LONDON, June 18, 2008
$200 Burger: Delectable Or Despicable?
From The Fast-Food Chain Who Made The Whopper - A Whopper Of A Pricetag On A Burger
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Play CBS Video Video $200 Burgers Flipped In London Burger King has a new Whopper on the menu - a $200 burger that is making some mouths water. But others say this decadent burger is one that a hungry world can't afford. Mark Phillips reports.
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It may just be London's most expensive burger - and where else can you find such a whopper price tag if not at the home of the whopper, Burger King? (CBS)
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Interactive Diet And Nutrition Are you eating right? See the government's guidelines, calculate your body mass index and quiz yourself on healthy food choices.
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Interactive Food Pyramid The government's latest guidelines for healthy eating get personal.
"This is not just ordinary beef, this is special?" CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips asked.
Burger King's Chef Mark Dowding said: "Absolutely; this is Wagyu."
Premium, prohibitively priced, Japanese-style Wagyu, flame-grilled, garnished with Italian truffles, Spanish cured ham, aged balsamic vinegar, Champagne onions and popped onto a saffron- and truffle-dusted bun.
Isn't it all a little elaborate for a hamburger?
"Absolutely not," Dowding said. "Absolutely not."
Total cost of ingredients, the chain says, about $80 a throw.
By the time it gets to the counter, it sells for just shy of $200. For a burger!
So is it worth it?
"Orgasmic," one customer says.
Which is a lot to ask of a burger.
To some this is a burger - a high-end burger. It would have to be at $200 a pop. To others, though, it isn't a burger. It's grotesque on a bun.
"Outrageous," said Dave Tucker, with the anti-poverty group "War on Want."
To food crisis campaigners trying to draw attention to the millions of poor around the world, who are struggling to survive at a time of shortages and rising prices for basic commodities, this is the wrong burger, and the wrong message, at the wrong time.
"To come out with this kind of hugely expensive and over-the-top burger and to have 80 million people going to bed hungry every night is just to shoot yourself in the foot," Tucker said.
The chain, which is donating the proceeds from this promotion to charity, calls it "deliciously decadent." Delicious is a matter of taste.
Nobody's arguing with decadent.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Add a Comment See all 81 Comments
- Hey, the little gang-banger gold-tooth gotta-have-bling baby''s-daddy crowd can drive through in their Humvee and grab a sack for their homies with their drug money.
Way to go, Burger King. That is your demographic, isn''t it? - Reply to this comment
- michaelt302
I am neither jealous or bitter. I am just inteligent enough to not spend this kind of money on a hamburger. When i buy something i want it to be worth the money. This isn''t and i think with the recession we are in it is bad timing on the part of Burger King. - Reply to this comment
- I think it is a great idea. At that price, folks ought to start losing some weight!! I could only affors about one of these a year.
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- NASTY.
- Reply to this comment
- People get upset way to easy. WHO CARES about a $200 burger. If someone wants to make it and someone wants to buy it...no harm no foul.
Non story in my opinion - Reply to this comment
- I dunno if I care about the message, but unlike diamonds or Porsches or other stuff people waste their money on, you can be sure this money will go to regular folks--either the charity or the farmers or the bakers or the burger-flippers. Robbing the rich to give to the poor is hard to criticize when it''s all mutual and voluntary...
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- wait,,, where can you order this thing at? If i order a 200 dollar buger there no way in hell some punk 15yr olds making it.
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- Wow...Keithgardner what the heck country are you from? flaks? croud? Learn English and repost, dummy.
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- i''ll have the $200 combo, extra cheese, but hold the salmonella -
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- Eighteen carrat gold hamburger turns into 18 carrat gold plated $hit.
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- It would help if they said what charity the profits were being donated to. As well as what percentage of each sale. It might be a worthy cause.
- Reply to this comment
- perhaps they could lower the cost a wee bit by scraping the dead piggies off the levees and using them for their cured ham. oink oink.
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- This nothing - in Las Vegas there is a $2500.00 hamburger served with 18 carat gold flaks...
New York has a hamburger meal the exceeds $5,000 per plate.
200 hundred dollars hamburgers are for the also ran croud. - Reply to this comment
- The only time you should have to drop $200 at Burger King is when you treat your kid''s entire football team there. It''s beyond decadent - it''s ridiculous.
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- Dumb, dumber, dumbest!
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- I would gladly take two hundred $1 burgers.
But then again, we can only afford to eat meat two, maybe three times a week.
It has become a sad, sad life. - Reply to this comment
- i didn''t know that Burger King had chefs!?
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- The reason for a $200.00 burger ? our money is worthless?
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- I''d never spend $200 on a burger but I sure wish I could afford to!
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- Posted by krisinal at 08:37 AM : Jun 19, 2008
First of all you are one of the dumb and dumber this story is not about Gore it is about a burger that cost $200 when a billion people are starving each day.
That said.
Is Burger King nuts they are lying and expect us to beleive it they should give the whole amount to feed the homeless. Including the cost they want to prove they are doing something good then fine let them pay for it. Of course they will find a way to say that only about 10 cents is profit.
What a joke dumb and dumber would buy this. - Reply to this comment
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