10 Most Bizarre Restaurants

1. Cannibalistic Restaurant (JAPAN)

"Nyotaimori" (which literally means "female body plate") is the name of the japanese restaurant that serves sushi and sashimi on a naked woman's body. The body is made from food and placed on an operating table, much as though in a hospital. You can "operate" anyway and anywhere you want by cutting open the body and eating what you find inside. The body will actually bleed as you cut it and the intestines and organs inside are completely editable. It's a banquet of Cannibalism.



2. Toilet Restaurant (TAIWAN)


Have you ever heard of people eating out of a bathroom toilet and having great fun? A restaurant named Marton Theme Restaurant, in Kaohsiung (Taiwan) has a toilet theme and is a great hit among people. The restaurant has a bathroom decor, with colorful toilet seat being the standard chairs at the restaurant. It also serves food in plates and bowls shaped like western loo seats and Japanese “squat” toilets. Customers sits by a tables converted from a bathtub with a glass cover while looking at a wall decorated with neon-lit faucets and urinals turned into lamps. The restaurant is named after the Chinese word "Matong" for toilet and is doing really well. The owner Eric Wang says "We not only sell food but also laughter. The food is just as good as any restaurant but we offer additional fun. Most customers think the more disgusting and exaggerated (the restaurant is), the funnier the dining experience is." The meals are cheaply priced with a meal set including soup and ice cream costs from 150 to 250 Taiwan dollars ($6 - $10).

3. Restaurant in the Sky (BELGIUM)


"Dinner in the Sky" is a Brussels based restaurant that serves dinner for up to 22 people… 150 feet in the air! The specially-designed table and chairs are lifted by a crane. Dinner anywhere in Belgium will set you back almost 8 thousand euros; other locations are also available. Remember, you must wear your seat belt, and don't drop your fork!

4. Dark Restaurant (CHINA)


The first dark restaurant in Asia is officially opened on the 23 December 2006. This restaurant, located in Beijing, China, has its interior painted completely black. Customers are greeted by a brightly lit entrance hall and will be escorted by waiters wearing night vision goggles into the pitch dark dining room to help them find their seats. Flashlights, mobile phones and even luminous watches are prohibited while in this area.

The meal will be taken in this environment with the complete loss of vision. By starving one's sense, your other senses are stimulated to full alert "all so the theory goes" and your food will taste like it's never tasted before. In case you are wondering about the washrooms, they are all brightly lit.

5. Graveyard Restaurant (INDIA)


The bustling "New Lucky Restaurant" in Ahmadabad is famous for its milky tea, its buttery rolls, and the graves between the tables. Krishan Kutti Nair has helped run the restaurant built over a centuries-old Muslim cemetery for close to four decades, but he doesn't know who is buried in the cafe floor. Customers seem to like the graves, which resemble small cement coffins, and that's enough for him.

"The graveyard is good luck," Nair said one recent afternoon after the lunch rush. "Our business is better because of the graveyard." The graves are painted green, stand about shin high, and every day the manager decorates each of them with a single dried flower. They're scattered randomly across the restaurant - one up front next to the cash register, three in the middle next to a table for two, four along the wall near the kitchen.

6. Restaurant in a Prison (ITALY)


A restaurant situated inside the top security prison Fortezza Medicea in Italy is so popular that officials have since opened more branches. Serenaded by Bruno, a pianist doing life for murder, the clientele eat inside a deconsecrated chapel set behind the 60ft high walls, watch towers, searchlights and security cameras of the daunting 500-year-old Fortezza Medicea, at Volterra near Pisa. Under the watchful eye of armed prison warders, a 20-strong team of chefs, kitchen hands and waiters prepares 120 covers for diners who have all undergone strict security checks. Tables are booked up weeks in advance.

7. Robot Restaurant: run by two identical couples (CHINA)


People are confused how a Chinese couple managed to run a busy restaurant 21 hours a day without getting tired. Turns out the restaurant is run by two couples … both the men and women are identical twins!

