Global List of Weird Restaurants: 6 Taiwanese Entries Make the Cut

By MOOK Scenic Spots Family Travel Life Network, Reported by Li Xinyi

 

With over 70% of people in Taiwan eating out, the huge takeout market has led to fierce competition in the food and beverage industry. Business owners are constantly racking their brains to innovate, resulting in a vibrant scene of all kinds of creative cuisine. This not only attracts local consumers, but even Bob Blumer, host of TLC’s Travel & Living Channel, traveled all the way from Los Angeles because of its fame. His first stop was Taipei’s Toilet Restaurant, where diners not only sit on toilets but also use toilet-themed utensils. Bob, watching everyone enjoy their meal, exclaimed, “This is absolutely crazy!” But he never expected the toilet food to be surprisingly delicious — he even wanted to bring the Toilet Restaurant back to Los Angeles!

The “World’s Weirdest Restaurants” show selected more than 50 uniquely themed, delicious restaurants from around the globe, including the United States, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, Amsterdam, the Czech Republic, and the UK. These range from a Japanese pub where monkeys serve beer, to a NYC restaurant where you dine naked, and even a Czech eatery where you can soak in a beer pool. Taiwan alone boasts six entries, including the Toilet Restaurant, the Airplane Restaurant, as well as the Nurse Restaurant where beautiful nurses diagnose and serve you medicine, the Cardboard Restaurant where boxes serve as tables and chairs, and the Puppet Theater Restaurant where you can deeply experience traditional Taiwanese opera culture.

At the Puppet Theater Restaurant, he boldly ignored his mother’s advice about focusing while eating — here, the rule is to eat while watching a show, and even join in the hand puppet performance yourself. Eating while having fun is the way to go. At the A380 Air Kitchen Restaurant located at the other end of Taipei, Bob felt the best part was that for just a few hundred dollars, you can enjoy first-class-level service — and there’s no turbulence, completely changing his bad impression of airplane food. But what he remembered most was Taiwan’s 50¢ Plate, a quirky sculptural building handcrafted by a female designer, like a Gaudí structure recreated in Taipei. The restaurant serves authentic Taiwanese cuisine. He said, “I’d never tried these dishes before, but they were really delicious!”

Bob was deeply impressed by the endless creativity and vitality of Taiwan’s food scene during his trip. He said, “Many people think theme restaurants like these are just a flash in the pan, but I don’t think so.” Using the Toilet Restaurant as an example, he said, “You might think using mini toilet bowls as plates is just a gimmick, but these restaurants not only operate as chains, they also evolve with the trends of the times and know how to keep winning the public’s favor.”