A whopping bill of 400,000 yuan (US$58,400) followed a carousal attended by eight voracious diners, one of whom was a Dubai prince with extremely deep pockets.
The extravaganza of feasting at a lavish Chinese restaurant inside Shanghai’s Xijiao (Western Suburb) State Guesthouse has been the talk of the town since Wednesday, with netizens lamenting that the money shelled out for the dinner was way more than what they could make in an entire year.
So what were the dishes on the table?
According to the receipt, the eight gourmands partook of, among others, top-grade caviar at 5,000 yuan per platter, abalones in sake that came at 12,800 yuan a pop, sautéed crocodile tail in soup for 16,800 yuan per dish, and a giant croceine croaker that alone cost a cool 116,920 yuan.
Including a service charge of 37,944 yuan, the total bill for the 20-course dinner was 418,245 yuan, but the restaurant cashier was generous enough to round off the small numbers and charged only 400,000 yuan, as shown on the receipt.
It was said that the dinner was a treat by an unnamed Dubai prince who liked to enjoy a lot of booze with his tycoon friends in China.
The manager of the restaurant told reporters that he sourced the best ingredients from across the globe for the “bespoke dinner” and that the eye-watering size of the bill did not faze the prince.
The diner who posted photos on Weibo is said to be the son of the owner of China’s largest rare-earths miner. But so far there has been no further information about the identity of the big-spending Dubai prince.
Shanghai papers also reported that since the exposé, the place had been chock-a-block with gastronomists and spendthrifts with a great appetite to splurge, and all the private boxes had been booked for the rest of the week.
Market and consumer rights watchdogs are said to have paid a visit to the restaurant.