US fast-food chain Wendy’s, known for its square beef patties and baked potatoes, on Tuesday unveiled a foie grasburger as it sprang back into life in Japan.
Two years after shutting up shop because of falling profits, Wendy’s is hoping its exotic new menu will tickle the sophisticated Japanese palate.
The regular buns are still there but are joined by the foie gras burgers, which cost 1,280 yen ($16), and avocado and wasabi burgers (820 yen) as well as grilled chicken served with truffle and porcini mushroom sauce (920 yen).
Can you eat an hamburger, wearing a chic dress, sparkling jewels and sophisticated accessories, as if you had been invited to an elegant dinner party?
She can! Padma Lakshmi, Indian actress and former model, did an ad for Hardee’s Hamburger where, in slow motion, she sites on a stoop, hikes up her skirt and takes big mouthfuls of a Western Bacon Thickburger.
“I think it’s a beautiful love song to food,” Padma Lakshmi says of her new ad. “I think eating in itself is the act of great sensuality, so all you have to do is point the camera in the right direction.”
Its creators admit it is the ultimate in decadence: a $175 hamburger.
The Wall Street Burger Shoppe just raised its price from $150 to assure its designation as the costliest burger in the city as determined by Pocket Change, an online newsletter about the most expensive things in New York.
“Wall Street has good days and bad days. We wanted to have the everyday burger (for $4) … and then something special if you really have a good day on Wall Street,” said co-owner Heather Tierney.
The burger, created by chef and co-owner Kevin O’Connell, seeks to justify its price with a Kobe beef patty, lots of black truffles, seared foie gras, aged Gruyere cheese, wild mushrooms and flecks of gold leaf on a brioche bun.
