Woman Bites Down On Rare Pearl In Her Food While Dining At Her Favorite Italian Restaurant

We can’t even begin to count the number of times we’ve heard about someone chomping down on an unexpected item in their food, but usually in those cases, something gross is happening and the customer is upset. One diner in Washington who encountered the unusual in her meal came away from her experience with a much more appetizing prize than usual, however: a rare purple pearl.

A woman from Issaquah, WA was eating at her favorite Italian restaurant with her husband when she bit down on something “really, really hard,” she tells ABC News (warning: link has video that autoplays).

“I felt like I almost broke my tooth when I first bit it,” she told ABC News. “It was pretty dark in the restaurant, so it was hard to tell what it was, but when I looked at it closer, it looked totally round and perfect. Too perfect.”

She showed the purple pearl to gemologist Ted Irwin, president of the Northwest Geological Laboratory and director of the Northwest Geological Institute, who confirmed that despite his expectations, she did have a genuine Quahog pearl.

Despite the fact that she was eating on the West Coast, he says the gem is found in clams “indigenous to the Atlantic states, the New England area.” You know, like Quahog, where Peter Griffin lives.

The chances of finding a natural, gem-quality pearl like this one is probably “one in a couple million,” he adds. He values it around $600 in today’s marketplace.

The restaurant’s owners were excited to hear the news, and say other guests are now coming in to order the same dish the lucky diner ordered — the frutti di mare, fittingly enough.

The woman says she’s probably going to turn her pearl into a necklace, and keep it as a good luck charm.

Washington Woman Finds Rare Purple Pearl Worth $600 in Her Food While Dining Out [ABC News]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist