Imagine going to a restaurant for a bite and coming out $600 richer.
That’s what happened to Lindsay Hasz from Issaquah, Washington, when she went out to dine at an Italian restaurant with her husband and literally bit on a rare, one-in-a-million pearl while chewing her seafood.
The bite almost broke her tooth. It was the hardest thing her teeth had ever encountered, and a quick inspection revealed the culprit to be a tiny, round object that looked very much like a pearl, Hasz told KOMO News .
The dish that yielded this surprise was Frutti di Mare (“Fruit of the Sea”), a popular multi-seafood speciality from Italy. Hasz was eating the meat of a clam when she bit on her one-in-a-million find.
“I thought maybe it was an earring from an employee in the kitchen and it fell into my dish,” said Hasz.
However, she did not inform the hotel of her find, perhaps taking heed of the thinking that once you buy a food product, you are the sole owner of whatever is inside it.
Hasz took the thing home, started researching about it on the internet, and soon realised that what she had in her possession might be a Quahog pearl.
She decided to take an expert opinion and took the pearl to gemologist Ted Irwin of Northwest Geological Laboratory in Bellevue.
Initially, Irwin didn’t think much of the find, according to ABC News .
“The Mr. Skeptic in me originally may have dissuaded her since a lot of pearls people find aren’t really anything most of the time. But I took a look at it, and sure enough, she did have a Quahog pearl.”
And it was no ordinary Quahog pearl.
According to Irwin, the chances of landing a pearl like Hasz’s are “one in a couple million.” The clam that harboured this purple-colored gem is “indigenous to the Atlantic states, the New England area” and is known to produce a pearl on extremely rare occasions.
Added to this rarity is the fact that Hasz’s pearl is of near-perfect symmetry, has been produced naturally and is of a very superior quality. If Hasz decided to take it to the market, it would easily fetch her $600 at present rates, Irwin has predicted.
Hasz, however, has no such plans. She wants to keep it forever, as a good-luck charm. The most she could do with it is make a necklace out of it. That way, wearing the pearl around her neck, she’d always have “a fun story to tell.”
It already is a fun story, starting with the husband-wife duo of Fernando and Cindy Nardone, the restaurant owners, who were quite “excited” when Hasz told it to them eventually.
Being the original owners of the clam — and hence the pearl inside it — one could have expected a momentary tinge of regret for a lost “fortune.” But the Nardones are surprisingly gung-ho about the whole thing.
“Coming to our restaurant is like winning the lottery!” Cindy told ABC News .
“We only serve the finest for our customers,” said Fernando, tongue firmly in cheek.
The customers have already got an inkling of that. Hasz’s story has gotten around and Montalcino Ristorante Italiano has been receiving a fair amount of attention of late.
Of course, the main object of desire is a dish called Frutti di Mare. Everyone wants to have what Hasz had a few days back (remember When Harry Met Sally ?). And the Nardones are busy providing them that. So, in the end, it seems to have balanced out pretty well for everybody concerned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAcosKE1puk
[Image via Shutterstock]
