Last night's The Colbert Report was all about food: a segment on taxing soda, a timid interview with Michael Pollan, and a brilliant segment where Stephen Colbert dines and dashes on $1000 plates. In these difficult times, Colbert "does his part to keep the industry alive." He hits up:

• Norma's in Le Parker Meridien for its "Zillion Dollar Frittata," an omelette with "$3 worth of eggs, $60 worth of lobster, $650 worth of caviar, and let's say $287 worth of potatoes."
• Nino's Bellissima Pizza for its $1,000 pizza with eight ounces of caviar and shaved slices of lobster: "Does this come with crazy bread? If you think about it, any bread you serve with a $1000 pizza would be crazy."
• and Serendipity 3 for its $1,000 Golden Opulence Sundae, "served with a golden spoon, a crystal goblet lined with gold, garnished with nuts dipped in gold, with three scoops of vanilla ice cream covered in, why the hell not, gold."

Colbert is a little late to the game mocking the super-expensive dishes, but in the context of tough times, watching Colbert smear excess caviar on his lips, gold-leafing his own face, etc., and then skipping out on the bill, it makes for good television. He asks the tough questions, finding out that the last time Serendipity actually sold a Golden Opulence Sundae was November, and asks, "If I gave you another thousand dollars, could I make someone poor watch me eat it?"

Just for the hell of it, we're embedding pretty much the whole show:

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On last night's 30 Rock, they made fun of Serendipity's $1,000 Golden Opulence Sundae. Jack Donaghy wanted to go to a restaurant called "Plunder" and have their insanely expensive dessert, the Lovers' Delight:

Imagine a dessert for two, Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream in a pool of cognac, drizzled in the world's most expensive chocolate, Amadei Porcelana, covered with shaved white, black, and clear truffles, topped with edible 25-carat gold leaf.

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Every episode of NBC's Sunday Night Football has a quick feature on a food establishment of the home team's city. Last night's game, which was in New York, featured the frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity. John Madden, ever the colorful commentator, asks a legitimate question, "How do you have frozen hot chocolate? If it's hot it's not frozen, if it's frozen it's not hot."

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