It’s not quite a golden goose, but with a near $9,000 price tag, it might as well be. Lai Wah Heen, a Chinese restaurant in downtown Toronto, is serving up “The Treasure of Fortune” to film buffs and foodies alike during the Toronto International Film Festival. For a limited time, diners can order this five-course meal, which primarily features a Supreme Eight-Treasure Gourd-Shaped Goose on a bed of Italian white truffle. The bird is stuffed with eight “rare” ingredients from the mountains and the sea, the restaurant said. On top of the Italian truffle, the three other mountain “treasures” include wild Yunnan black tiger paw mushroom, Tianshan snow lotus seed, and Tibetan cordyceps sinensis. Then from the ocean, there’s a 15-head Japanese Yoshiama dried abalone, aged fish maw, wild Galapagos spiky sea cucumber, and imperial scallop. The meal, which needs to be ordered three days in advance, also comes with a 500-gram tin of caviar and the option to pair it with a 1989 Chateau Margaux. The vintage will cost an additional $3,888 per bottle, and the restaurant says there are only two bottles available. The entire meal costs $8,888, a nod to the symbolism of the eight treasures and the good fortune associated with the number in Chinese numerology. Lai Wah Heen’s executive chef, Heyden Sin, said he drew inspiration from three different dishes, including the Guangdong pigeon, which is typically filled with hot broth. “The difficulty isn’t simply removing every bone from the goose, it’s doing it without damaging the skin or changing the natural structure of the bird,” executive chef Heyden Sin said. “The skin becomes the vessel for everything that follows. We still fill it with the eight treasures, shape it into the húlú (bottle gourd), and take it through several different cooking techniques.” The dish becomes impossible to finish if the goose’s skin gets compromised at the beginning, Sin said. The chef also drew inspiration from the Eight-Treasure Duck, instead opting for a whole goose, and the Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, a beloved luxury dish in southern China known for compiling an abundance of high-quality ingredients. “We modified those traditions and brought them together to create something new,” Sin said. Lai Wah Heen is located inside of the Double Tree hotel on Chestnut Street. This is not the only unique and pricy experience being offered through hotel establishments during TIFF, as the hotel bar at the Four Seasons is serving a $1,000 cocktail with a chauffeured ride in a Rolls-Royce.
