Bangkok restaurant to give big spenders a taste of poverty

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2008

BANGKOK (AFP) — A Bangkok restaurant is treating its biggest spenders to a 300,000-dollar meal prepared by Michelin-starred chefs -- but only after they have jetted to an elephant camp to see how the other half live.

Lebua hotels, which last year put on a sumptuous dinner with a 29,000-dollar per head price tag, will on April 5 fly up to 50 of their top clients to Surin province in northeastern Thailand, one of the kingdom's poorest regions.

After seeing the dwindling number of pachyderms and the impoverished lives of their handlers, the high-rollers will fly by private jet back to Bangkok where they will feast on lobster, black truffles and Roquefort ice cream.

Deepak Ohri, managing director of Lebua hotels and resorts, hopes that the trip will spark an...