Good story. One thing to remember or value when you go to these places is that you're not largely paying for the food. You're paying for 4-5x the people per d

Good story. One thing to remember or value when you go to these places is that you're not largely paying for the food. You're paying for 4-5x the people per diner than any normal restaurant -- you're paying for their time to pore over the ingredients more carefully than you would yourself, their time to learn about and explain it to you, their time to come up with amusing and interesting ways to prepare it, their time to wait on you like a sultan and never fail to bore your palate. Not saying that it's worth it for everyone or that it's even completely justified as they think it is (every artist thinks that any excessive amount they spend on some esoterica is "worth it"), but that's really where your $ are going. Maybe that's the way to think about it -- you're paying for art. And being one of the few diners who the cost of paying for people's livelihoods is spread over (especially if those people have student loans to pay for) -- that is expensive.