The 6 Most Pretentious Dishes Rich People Pay Money For

Many high-concept dishes are not about the taste so much as they are about the experience. In other words, people eat them because they're expensive and have some neat gimmick. In a refreshingly honest move, Moto restaurant in Chicago actually seems to admit this with their signature zen garden dish, which is custom designed for playing with your food rather than, you know, eating it.

The zen garden is a cheese plate consisting of Camembert, spices, chocolate, and frozen, blended fruit. It has been painstakingly shaped into the form of a Japanese zen rock garden, complete with a little meditation rake you can use for arranging the elements in the garden for some contemplative peace and quiet.

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As with real zen gardens, this provides much relief to those who have no actual problems.

Of course, the nature of the dish is somewhat undermined by the fact that the zen garden is just one plate in a tasting menu of over a dozen courses. You'll probably have to choose whether you want to actually eat it or just absent-mindedly doodle dicks in it until the next course arrives. Or maybe they wheel it out when it seems like a customer is too anxious. "Shh, it's all right, calm down. The zen garden is coming. Everything is going to be fine. Rake your cheese."

The terrifyingly named octopop was conceived by Australian chef Adam Melonas at Dubai's Burj al-Arab hotel, presumably after he read the Necronomicon and mistook it for a confectionery handbook. Its basic idea is actually pretty simple: It's a piece of roast octopus on a stick.

However, in true mad scientist fashion, Melonas has added to the process until the end result barely resembles octopus or, for that matter, food. The waxy sheen and structure of the octopop are achieved by vacuum-cooking the octopus for 12 hours, then using a knife and an enzyme called transglutaminase (a substance commonly used to glue bits of meat together) to turn the perished cephalopod into a pretty, flower-like construct. The end result is dipped in spiced gel and stuck on a stick with some dill for you to try and figure out what the hell you're chewing on.

Madrid Lab
When you figure it out, handing these out from your van to kids suddenly seems creepy.

Because the dish is not quite complicated enough by itself, it is sometimes served with dill Pellegrino: San Pellegrino water that has been turned into a cold gas and infused with, yes, dill.

Since its conception, the octopop has become Melonas' signature dish. This, along with his other creations, has somehow scored him a lucrative deal as a meal designer for IKEA.

Blumenthal's menus read like he's aspiring to be a food-themed Batman villain. They have an Alice in Wonderland-themed dish that consists of mock turtle soup and a dissolving pocket watch. They have scrambled-egg-and-bacon ice cream and bright green snail porridge. And then there is "sound of the sea."

Instantly recognizable on their menu as the only dish with quotation marks around its name, sound of the sea looks less like food and more like a giant "fuck you" from the kitchen. A strange mini-collection of plants, sand, and frothy foam, the dish looks like it can't possibly be edible. Yet its each and every element is an insanely complicated food item: The sand is made of panko breadcrumbs, baby eels, and half a dozen other things. The "sea" froth is cockles, mussels, carrots, and ... well, here's the recipe if you want to give it a shot. There are no less than 55 separate ingredients in there, all painstakingly prepared to create the "taste" of the sea.

To accompany this treat, you are given a seashell with an iPod in it. You put on the ear buds and listen to the sounds of waves crashing and seagulls squawking. These sounds of the sea (get it?) let your ears in on the dining experience, and the effects add up by making the dish also look and smell even more sea-like than it did before.

Hell, you could almost believe you're standing by an actual sea. A weak, helpless sea that you will now devour and destroy.

Yes, Heston Blumenthal has created the world's first Cthulhu simulator.

The server comes over to your table after you've finished your cheesecake, carrying a deck of cards. He or she asks you to cut it and pick any card. Each of the cards has a different chocolate flavor on it, such as lime or raspberry. The waiter then asks you to flip over your cheesecake plate -- and there, right in front of you, is a chocolate that corresponds to your card.

They do this mind-blowing trick to every single customer who eats there.

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And 2 percent of them get goddamn lime.

Eleven Madison Park created the trick in cooperation with Dan White and Jonathan Bayme, two illusionists who have collaborated with small-time players such as David freaking Copperfield. Even the chefs have no idea how it works, as the trick is only taught to the servers, who are sworn to secrecy. All we know is that the trick is based on three-card monte, a classic game New York hustlers use to cheat gullible people out of their money.

It's probably no coincidence that it comes just before the bill.

elBulli was a celebrated Spanish restaurant that also relied heavily on molecular gastronomy. Under its head chef, Ferran Adria, dishes such as potato-foam "Spanish omelettes," liquid olives, and wood-smoked water were all par for the course. Some of elBulli's weirdest menu items were little treats called morphs. They were tiny dishes that looked like one thing but tasted like another. These Transformer foods included corals that were actually chocolate, envelopes made of sugar, and marshmallows disguised as human hands, because apparently no one cares how many serial killer flags you raise when you're really, really good at cooking.

Endo Edibles
They're not quivering in pain. They're ... applauding. Yeah, applauding.

Still, regardless of your opinion of overly artsy cuisine, everything is forgiven of elBulli thanks to a morph called the liquorice nitro-dragon. Its recipe isn't readily available, but it was apparently a simple liquorice puree that was flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen. You'd carefully put it in your mouth, and the vapors from the nitrogen would just shoot out your nose and mouth, making you look like a dragon gearing up to fry some hero ass.

Murdo Macleod/The Guardian
Chef Adria hatched the restaurant's dragon eggs personally.

Adria's elBulli is currently defunct, but luckily he is far from the only person who has recognized the awesomeness of the dragon dessert. Liquid nitrogen nibbles seem to be popping up everywhere, from high end restaurants to gimmicky ice cream parlors. Behold, the dragon breath popcorn:

And the liquid nitrogen s'more:

When the next season of Game of Thrones begins, that's all we're going to eat.

Related Reading: Fast foods can be just as ridiculous as their expensive-fancy cousins. The Duncan Donuts bacon breakfast sandwich is proof of that. If health foods are more your thing, check out this dish of fish testicles and semen. Or don't. Don't is probably better. Feeling bummed now? read about the great foods created by dick moves.