Restaurant sells exotic scrambled eggs for ₹7,000: Social media reacts: 'It looks no different than what my mom cooks'

A Shanghai restaurant has sparked debate over an expensive dish. Jinlong Dabianlu Restaurant sells fried tomatoes and scrambled eggs. The price is a staggering 520 yuan, roughly ₹7,000.

This food is usually an inexpensive everyday household item. Still, this version costs tens of times more elsewhere. Vloggers visited the restaurant and filmed the cooking process. They then shared the clips widely on Chinese social media, according to the South China Morning Post.

The chef uses large, dark green emu eggs. It replaces the usual chicken or duck eggs. The shell is so thick it needs a hammer. It cracks into a cup, not a bowl. According to the vloggers, it adds “a real sense of ceremony”.

The tomatoes are a premium Provence Tomato variety originating from the Netherlands. However, the cooking method itself remains completely standard.

One vlogger described the food as soft and smooth. The restaurant prepares only one serving per day. The ingredients cost around 200 yuan (approx ₹2,800) in total. An emu egg alone costs at least 150 yuan ( ₹2,100).

It is specially imported from Germany, said the chef. Tomatoes cost about 50 yuan ( ₹700) per dish. The chef explained the pricing logic behind it.

This dish is mainly served for advance reservations. Its price ignores the usual tomato-and-egg business logic.

“This dish is usually served to customers who have booked in advance. So it is not priced based on the normal business logic for fried tomatoes and scrambled eggs,” the SCMP chef was quoted as saying by the media.

The story sparked widespread discussion on Chinese social media. Many users were shocked by the final price. One person thought it only cost 52 yuan.

“It doesn’t look any different from what my mom cooks,” wrote one user.

Someone joked that buyers pay an “IQ tax”.

“People who order this food are paying an IQ tax (meaning a price for their foolish behavior),” the user joked.

Another user defended the restaurant’s transparent pricing policy. According to the user, customers decide to buy freely.

This tomato and egg dish remains very popular nationwide. People still argue about what it should taste like. Southern Chinese cooks usually add sugar to it. Northern Chinese cooks usually omit sugar, according to the publication.

Emu breeding in India

According to a 2012 report by The Hindu, emu breeding began in India in 1996. Commercial breeding began in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, around 2000, the publication quoted N Ramamurthy, professor of poultry science at Madras Veterinary College, as saying.

On B2B online marketplaces like IndiaMART, emu eggs are available to customers at ₹800 per piece.