By Iron Chef Leftovers
Since popup restaurants are all the rage these days, I recently saw a post on eater.com about one being done by a “celebrity chef.”
Here is what you would get:
Mac and Cheese with Butter Sauce and Crispy Bacon
Hot Chicken Bite with Tomato and Cucumber Salad
Meat Loaf with Collard Greens, Mashed Potatoes and Creamed Corn
Banana Pudding, Pecan Short Bread and Bruleed Bananas
Each course comes with a paired cocktail, a gift bag containing cookies and a bottle of wine and a photo op with the chef.
The regular price for this privilege is $399 per person, tax and gratuity included, but if you act now, you can get this meal for $175 per person (although there is some confusion if gratuity is included).
The chef?
Thomas Keller? Nope
Hugh Atchinson? Nope
Ferran Adria? Not even close.
The resurrected corpse of Julia Child? Well, that is closer.
It is none other than former Top Chef contestant Carla Hall, most famous for not winning Top Chef and being on a talk show. The event is held in Bloomingdales in NYC and I can imagine that Hall probably won’t be doing the cooking. For $175 dollars, go somewhere else – it is NYC, you can find a better meal just about anywhere. Hell, for half that, I will make the same meal for you if you want, and I am slightly less annoying than Hall.
FlatbreadGarden 
There is not Top Chef cheftestant that I would be willing to pay this price to sit at their table let alone just photo op.
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I would pay that to meet Hugh Atchinson, and I would hand him tweezers to help with his unibrow.
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I think that there are a handful of Top Cheftestants I probably would pay this for – Paul Qui, Stephanie Izard, Kevin Gillespie and the Voltaggio Brothers, but I would expect a much better menu than that. To put this into comparison, for $175 dollars in NYC you can just about pay for the tasting menu at 11 Madison Park or wd-50, get the prie fix menu at Le Bernadian, or actually have a couple of entrees at Per Se, and that is just the places that are in the top 100 in the world.
I happen to agree with Lloyd on this one – Hugh should auction off tweezing the Hughnibrow for charity. He would raise a ton of money.
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