HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — How do the ultra rich live in China? Sometimes, they spend thousands of dollars to eat a fancy dinner suspended in the sky from a crane.

This past Friday, a dining table seating 22 was lifted about 165 feet off the ground by a crane in the Lujiazui financial hub of Shanghai, with diners fastened to chairs (for safety reasons, of course) and enjoying a meal with a pretty unusual view of the city’s dense banking towers.

This so-called “dinner in the sky” event, first created by Belgian entrepreneur David Ghysels as a dinner concept in 2004, was organized by the local Four Seasons hotel.

In fact, dinner by crane isn’t completely new — you can enjoy a similar experience in Las Vegas, for instance — but because this is China, the gustatory adventure carried a world-beating price tag.

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Each guest needed to shell out a cool 8888 yuan ($1430) per person, and that’s not including the 15% service fee. Too pricey? Then maybe try lunch at a bargain 3888 yuan ($622). In fact, even a simple afternoon tea costs 1888 yuan ($303), according to a report by the Shanghai Morning Post.

And because this is China, there were more than enough people willing to pay the sky-high price: All available seats were booked by the time the restaurant opened, the report quoted the hotel as saying.

“At the top [of the crane’s ascent], the dining table would spin to give diners a 360-degree view of Shanghai from the sky, seeing the landmark Oriental Pearl Tower and the Shanghai Tower” still under construction, the hotel was quoted as saying.

Some options on the dinner menu (translated from Chinese):

Caviar with shrimp and broccoli

French black truffles with mixed vegetables

Foie gras in black vinegar with rhubarb and strawberry jam

Pan-fried Iceland sablefish and seasonal vegetables with vanilla and watermelon

While Shanghai routinely suffers choking air pollution, this turned out to be not too much of a problem, since it was raining when the crane went up.

But of course, the rain created problems of its own, with the weather heavy enough that the organizers had to cancel Thursday’s seatings. This left just two days of uber-expensive extreme dining, for 11 out of the scheduled 14 table rounds available to a total of 242 guests, amid a more manageable drizzle.

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