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There's A $9,388 Tasting Menu At This SGV Seafood Palace
A sea of money (Photo by fortuna777 via Shutterstock)
If you're looking to ball hard this weekend, there's a seafood restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley that will gladly take ten grand off your hands. Grand Harbor, a new Hong Kong-style seafood palace in Temple City, offers some extravagant menu options, including a $9,388 tasting menu, reports itinerant eater Jonathan Gold in the L.A. Times. Welcome to seriously fine dining.
To be fair, the menu is intended for 10 people, so assuming you and your close friends are looking to drop $1000 each (don't forget to tip!), this may be the feast for you. Then again, as JGold points out, that particular menu isn't for everybody, but "its existence is a statement of purpose, an inference that a meal there might be worth that kind of money, as well as a hint that you may be out of your league."
And what exactly is on this nearly $10,000 menu? Well, sadly that option was beyond JGold's budget (and ours). But to give you an idea of what might be included, the premier abalone at Grand Harbor goes for $600 and requires a week's notice to order. Gold also almost accidentally orders a $150 serving of a whole live geoduck (longnecked clam) in congee, but suddenly realizes the $10.50 live lobster congee might be a better option. And if you're looking to show off without blowing the bank, there's a lovely banquet menu for a mere $418.
Grand Harbor does offer plenty of reasonably priced menu options, but hey, where's the fun in that? They also may even give you free Instagram tips, as they did for Gold:
"No, not that one," a manager told me when I attempted to take an Instagram of an attractive fish in the live tank. "You want the one in that tank over there." He pointed to a gorgeous, pale fish speckled with blue dots like a late afternoon sky painted by Seurat. "From Australia. The taste…" His voice trailed off. "If you were going to have one fish, it could be the one."
Grand Harbor is also located at 5733 Rosemead Blvd., Temple City, (626) 280-2998.
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