If they charged me $356, I’d assume that included me taking a knife home.
Hey, they gave us free garlic bread. 
… right in the wallet …
Could you try something like this donut recovery collar :-
I made one for Meave the cat from a length of pipe insulation (Instructions).
Yeah, that’s true, but I challenge anyone to find a really good steakhouse that doesn’t charge astronomical prices.
That’s actually very true. These days I set my sights on supermarket beef and make do.
My days of huge cheques for cuts of beef that someone bounces salt off of their forearm on are over.
I have never heard of this. Is this a thing?
There’s even video of it ( Nusret steakhouse? ). I might have to break the links so you can have them though:
https:/ /www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tj_XYaPZbs
But some of the steaks are the price of 1/2 a mortgage payment:
https:/ /nusretusa.com/ny-midtown/menu
I did the math after we got home. The price of our steaks divided by the weight worked out to $8.60/oz. or $137/lb. 
Yikes.
So, did Mrs. Chefguy just have this place as a bucket list item to tick off, and you’re off the hook for a return trip, or is she rationalizing ways that $137.00/lb beef is worth it (maybe it’s butchered and cooked by the Dalai Lama)?
I would absolutely spend this much on a steak, but only eat 6oz. I try to squeeze in an expensive steak dinner once every three or four months. I don’t eat beef at home (my husband is allergic) so when I go out to eat, I want luxury, dammit.
Can you bring home a “box” with leftovers, or will that set off his allergies?
Sometimes good steak is still good even if it’s reheated the day after.
$137 would have bought me a 32oz bone-in ribeye. That’s about $4/oz, which is significantly cheaper than what I paid, but I’d have been paying for a big whopping bone.
Sometimes I do take home delicious leftovers, yeah, but when we go to the fancy places, I’m normally getting a 6oz filet. Not out of prudence or anything, but because after a salad and an appetizer and bread that’s about all the room I’ve got left. What usually comes home with me is dessert.
All I’m saying is that I understand why some people pay a lot of money for fancy meals. My husband, due to his allergies, doesn’t really care for restaurants, but a fancy meal out is my absolute jam.
But I’ve never actually had a steak that expensive. Well, not that I paid for. One of the benefits of being related to a lot of rich people is that you can expect amazing food at every family event, so I’ve had a lot of filet on other people’s dime and I can’t guess what it cost. But when my husband and I go out to Ruth’s Chris, which is the fanciest steak I know of around here, the bill is about $150-175 including tip.
Anti-rant: Well, the plumbers came, sawed and jackhammered up the driveway, determined the problem was more extensive than hoped for, fixed it, even reattached my kitchen drain pipe for me which I had detached, and will be back tomorrow to seal up the basement window and repour the driveway. They did a fantastic job, and they are much less money than most plumbers. And I get to work from home for 2 days on days when I actually had very little to work on. Still not delighted to spend a lot of money, but it needed to be done and it couldn’t have been a better experience.
I love it when the inevitable home-owning nightmares turn out ok. 
I was going to say that I love when these sorts of things happen but that’s not true. I fully tolerate it.
Our turn with the plumbing nightmare.
Our city has a new law which says that when you sell your home, you must do a “sewer lateral inspection”, and if your sewer lines that connect down to the main city sewer are in any way defective, you must pay to fix the problem before selling. This new law was brought about because the next city downstream sued our city after last winter’s floods caused sewage from busted laterals.
Since we hope to sell our home soon, we had a city-approved plumber out here yesterday to inspect. Our lateral is borked, it appears, and his ballpark estimate: $11,000 to $14,000 to fix. Chocolate christ on a cookie cross! We’re newly retired and don’t have piles of cash to throw around!
I have an email in with our realtor to see what our options are. I think we can write the sales contract such that the buyer takes responsibility for the repair, but we’ll see.
I’ve heard that to a limited extent, some meals can be listed on expense reports as an entertainment expense for clients, etc. How much of that the company can write off against taxes owed at the end of the year isn’t my field.
I have no doubt that high quality food always tastes better when someone else is paying for it.
My first impulse is that this could cost you more in the long run. It’s well accepted that money spent on home improvements never increases the house’s value by the same amount. Usually 50% at best. It would be the same with this job.
And look at it from the buyer’s perspective. The house is worth, say, $100,000 but there’s a necessary job that could cost between $11,000 and $14,000. Are you going to assume the best case and offer $89,000? No, you’re going to assume worse than the worst case and not offer a penny over $85,000.
ISTM you’d be better off getting the job done now yourself, where you have some control over the cost and how well the job is done, even if it means taking out a short term loan. You’ll be able to sell at the highest price and recoup the largest percentage of the expense.