A Meal Fit For A Pharaoh

How fun would this be for those of us who have such love for good food? Where are my millions of dollars when I need them?

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The ultimate road food: A dinner for millionaires at Egypt's pyramids
By JOCELYN GECKER
The Associated Press

BANGKOK, Thailand — From the creators of the $25,000 dinner, there's another pricey gourmet feast on the horizon.

Wealthy foodies can mark their calendars for Dec. 12, 2008, when top chefs from around the world will be flown to Egypt to cook a dinner in front of the ancient Pyramids of Giza, organizer Deepak Ohri said today. This dinner will be a bargain, at least compared to the one in Bangkok last month that was billed as the meal of a lifetime and cooked by six 3-star Michelin chefs for $25,000 a head. High-rolling food lovers flew in from the United States, Europe, the Middle East and across Asia for the 40-seat dinner.

The price for dining beside the pyramids has not yet been set, but it will cost less than $10,000 per person, said Ohri, the managing director of Bangkok's luxury Lebua hotel, the event planner behind the dinners that are boldly titled "Epicurean Masters of the World."

Though cheaper, the upcoming feast is intended to be even grander than its predecessor.

"It will still be for millionaires, but this dinner will be for a lot of millionaires," Ohri told The Associated Press.

Some 500 tickets will be sold for the dinner to be cooked by 30 3-star Michelin chefs.

About a third of the chefs already have confirmed their attendance; each chef will prepare a meal for roughly 17 diners.

A kitchen half a mile long will be set up against the backdrop of the pyramids with equipment and the best ingredients jetted in from around the world.

Unlike the $25,000 dinner, which featured rare French wines and mostly French food, the next meal will be culturally diverse and paired with fine wines from around the world, Ohri said.

Just how close diners will be to the pyramids depends upon the Egyptian government and the U.N.'s cultural body UNESCO, since the pyramids are a World Heritage site.

Talks are under way with authorities, Ohri said, noting that organizers are "considering" giving profits from the dinner to an organization or charity that deals with conserving the Seven Wonders of the World. The pyramids are the only surviving structure from the traditional list of architectural marvels.

All profits from the $25,000 Thai dinner are going to two charities — Medecins Sans Frontieres, which will be sent a check for $15,000, and the Chaipattana Foundation, a rural development program set up by the king of Thailand, which will receive $46,000, Ohri said.

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company