren't they selling this in Japan? Wait... There aren't many BKs in that country. Just McDonald's with their 4 patty Mega Macs, and Mega Eggs.