During the dark lockdown days of the COVID-19 pandemic this December, one San Francisco restaurant daringly added $72 fried rice to their menu. They soon came to regret it.
"The premise was, let’s do something so over-the-top and bougie," said chef Rob Lam of Lily, a Vietnamese restaurant that opened during the pandemic, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. He said it was meant as a joke, a way to get some attention for the new restaurant during a difficult time for the industry.
The Dac Biet fried rice included fired jasmine rice with red king crab claws from a Japanese supplier, caviar, Wagyu beef, a butter made from the stock of multiple crabs, rock shrimp, egg yolks, uni (sea urchin roe) and black truffle trimmings.
It took off on social media and became a viral sensation, said the newspaper.
Lam only expected around three orders of the opulent dish per night. Instead, Lily’s kitchen was stuck making 20 or more each evening. Due to the cost of supplies and that fact that patrons often wouldn’t order anything else, Lily couldn’t even make money on the dish despite its hefty price tag.
So, the restaurant stopped making it. In fact, they tried multiple times.
"My fav noooo," read a comment on the restaurant’s June 30 Instagram post saying farewell to the dish.
"First time I had this was life changing," said another.
"This wasn’t us," Lam said, explaining why the fancy fried rice had to be retired. "It wasn’t who we wanted to be."
While Lam said the restaurant will never carry uni again, they will still offer unique Vietnamese and Vietnamese inspired dishes, such as soup loaded with crab.
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