Yes, there is a sundae that costs $2,500 in New York City--maybe. I think that's what Kathie Lee Gifford said this morning on the Today Show. I was half-listening, but when she said Serendipity 3, I perked up.

I'm almost sure that's the dollar amount she quoted. If your wallet is fat enough, you can order one of these whopping treats at the restaurant located on East 60th Street in Manhattan.

Serendipity's menu says that the Golden Opulence Sundae costs $1,000. At $1,000 it's still touted as the Guinness World Record holder as the most expensive. Maybe Gifford was eating a version of this and it's an unpublished secret? Maybe she said it was $25,000. She did say it's never been ordered. I have searched and searched for this story to no avail. I've become obsessed.

I've been to Serendipity 3 for ice-cream. No Golden Opulence for us, but I do remember that my husband ordered the Forbidden Broadway Sunday for $13.50.

It was an enormous dessert of chocolate cake, whipped cream, and ice-cream, big enough for a few of us to chow down. For other sundae choices cheaper than that, check out the menu.

My recommendation is to not try going here on a hot summer day on a Sunday. We tried that once and couldn't wait that long. We were hungry enough to start chewing on furniture. Our sundae success came on a week night after dark--also in the summer--perhaps on a Wednesday.

As Kathie Lee Gifford was eating bites of opulence, letting the flecks of gold slide down her throat, she did mention that it seems frivolous to show off a sundae of such a cost when many folks are having problems putting gas in their cars. Even the $13.50 sundae can buy 3 gallons or more.

The photo, from an article review I came across, is of the $1,000 version. It does not look like the dish Kathie Lee was eating. Oh, well.

Has the eating of strange foods gone too far?

Sure, Andrew Zimmern might be brave, but does he really know what he's putting in his mouth?

While the Bizarre Foods guru (or his producer) usually provides a bit of background on what he's eating, you have to wonder, is it considered a normal food in whatever "exotic locale" the show is currently being filmed in?

Phil Lees of The Last Appetite points out that you can't always believe what people tell you.

A journalist named Sean Thomas found himself in Cambodia. He penned an "eating weird food" article for a U.K. newspaper. Aside from the fact that his article is rife with the gross over-generalizations typical of a parachute journalist, Lees, an old hand in Cambodia, points out that Thomas ate some things that were not meant to be eaten. The poor guy chowed down on a dried frog and compared it to a eating a dead mermaid. The problem: in Cambodia dried frogs are not meant to be eaten as a snack. According to Lees, "Dried frog is for medicinal purposes and occasionally, a rice wine additive. Complaining about the way it tastes is a little like eating a few spoonfuls of straight cloves, then writing them off as useless as a foodstuff."

One has to wonder if this is just an isolated incident or if more of the "I'm eating strange food" shticks are also ill-informed.

Location: This week Tony finds himself in Egypt, home to the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx and plenty of other tourist stereotypes. Egypt is one of the world's great cradles of civilization as well as a crossroads of many cultures (and great cuisine) from all points north, south, east and west.

Episode Rating: Three bloody meat cleavers out of five. Bourdain indeed delivers the unexpected when it comes to Egypt. Some interesting culinary discoveries but also some "snoozefest" segments that could have been left on the editing table. Also, I must say...you came all that way and didn't go to the Great Pyramids? I don't care how jaded you are towards tourists - how do you skip that?

Summary: Egypt is the kind of place most of us know at least a little something about. Whether you've already been, or it's the trip of your dreams. most of us with an urge for exploration and discovery reasonably know what to expect. Ancient pharaohs, the Nile, papyrus, mummies. But then again, we are talking about Anthony Bourdain here...

Bourdain sets a manifesto from this episode's outset - he's going to skip the prototypical Egyptian tourist spots. Why you might ask? He doesn't want the view to be cluttered by all of those tourists. But still, one has to admit the man has a unique method to his madness. Much like a Egyptologist cracking open a pharaoh's tomb for the very first time, Tony's urge to push his boundaries leads us into some interesting culinary crevices. Was Tony attacked by mummies? Does he eat more camel like in the Saudi Arabia episode? Read on to get the full story.

