Glob-a-log

So, Hillary Clinton won in New Hampshire, Britney Spears lost all custody rights and I’m sure somewhere else some other politician was caught with his trousers down and another celeb made some sex tape.

All very interesting, no doubt, but there’s more to life than sex & politics, or celebs & politics - or, if all of that is still a bit too highbrow for your taste, celebs & celebs.

So, today let’s talk about food.

In a recent Times column Ben Macintyre wrote the following:

The anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss argued that cooking and eating represented the very origin of human cultural development: once Homo sapiens could develop co-operative food strategies, and explore different ways of preparing his nourishment, then language could develop, the first dinner-party conversation around the camp fire could begin. Cooking made food more digestible and broke down toxins, but it was also an act of creativity and imagination. It ceased to be merely the necessary means to keep man alive.

I’m sure Lévi-Strauss was absolutely right. Eating to us has become more than fuelling the machine. Which doesn’t mean to say that all of our modern ‘camp fires’ are temples of sophistication, where people show their intimate knowledge of all things philosophical and listen to Chopin, while they eat caviare and drink champagne or designer water.

Still, even the most elitist philosopher (or restaurant critic) would have to admit that the creator of Taiwan’s popular Marton restaurant, has proven himself to be both imaginative and creative:

Themed restaurants are everywhere these days.

There are Rock n’ Roll themed ones, restaurants where you can eat while sitting on beds, and even bars made completely of ice. But Taiwan has taken novelty restaurants to a whole new level. Welcome to Marton, the world’s first toilet themed restaurant! Marton means toilet in Chinese and in this restaurant you literally sit on toilet seats and eat out of miniature toilet shaped bowls (both the Asian squat-style and the traditional Western variety toilets).

The restaurant is the first of its kind and only exists in Taiwan. The creator of the restaurant used to be a street vendor. He sold ice-cream in a special plastic toilet cup holder which he designed himself. He decided to take this idea one step further and so the toilet restaurant was born. The restaurants use ceramic toilet bowls/dishes to serve a range of meals. Food is either served in a flat bowl that resembles a male urinal; larger main meals are served in a toilet bowl.

The creator has now patented the idea and opened up several more branches around Taiwan. The restaurants attract a range of customers but it is especially popular with young people and families with kids. Apparently it’s not all just about novelty value and the restaurant gets many repeat guests. As a result it has introduced a loyalty program so you can collect credit on multiple visits and then receive a big toilet shaped bowl.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 13:51 and is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.