The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s in-house restaurant, Ray’s and Stark’s Bar, now has a water tasting menu with twenty different bottles of water, along with pompous descriptions and ratings. For example:
Badoit is naturally carbonated with tiny bubbles, the type found in fine Champagne, that give this water a light and sophisticated taste despite the TDS (total dissolved solid) content. The water rises through granite from a thermal spring in Saint Galmier, a town in the Loire region of France. It pairs well with sweet wine and cheese.
Let me repeat. This water has a “sophisticated taste” and “pairs well with sweet wine and cheese.”
While Hyperallergic is right when it points out that art museums are forced to do this kind of gimmicky stunt for publicity to attract patrons, NBC sees worth in the idea:
Consider this: If you’re entertaining a business client, and that client doesn’t drink, how do you make a celebration of the meal? …You can order a fancy bottle of aqua for under ten bucks, a bottle that’s going to arrive with all the ceremony of a pricey carafe of wine.
Alright. We’re game. How about serving it in this $1,274.08 Hello Kitty cup?