With the new onslaught of baggage check fees upon us, many people are looking to creative ways to package special items into their carry on. My friend Bruce tried to bring back a cooler full of lobster on one transcon trip a few years back. That ended up tipping over and leaking water all over the guy in front of him.

Something similar happened on Irish carrier Ryanair earlier this month. A passenger trying to transport frozen mushrooms stowed a package in the overhead compartment, but briefly after takeoff the package melted and sauce dripped all over an adjacent passenger.

In this case, however, this passenger had an allergy to the sauce and started to have an adverse reaction. Complaining of problems in his mucous membranes, the passenger became ill and the crew decided to divert into Frankfurt to offload the passenger and send him to the hospital.

Take heed, transporters of food, a little bit of vacuum sealing always helps to keep your food fresh, protected and in its place.

I'm going to really try to not be too snide here, but occasionally one stumbles onto a "travel story" and must let out a little sigh, given all the other possible subjects in the world that might have made a worthy 1000-word feature story.

Forbes Traveler brings us its latest survey of the best restaurants in America to go for...cheese.

I am trying here, dear Gadling readers.

First off, the article by its very existence implies that Americans' knowledge of the cheese world pretty much stops with Kraft Singles. But there is a more sinister implication to such a piece: Is cheese becoming the next arena for the snob?

I make allowances for oenophiles, who can be truly insufferable, simply because I like drinking good wine too much, and if you have one or two in you regular stable of friends you are far more likely to get hooked up with some good stuff free.

Beer fanatics and connoisseurs of other spirits (whiskey, tequila, sake) can be tolerated (same reason as above).

My best friend is somewhat of a "foodie," or so the term goes these days, and yet his exacting standards on many cuisines and restaurants somehow does not allow the overall joy of eating a meal together to seep from the table.

I'm not so willing to accept cheese aficionados into the fold, though.

To be sure, the world of cheese is as varied as that of any specific spirit, with distinct origins, scents and tastes to consider. I even like the cheese plate (or cheese course) that caps off a lot of European meals, though it was hard for me to get used to consuming so much dairy after the real task at hand.

My objection to such a piece is that I feel another snob trend is very much afoot, and I'm not sure there's room for it. (A secondary objection might just rest in the fact that I can't imagine pitching to an editor such an article along the lines of, Hey! Where can you go for the best cheese in America?!)

Cheese snobbery is probably already among us, I realize that. And it will be harder to deal with. After all, the chief antidote for dealing with a drink snob is to, well, drink more. I'm thinking of a Kingsley Amis line right now that says something along the lines that a booze bore begins to make sense after the third round.

So, you can dull your senses in this case.

But what happens when the person across from you has his nose dancing across a piece of smoky Auvergne gaperon? Or English Caerphilly?

Soon, he (or, to be fair, she) will start telling you that the next time you're in Louisville, you must sample Kenny's Kentucky Blue cheese at the venerable Seelbach Hotel. Or that the scrumptious Virginia cheese plate at the Inn at Little Washington is to die for.

What will take the edge off this? Fondue? Hey, it's got schnapps...

Postscript: I didn't pull the above reference of Auvergne gaperon out of my own knowledge of cheese. It's highlighted in the ridiculous Forbes story about cheese I reference, as presented at La Panetière in Rye, N.Y.

The piece says that this noble cheese goes particularly well with "the 1914 Château Latour brought up from the award-winning cellar." If you want more evidence that such silly features are out of touch with most travelers, consider that the wine mentioned goes for, oh, about $3,000.

However, if you're willing to bring me in on that bottle, then I'll listen to you talk about cheese all night long.

If you are looking for an all night party, head for the Twin Cities next weekend.

Seriously. It's the RNC, but even if you are affiliated with another political party, be it of the mainstream or fringe variety, it might be worth the trip.

In a bid to bring more convention dollars into the area, St. Paul's city council decided to allow bars to stay open until 4 a.m. That's two hours past the usual last call. The catch: the bars would have to pay a hefty fee to the city.

But, because there haven't been many owners willing to pay, Saint Paul is consider lowering or even waving the fee.

Yes, you're right. That means there will be plenty of places where you can play drinking games with Wolf Blitzer and hit on Mrs. McCain until 4 in the morning.

But the scene in MSP isn't really about politics. It's about more important things like patios, nice weather and beer.

