Jakarta hotel puts $110 hamburger on menu

JAKARTA, Dec 19: A hotel in Indonesia is dishing out a hamburger that costs more than twice the monthly minimum wage in some parts of the country.

The 110 dollars hamburger offered by the Four Seasonss is made of Kobe beef with foie gras, Portobello mushrooms and Korean pears -- served with french fries, of course.

They're not exactly selling like hot cakes yet, but the hotel says it has sold 20 of the 1.0 million rupiah hamburgers since they were launched this month.

''One burger has 225 grams of Kobe beef. It is so expensive because the flavour is really different,'' said Erwan Ruswandi, the chief of the restaurant offering the gourmet burger.

''The calves in Kobe get special treatment ... they drink beer mixed with milk, vitamins and eat pesticide-free grass. We add foie gras and also some Korean pears. We import all the materials, and they are high quality so it is so expensive.'' The minimum wage in most parts the country of 220 million is as low as around 40 dollars a month.

A tiny number of Indonesians are among the richest people in Asia while millions live in dire poverty in urban slums or shanty towns in the countryside.

Reuters