Maybe the OP could post a coherent question?
The topic title doesn’t help, especially when it specifically says “highest price meal”.
The most expensive meal I ever had at a restaurant was probably $30 to $35 for the food and beverages, plus tip and tax. I have almost the same meal at the same seafood restaurant about once a year and it’s only in the last couple of years that it’s been over $30 before tip and tax. Sadly, I probably won’t be able to eat the same meal again because of some brand new food allergies I have somehow acquired.
I’m not poor at all. I could easily afford to blow hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a meal at a fancy restaurant but I just don’t see the point. I have better things to do with my money, and I’m perfectly content with home-cooked meals and relatively inexpensive restaurants.
Imagine that you polled all the members of the SDMB asking them the question “What is the highest price you have ever paid for a meal?” He wants to know which member’s price would be the lowest of all the responses.
I will assume “purchased” means going to a restaurant, as opposed to what I paid at the supermarket for something I cooked myself. (In the latter case, the cheapest is probably around 40 cents, for a package of Top Ramen and a can of soda.)
Least expensive? Probably something like $1.25, although this was 40 years ago - when I was a sophomore in college, I had classes that prevented me from eating lunch at my dorm, and they would give me a $1.25 credit to purchase something on campus; this was usually just enough to get a yogurt, an apple, and something to drink.
Most expensive? Somewhere around $90, either at the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesar’s Palace or at Galpao Gaucho, both in Las Vegas - and both all-you-can-eat. The most for a non-AYCE is probably the $60 I just shelled out a few weeks ago for a burger, fries, soda, and dessert at Gordon Ramsay Burger, once again in Las Vegas. (The burger and dessert were about $20 each, the fries were $10, the drink was $5, plus tax and tip.)
Maybe like this? (public poll):
What is the most you’ve paid for a meal (per person, outside of your own home cooking)
- >$1,000
- $500-999
- $250-499
- $100-249
- $75-99
- $50-74
- $30-49
- $20-29
- $10-19
- <$10
- I’ve never paid for a meal outside my home
0
voters
Usually a good place to start.
Damn, man, Chipotle delivery alone costs over $30. Especially since inflation caused the costs of restaurants to increase significantly. I’m one of those people who saves my money specifically for an occasional fancy dinner out.
I’m sure there are people who don’t value that and don’t spend on it, but it’s hard for me to imagine.
Should probably specify if that means per person or for the entire bill.
Maybe the term per person I used wasn’t clear?
Sorry must have glazed over that.
In that case, here’s a related thought, which I had this morning before reading your thread. I was wondering how cheaply it would be possible to eat on a per-meal basis for a week in my neck of the woods (East Hawai’i) if you bought meals from local restaurants and took the leftovers home.
For example, at the Hawaiian Style Cafe in Hilo or Waimea, you can order a Loco Moco with everything - basically, it is rice topped with fried chicken, Spam, egg (maybe beef too, I can’t remember) and smothered in gravy. It is served on a platter, not just a single-serving plate, and it is HUGE. (Probably comes with toast or hash browns on the side, too.) For a person with a normal appetite, it is easily 3 meals, maybe more.
Anyway, if a person bought no groceries and did no cooking for a week, but purchased several such meals (they would not all have to be loco moco’s - around here we have lots of restaurants serving huge portions of highly caloric foods) and ate them at their normal rate of caloric ingestion, I do wonder if it might come in at a competitive cost compared with cooking one’s own meals, especially if you factored in cooking time and energy. (In my case, the restaurant food would not be as healthy or delicious, as I tend to prefer lighter, vegetable-rich dishes, but that would vary from person to person depending on their own typical cooking.)
Anyway, that’s the kind of thing my brain turns over when I’m not preoccupied with the stresses of daily life and work. I am half-tempted to try it one week, just for fun.
I can eat at Sonic. One unsweet tea, one corndog. Use the app, go at happy hour, use coupon. $1.95.
Whoo hoo!
Since I wrote the OP, and apparently hijacks are permitted, I’d appreciate if people would discuss how so many people could so greatly misinterpret my OP.
Yes, I found it challenging to describe the idea I was asking about in a pithy thread title. I thought my question was sufficiently clear both by my link to the other thread/post, and my statement:
Obviously, my OP was flawed, because the first response was to describe a $2200 tab. I responded:
I’m not sure how I could have phrased that more clearly. I am curious as to how the first three posts in this thread could have been misconstrued so consistently.
I am not criticizing any particular poster. I no longer give a damn about this modest idea I had, as this thread has so completely gone off the rails. So continue posting your expensive meals if you wish. But I am curious as to how this miscommunication occurred. I readily acknowledge my OP could have been better. But is it incomprehensible?
Do people respond to threads without reading beyond the title? Or do they read a selected response somewhere down the thread, and presume that response correctly characterizes the original question? Do they answer what THEY are interested in, rather than what the OP asks? Are a significant portion of posters challenged in reading comprehension?
Can Post 23 be misunderstood?
Yet, in Post 26, a poster proposes a poll asking something entirely different.
Some people apparently had no difficulty understanding what I was asking (at least by the time I clarified the OP in Post 3). But others obviously did. I am generally interested in communicating in a manner so as not to be misunderstood as greatly as in this thread. So what happened - both by me, and others?
Well, I certainly lose the lowest highest priced meal. I’ve spent more than $30 for a takeout lunch to bring to a friend’s house for a casual “let’s each provide our own meal and eat together” thing.
It’s a hard question to answer. So far, most of us, can only say “I’m out”.
Right. So instead of just saying that, people feel moved to explain how much they are out by?
What else is there to say, once you observe that you are out of the running?
The poll allows everyone to participate, but would quickly identify everyone at the low end (wasn’t that the end goal?).
If your purpose was to exclude any discussion around higher priced meals, stating that in the OP would have cut way back on participation in the thread.
fwiw, I really enjoy food, and a life of people kibble and water would be extremely sad for me. I measure my financial well-being in large part by “can I buy the food I want to eat?” So I share your surprise that someone has never spent more than $30 on a meal, but in my case, I can speculate that they have different priorities than I have.