The Twin Cities are full of beer lovers and therefore, a good brew is never far away. Sure, the hard bitten political journalists might stay with the usual low-ball of scotch, but there are plenty of spots with local microbrews and Belgian beers with easily mispronounced names on tap.

And, because it's early fall, the weather is neither hot and mosquito-infested nor freezing. Drinking on the patio is a favored local pastime at places like The Happy Gnome (pictured). Hopefully, convention-goers won't be taking over places like this. Maybe, just maybe, they'll simply be joining in the fun.

When I read Meg's article about the largest burger in the world, I remembered seeing a photo last year of another burger that somehow got stuck in my head. May I present, the "Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheeseburger".

I'm not afraid of trying something really unhealthy and I grew up in the village where the deep fried Mars bar was invented, but this just seems too much, even for me.

Sadly, you won't be able to savor the delicate aroma of deep fried glazed yeast rings covered with bacon, cheese and meat, as they are only served at the staff restaurant of Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.

So, if you found this on the menu, would you go for it, or is this the kind of food you'd only consider at 3AM after a night of heavy drinking?

More Gadling burger articles:





(Krispy Kreme burger image source, Flickr user ccaviness)

Gwyneth Paltrow, celebrity chef Mario Batali, food book author and New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman, and Spanish actress Claudia Bassols (who *gasp*doesn't have a Wikipedia page!) will star in a show called "Spain...On The Road Again", documenting their travels across Spain.

I like all these celebrities but would watch it just for Paltrow, who by the way sounds like she speaks fluent Spanish. The show is food-centric so they really couldn't have chosen a better country to start than Spain.

I'm a bit disappointed with the name of the show though: 1) Extremely uncreative ("On The Road" are probably the 3 most commonly used words in travel, and, being a food/travel show, you'd think there would be some reference to that in the title, 2) Why the "again"?

Anyway, what's in a name, eh? It's a 13 part series that was shot in 2 months across the country. You can watch a sneak preview of the show here.

Sometimes I wish I was an actor just so I could have my own travel show when I felt like it. No, vlogging is not the same. Sigh.

Location: It's about time, Mr. Bourdain. Tony makes a culinary pilgrimage to one of Europe's, and arguably the world's, most famous culinary destinations of the moment: Spain. It is a country that is thoroughly grounded in the cuisine of tradition yet remarkably forward-thinking in its gastronomic outlook.

Episode Rating: Four and a half bloody meat cleavers (out of five). I'm sorry, perhaps I'm biased, but it's hard to characterize an episode that features such fascinating, delicious, forward-thinking food as anything but awesome. If you've seen any episodes of Bourdain's previous show, A Cook's Tour, then you'll know why this works so well. It's enjoyable without trying too hard.

Summary: Spain is a country with a cooking style that is thoroughly traditional - we are talking after all about an area of culture that dates all the way back to the ancient Romans, Greeks and beyond. Yet recent years have seen the rise of a very different and highly original brand of cuisine that defies easy convention. Famous chefs like Ferran Adria have pushed what was once one of Europe's best-kept culinary secrets into the pantheon of global "foodie hotspots." in much the same way that people have long romanticized France or Italy, Spain is now arguably just as well-known for its local and delcious food culture. Tony comes to Spain expecting to be wowed and rediscovers a country that does not disappoint.

Next week, an estimated 70,000 out-of-towners are expected to descend on Denver, Colorado for the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Thousands of political activists will arrive hungry for change and hungry for dinner. And what better appetizer than the official food of American politics: freedom fries. (But they're still called French Fries everywhere outside of the Capitol building.)

Denver Westword has just announced its 2008 Best Of Denver awards, including the category for Best French Fries in the city. The winner is Encore Restaurant located at 2550 E. Colfax Avenue. Encore's eclectic menu features mid- to high-end American fare, including the townspeople's favorite fries: "perfectly cooked, heavily salted shoestrings that are unbelievably addictive - particularly hit with a drizzle of spicy mustard that's just one step (heat-wise) below that stuff you get in Chinese restaurants and about ten times more delicious than a squirt of French's could ever be," according to Westword.

For more dining favorites in Denver, view the entire list of Best Of winners here, or check out the DNC's dining guide here.