Locals had nicknamed the eatery the "robot couple restaurant" as they couldn't understand how the same couple seemed to be on duty from 6am through to 3am. However, a journalist from Today Morning Post interviewed the restaurant owner and found out the truth. It turned out that the twin brothers, 32, married a set of twin sisters from the same township three years ago and moved to Yiwu to run the restaurant together. "Many diners thought we worked too hard and are like robots, but they don't know that we are actually four people," said Mao Zhanghua, 32, the elder brother.

8. Undersea Restaurant (MALDIVES)


The first-ever undersea restaurant in the world has been introduced at the Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa in April 2007. Ithaa (which is pronounced “eet-ha” and means “pearl” in the language of the Maldives, Dhivehi) sits five meters below the waves of the Indian Ocean, surrounded by a vibrant coral reef and encased in clear acrylic, offering diners 270 degrees of panoramic underwater views. This innovative restaurant is the first of its kind in the world, and is part of a US $5 million re-build of Rangalifinolhu Island, one of the twin islands that make up Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa. This re-build includes the construction of 79 of the most luxurious beach villas in the country as well as the Spa Village, a self-contained, over-water “resort-within-a-resort” consisting of a spa, restaurant and 21 villas.

9. Condom Restaurant (THAILAND)


"Cabbages and Condoms" is a chain of restaurants in Thailand. There are condoms on the walls and pictures of condoms printed on the carpets. Instead of after-dinner mints, patrons are offered a bowl of condoms at the counter. Profits from the restaurants go to support the Population and Community Development Association (PDA).

10. Medical Restaurant (TAIPEI)


D.S. Music Restaurant in Taipei, Taiwan is a medical-themed restaurant with crutches on the wall, waitresses dressed a nurses, and drinks served from an IV drip bottle! The owner came up with the idea to express his gratitude for care he received at a local hospital.

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[via odee]

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Every Bite You Take

How Sysco came to monopolize most of what you eat.

A hot dog from Yankee Stadium. Potato latkes from the Four Seasons in Manhattan. Sirloin steak at Applebee's. The jumbo cheeseburger at the University of Iowa Hospital. While it would seem these menu items have nothing in common, they're all from Sysco, a Houston-based food wholesaler. This top food supplier serves nearly 400,000 American eating establishments, from fast-food joints like Wendy's, to five-star eating establishments like Robert Redford's Tree Room Restaurant, to mom-and-pop diners like the Chatterbox Drive-In, to ethnic restaurants like Meskerem Ethiopian restaurant. Even Gitmo dishes out food from Sysco. Should you worry that one source dominates so much of what you eat?

Like any retailer, chefs need wholesalers that distribute goods cheaply and efficiently, and Sysco's 400,000-plus item catalog conveniently sells everything a cook needs to run an eating establishment. A little more than half of their products are brand names like Parkay and Lucky Charms. The rest are Sysco-packaged items like 25-pound bags of rice, half-gallons of salsa, boxes of plastic gloves, beer mugs, dish-washing detergent, not to mention 1,900 different fresh and frozen chicken products. Whatever a cook orders is delivered straight to the kitchen door at bottom-barrel prices: One Sysco invoice I got my hands on has a 25-pound bag of Uncle Ben's Converted Rice selling for $20.95, or about 84 cents a pound, while a 1-pound box bought through Amazon Grocery costs $2.09.

All of that seems relatively innocuous—restaurants need to make a profit, after all. But Sysco also hawks pre-packaged food. While chefs have long relied on shortcuts like freezing and using canned goods like beans and tomatoes, it's entirely different to pass off one of Sysco's thousands of ready-made items—ground beef burritos, vegan tortellini, quiche Lorraine pie, tiramisu cake—as homemade.

