MEALS served with a sprinkling of 24 carat gold by a restaurant in Guangzhou have fuelled debate on whether China's new rich should be allowed to indulge in such extravagance while millions go hungry.
The Guangzhou Restaurant started serving dishes decorated with gold leaf at the beginning of last month, and has already served the opulent fare to 100 tables.
A restaurant manager quoted in the Shanghai newspaper Wen Hui Bao said the Japanese had been eating such ''golden banquets'' for two or three decades.
The goal of the Guangzhou Restaurant was ''to develop Chinese food culture, and not let the Japanese have a monopoly on beauty'', the manager said.
For 3,980 yuan (about HK$5,370) a table, guests can dine on such delicacies as abalone, sharks fin, crocodile and clam sprinkled with gold leaf. A bottle of foreign alcohol is thrown in for free.
Or they can order a la carte. A dish of ''golden unicorn beancurd'', for example, goes for 168 yuan.
The cost to the restaurant of the gold leaf itself is 300 to 400 yuan per table. The newspaper did not say what the restaurant's mark-up on the gold leaf was.
