Would you eat a giant burger dusted in gold?

Eat your (24) carats, kids.

The humble beef burger - that greasy staple beloved by hungry hordes stumbling home from nights out. It's probably not the kind of dish you'd associate with culinary luxury, but one chef in Japan is hoping to change all that by creating, a high-end burger that's made from the finest wagyu beef and dusted with gold.

A hotel in Japan has unveiled the 3kg ‘Golden Giant Burger’, external which stands 25cm wide and 15cm tall, to celebrate the crowning of the country's new emperor, Crown Prince Naruhito on 1 May.

The burger is made up of 1kg prime wagyu beef from cows that are fed foraged grass, rice straw, corn and barley. The result is that wagyu cattle produce meat with heavy marbling - but that comes with a hefty price tag. Yet that's not the only reason it'll set diners back hundreds of pounds - they've added to the decadence by adding foie gras (this really isn't a dish for animal lovers) and freshly shaved black truffles, external to the burger and it's accompanied by giant chips. 

The meal, which is designed for six to eight people, will set diners back about £700 (or 100,000 yen).

“We wanted to do something to celebrate the new emperor and a new era for Japan,” head chef Patrick Shimada told AFP at a private unveiling.

“It also gets me more in touch with my Japanese roots,” Shimada, a fourth generation Japanese American, added. “Doing this through an American-style burger using Japanese ingredients – it’s kind of like myself in a bun.”

But if you think this is the first time someone’s made junk food a dish served best with gold, you’re sorely mistaken.

Feast your eyes on these.

Last year, an American restaurant started selling chicken wings cooked in a 24-carat liquid gold marinade.

The price tag? $1,000 – which works out at about £746.

Jonathan Cheban, aka 'the foodgod' and BFF to Kim Kardashian-West, created the gilded wings for a New York restaurant.

First, the wings are brined for 12 hours (where food is soaked in brine or coarse salt to preserve and season it), then coated with a house-made dry rub, baked, flash-fried, smothered in a layer of golden marinade (mixed with honey-barbeque sauce), and then coated with another layer of gold dust.

So what does 746 of your hard-earned pounds get you? 50 golden wings and a bottle of Jay Z’s bling Ace of Spades champagne - which itself comes in a gold bottle.

YouTuber Casey Neistat reviewed the wings, external and said: “There’s a tanginess… but there is also a metallic, goldish taste.”

Begging the question, 'can things taste of gold?'

Casey's co-host, Sean, found it hard to get his head around the concept: “Chicken wings to me is a food of the people – so to have gold chicken wings is, to me, bizarre.”

Although he added that, despite their weirdness, they are “actually good”.

And Insider's Herrine Ro, external said she had "never seen anything as extra, as bougie, or as flashy as this". 

Back in 2016, a Filipino restaurant in the hip Williamsburg area of Brooklyn created something called the 'Golden Cristal Ube Donut'. The treats were so ridiculous that even though the restaurant closed, they lived on with the people behind them hosting DJ and doughnut nights as well as selling the doughy treats online. 

The GCUDs are pumped full of rare ube mousse (ubes are also known as purple sweet potatoes) and champagne jelly. They're then coated in an icing made with super-expensive Cristal champagne, before being flecked with 24-carat gold.

And how much are these absurd desserts, you may ask?

Well it's been reported that some people, external have been willing to pay $1,200 (£896) for a dozen.

Ice cream always felt pretty indulgent as a kid – but now we’re adults, it can seem a little… vanilla.

So one US ice cream chain has upped the ante, by covering their ice cream with 24-carat gold leaf.

Each serving of the gold ice cream is $15 (£11) – which, although relatively cheap compared to the gold chicken wings, is still a bit more than we’d usually pay for a scoop of ice cream. 

But the company does claim that it’s “totally worth it for the ‘gram”.

We’ll probably just stick to cookies and cream.

Even without the gold topping this pizza is pretty extra.

A New York restaurant (yep, another one) has a $2,000 (£1,492) pizza on the menu that comes with a generous sprinkling of 24-carat gold on top.

But underneath the gold, there is suitably OTT ingredients - Stilton cheese (which apparently is specially imported from the UK), foie gras and black truffles (both flown in from France), and Ossetra caviar from the Caspian Sea. So, not great for animal lovers either.

When launching the dish, the pizza’s creator, Braulio Bunay, told Town & Country magazine, external that although it was “the epitome of decadence”, it being a pizza “makes it more approachable”.

Hmm… we’re not sure “approachable” is the word we’d use for any of this fancy junk food, to be honest.

Originally published 21 May 2018.