The ingredients alone on some of the pre-made items are enough to make a restaurant-goer swear off eating out. The breaded cheese chicken breast, for instance, contains monocalcium phosphates, sorbic acid preservatives, and oleoresin in turmeric. The Serve Smart Chicken is particularly frightening. While it looks natural, it consists of parts of other chicken breasts mashed together into a single, chicken-breastlike block. As the company notes on its Web site, our "unique 3-D technology gives you the look and texture of a solid muscle chicken breast, at a fraction of the cost. … Available in four great flavors: teriyaki, BBQ, fajita and original." What Smart Chicken tastes like, I'd rather not know.

Restaurants make a mint from serving these pre-prepped foods, since the meals can be purchased in bulk and stored in a freezer for months. A box of 36, 4-ounce chicken Kievs, for instance, can be kept in an icebox for up to 180 days. And the savings from labor costs are considerable. Each reheated Angus country fried steak will bring in almost $5 in profits. In the words of Sysco, these meals require nothing more than the ability to "heat, assemble, and serve."

It comes as little surprise that institutions like hospitals, universities, and military bases flock to Sysco's pre-cooked foods. But well-regarded bistros and pubs have also begun to offer such items to save time and money. Recently, New York magazine reported that Thomas Keller uses frozen Sysco fries at his Bouchon bistros. (While a company spokeswoman wouldn't confirm the brand, she confirmed the use of frozen fries.) Mickey Mantle's Restaurant, an upscale sports bar, serves Sysco's pre-made soups, like Manhattan clam chowder and vegetarian black bean. And then there's Edgar's restaurant at Belhurst Castle, which has won numerous awards of excellence from Wine Spectator magazine. There, the kitchen takes Sysco's Imperial Towering Chocolate Cake out of the box, lets it defrost, and then sprinkles it with fresh raspberries before serving it to diners. "We've had a lot of success with that cake," executive chef Casey Belile says. The Edgar's menu, of course, does not list the dessert as a Sysco pre-made cake, but it does charge $8.95 for the experience.

The company has a long history of championing frozen foods. Sysco founder John Baugh has been quoted as saying, "frozen foods taste better than anything I could grow in my garden." He started the company in 1969 when he saw an opening in the food services marketplace for a large, national distributor that would beat out local competitors through its sheer size. At the time, Baugh owned a small frozen-food company in Houston, and he convinced eight other regional food distributors to join forces to form a national conglomerate. Within a year of its start, Sysco posted more than $100 million in sales, and for the next 30 years, snapped up more than 150 local food distributors, becoming the largest in the nation. The company is about 50 percent larger than its next-largest competitor and five times bigger than the third-largest player; its boxes and cans are now as common in restaurant kitchens as salt and flour. A very partial listing of its better-known customers can be found here.

Some obvious food trends have helped Sysco's rise to Wal-Mart-like dominance. In 1970, households spent 34 percent of their food budget on dining out, compared to almost 50 percent today. And as small, local farms have closed down to make way for strip malls, restaurants increasingly depend on regional and national food processors to supply them with basic ingredients. While Sysco has smartly capitalized on all of this as the middleman between individual food distributors and the kitchen door, it's also earned the ire of gourmets, who portray the company as a leviathan that destroys local economies—and good taste.

But many quality restaurants, like Tree Room, use Sysco responsibly—shying away from pre-made items they can disguise as their own. Bardia Ferdowski of Bardia's New Orleans Café in Washington, D.C., purchases only raw and unprocessed Sysco products such as flour, potatoes, and beef, and receives frequent deliveries so that ingredients are as fresh as possible. For its part, Sysco has also been upping the quality of some of its offerings. It now distributes more locally grown meats and produce, and teams up with companies like artisanal cheesemonger Murray's to deliver specialty foods. Chef Tom Hosack of Hudson's at the Heathman Lodge in Vancouver, Wash., for instance, buys most of his greens through Sysco, and they're almost all regionally grown.

And not every cook has the time—or the money—to spend every afternoon foraging for fresh heirloom tomatoes at the local farmer's market. Nor do they need to. Many of Sysco's products—the meat, the vegetables, the fruits—are not that different than what you'll find at your local supermarket. But no restaurant diner should pay a chef to defrost and heat. Cooks are called cooks for a reason.

