Enough With The F***ing Caviar

We're dangerously close to caviar M&Ms

Photo by Matt Meltzer

I went to a restaurant last week and did what I always do when I go to restaurants: I ordered chicken tenders. Don’t laugh, chicken tenders are like the Maury Show of food: People with quote-unquote taste say it’s trashy, but when nobody’s watching they can’t get enough.

On this day, however, instead of the usual side of bleu cheese and carrots, these tenders came topped with caviar.

Caviar, as in the stuff James Bond used to pair with martinis and misogyny. The stuff Robin Leach used to dream alongside his champagne wishes. And now…they’re on top of chicken strips?

I get it. In this economy restaurants are scrambling for ways of making an order of $12 chicken tenders a luxury item so they can charge five times as much. And since nobody’s figured out how to make a Cheval Blanc Ranch, I guess caviar it is.

The problem is that Caviar, unlike other luxury food items like fine wines and prime steaks, really doesn’t taste that good. Sure, we all feel a little cooler telling everyone we’re eating caviar, because it’s called “caviar.” But if we called it something more accurate, like “Sacramento sturgeon eggs,” people would probably spit it out and say, “Why did you just charge me $65 for Frito-Lay Onion Dip?”

The restaurant world hasn’t stopped at putting caviar on kids’ menu items either. Recently I went to an Indian restaurant that insisted on starting the meal with a giant caviar tower. The presentation was announced – I shit you not – with sparklers and a trail of dry ice, just in case anyone wanted to look up from their vindaloo and see who was tacky enough to order caviar at an Indian restaurant. The silver trays were a nice touch, but really, all anyone wants to start their meal at an Indian restaurant is papadum and more space between tables.

The waiter then took a little spoon of caviar, put it on my hand, and showed me how to do a caviar “bump.” Oh, how cute! Like “bumps” of cocaine! But since this is caviar and NOT cocaine we can giggle! And pretend we haven’t all done the same thing in a Ted’s Hideaway bathroom. Not to say the venn diagram of cocaine users and caviar eaters doesn’t have as big an overlap as bad drivers and “I am MDC” stickers. But perhaps we can leave the opaque drug references off Indian restaurant menus and keep them where they belong: With Miley Cyrus.

Between piling caviar on top of finer frozen foods and treating the dinner table like a UM frat party, caviar is dangerously close to becoming the new ketchup. Because once you make a fancy food something you find everywhere, it ceases to be fancy. Just ask Michael Kors, who’s gone from Paris runways to the best underwear deal at Ross. Or BMW, the luxury car brand that’s now the preferred lease of dudes who still live with their parents.

My point is this: If you like caviar, you’re probably also the kind of person who gets on VIP lists just to say you’re on VIP lists. But you do you. Let’s just stop putting it on things that have absolutely no business including caviar, just for the sake of saying they have caviar. The kids menu is the kids menu for a reason: People who like that stuff think fish eggs are gross. Now please, let’s leave my grilled cheese sandwiches alone.