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[via slate]

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The Origin of Your Favorite Condiments

Next time someone asks you to pass the ketchup, mustard, mayo or Worcestershire sauce, you can wow them with your knowledge on the history of condiments.

Ketchup
The word “ketchup” comes from the Chinese “ke-tsiap,” and if you’re wondering why ketchup isn’t used in Chinese food, well, there’s your story. Ke-tsiap wasn’t at all like ketchup. It was a sauce made from pickled fish that frankly wouldn’t taste so great on a burger – or in our opinion on much else. Nonetheless, it was popular enough to catch on in Malaysia, where it was called “kechap,” and Indonesia (“ketjap”), and to be honest it probably wasn’t as bad as it sounds; it’s been compared to soy sauce . When English and Dutch sailors made their way to the Far East in the 17th century, they “discovered” the sauce and brought some back with them. Homemade versions immediately became popular; Elizabeth Smith’s The Compleat Housewife (copyright 1727) called for anchovies, shallots, vinegar, white wine, cloves, ginger, mace, nutmeg, pepper, and lemon peel.

Note the lack of tomatoes in that recipe. In the grand East-meets-West tradition of fusion cuisine, someone thought to add tomatoes to ke-tsiap in the early 1700s. The British counterpart of that person, by the way, went another direction and added mushrooms instead; you can still find mushroom ketchup at a few specialty retailers, and The New Joy of Cooking contains a recipe for the homemade stuff. Anyway, in both nations, the spelling also mutated around the same time; the first reference to “ketchup” appeared in 1711. This, too, caught on, and within 100 years or so ke-tsiap had acquired yet another regional name: tomato soy. Teresa Heinz Kerry’s great-great-great in-laws started selling a thin, salty version of the stuff in as “tomato ketchup” in 1876, and it was such a hit that eventually they just dropped the “tomato.”

Mustard
Mustard, in our opinion, has one of the best linguistic back stories in the English tongue: its name is a contraction of the Latin mustum ardens, meaning “burning wine” – presumably because the seeds are spicy and used to be as valuable as the vintage stuff. (The French used to mix mustard seeds with grape juice , which may also have something to do with the name.) Mustard’s tastier qualities, however, weren’t always appreciated the way they are today. It started out as the ancient equivalent of Neosporin: Pythagoras prescribed it for scorpion stings. His successor, Hippocrates, tried to cure toothaches with it (at least he didn’t use something sugary). Later, the stuff had fans among religious types, too: Pope John XXII was reportedly so enamored of mustard that he established a new Vatican position, grand moutardier du pape, which means “mustard-maker to the pope.” Conveniently, he happened to know the perfect candidate; his nephew was a moutardier.

Mayonnaise
Our friends at HowStuffWorks have a great, simple retelling of this tale, so we’ll let them do the honors: “Mayonnaise was invented in 1756 by the French chef of the Duc de Richelieu. After the Duc beat the British at Port Mahon, his chef created a victory feast that was to include a sauce made of cream and eggs. Realizing that there was no cream in the kitchen, the chef substituted olive oil for the cream and a new culinary creation was born. The chef named the new sauce ‘Mahonnaise’ in honor of the Duc’s victory.”

Worcestershire sauce
Worcestershire sauce was invented accidentally in England by Brits trying to ape what they thought was authentic Indian food. In this case, the demanding diner was one Lord Marcus Sandy, a former colonial governor of Bengal. Having grown attached to a particular flavor of Indian sauce, he recruited two drugstore owners, John Lea and William Perrins, in hopes that they could recreate it based on his descriptions. Lea and Perrins thought they’d make a profit by selling the leftovers in their store, but frankly, the sauce they created had a powerful stench – so they stashed it in the basement and forgot about it for two years while it aged into something that tasted much better. (We suspect that in a similar manner, we are harboring the next big culinary phenomenon in the back of our fridge.)

Lea and Perrins sold the stuff to a boatload of customers, literally; they convinced British passenger ships to carry some aboard. Presumably they didn’t mention the way they’d come across their secret recipe since it probably would have made most people seasick.

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[via mentalfloss]

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Honey Bee Crisis Could Push Food Prices Even Higher

Food prices could rise even more unless the mysterious decline in honey bees is solved, farmers and businessmen told lawmakers Thursday.

"No bees, no crops," North Carolina grower Robert D. Edwards told a House Agriculture subcommittee. Edwards said he had to cut his cucumber acreage in half because of the lack of bees available to rent.

About three-quarters of flowering plants rely on birds, bees and other pollinators to help them reproduce. Bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion annually in crop value.

In 2006, beekeepers began reporting losing 30 percent to 90 percent of their hives. This phenomenon has become known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Scientists do not know how many bees have died; beekeepers have lost 36 percent of their managed colonies this year. It was 31 percent for 2007, said Edward B. Knipling, administrator of the Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service.

"If there are no bees, there is no way for our nation's farmers to continue to grow the high quality, nutritious foods our country relies on," said Democratic Rep. Dennis Cardoza of California, chairman of the horticulture and organic agriculture panel. "This is a crisis we cannot afford to ignore."

Food prices have gone up 83 percent in three years, according to the World Bank.

Edward R. Flanagan, who raises blueberries in Milbridge, Maine, said he could be forced to increase prices tenfold or go out of business without the beekeeping industry. "Every one of those berries owes its existence to the crazy, neurotic dancing of a honey bee from flower to flower," he said.

The cause behind the disorder remains unknown. Possible explanations include pesticides; a new parasite or pathogen; and the combination of immune-suppressing stresses such as poor nutrition, limited or contaminated water supplies and the need to move bees long distances for pollination.

Ice cream maker Haagen-Dazs and natural personal care products company Burt's Bees have pledged money for research and begun efforts to help save the bees.

The problem affects about 40 percent of Haagen-Dazs' 73 flavors, including banana split and chocolate peanut butter, because ingredients such as almonds, cherries and strawberries rely on honey bees for pollination.

Katty Pien, brand director for Haagen-Dazs, said those ingredients could become too scarce or expensive if bees keep dying. It could force the company to discontinue some of its most popular flavors, Pien said.

Haagen-Dazs has developed a new limited-time flavor, vanilla honey bee, and will use some of the proceeds for research on the disorder. Burt's Bees has introduced Colony Collapse Disorder Lip Balm to "soften your lips while saving honeybees."

The House Appropriations Committee approved $780,000 on Thursday for research on the disorder and $10 million for bee research. The money awaits approval by the full House and Senate.

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[via huffingtonpost]

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What does a weeks worth of food look like around the world?

I've always been interested in those shows on TV that talk about what a million dollars will buy in two different cities, or how far your dollar will stretch in different countries. But have you ever wondered what a weeks worth of food looks like in different parts of the world? You'll be surprised to find out how much food people do eat in a week, or on the other hand don't eat.

Japan: The Ukita family of Kodaira City
Food expenditure for one week: 37,699 Yen or $317.25



Italy: The Manzo family of Sicily
Food expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.11



Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide
Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07



United States: The Revis family of North Carolina
Food expenditure for one week: $341.98



Mexico: The Casales family of Cuernavaca
Food expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09



Poland: The Sobczynscy family of Konstancin-Jeziorna
Food expenditure for one week: 582.48 Zlotys or $151.27



Egypt: The Ahmed family of Cairo
Food expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53



Ecuador: The Ayme family of Tingo
Food expenditure for one week: $31.55



Bhutan: The Namgay family of Shingkhey Village
Food expenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03



Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp
Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23



Kinda makes you wonder?

"A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as well as that of his fellowman, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help."
- Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian Theologian, Musician, and Medical Missionary

You can see a few more countries at FixThePlanet.com

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