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Posted on 05/24/2005 7:41:04 AM PDT by dead
KAOHSIUNG - Displaying fancy toilet seats studded with flowers and shells, colourful bathtubs, faucets, mirrors and shower curtains, the well-lit window in this southern Taiwan city looks like a showroom for a trendy bathroom brand. But this is a restaurant.
It's unusual theme is proving a draw for customers eager to eat food off plates and bowls shaped like western loo seats as well as Japanese "squat toilets".
Marton Theme Restaurant, named after the Chinese word "Matong" for toilet, has become a hit in Taiwan's second largest city since its opening in May 2004.
Though bathroom decor seems a bizarre way to whet the appetites of diners, the idea has been so successful that owner, Eric Wang opened a second and bigger branch just seven months later.
"We not only sell food but also laughter. The food is just as good as any restaurant but we offer additional fun," says 26-year-old Wang, who gave up a career in banking to launch the business.
"Most customers think the more disgusting and exaggerated (the restaurant is), the funnier the dining experience is," he says.
The top orders are curry hot pot; curry chicken rice and chocolate ice cream because, well, "they look most like the real thing", Wang says.
The price ranges from 150 to 250 Taiwan dollars ($5 - 8 dollars) for a set menu, which includes soup and ice cream.
Customers, however, flock to Marton Restaurant mainly for its quirky dining wares and interior decor.
"This is such a funny and strange restaurant," says patron Chen Bi-fang, while sitting atop a colourful toilet seat — the standard chair at the restaurant.
She sits by a table converted from a bathtub with a glass cover while looking at a wall decorated with neon-lit faucets and urinals turned into lamps.
Chen first came to the restaurant after seeing it featured on television and has brought nine co-workers along for lunch on her second visit.
"I think this is the most special restaurant I've ever been to. The menu also looks good and I'd like to try more next time," says newcomer Cheng Hung-chi, who found out about the restaurant over the Internet and took her mother and brother with her. They are exactly the kind of customers owner Wang are counting on — drawn by novelty and who return with friends in a city crowded by a wide variety of restaurants.
"Our restaurant is the first and only of its kind in Kaohsiung and that gives us an advantage in the saturated market here. Our major challenge is to lure customers back after the initial fun," he says.
Other gimmicky restaurants in Taiwan using themes such as a prison, zombies and even China's Mao Zedong achieved quick success but folded within a few years after the novelty wore off.
To make sure his investment wouldn't go down the pan, Wang first tested the water for the toilet food gimmick by peddling ice cream in toilet-shaped cones in street booths four months before opening his restaurant. It was an instant hit as he sold up to 1,000 ice-cream cones daily for 30 dollars apiece, which is 5 to 10 dollars higher than a regular one.
His idea came from a popular Japanese comic featuring a robot doll fond of eating excrement in ice cream cones.
"The success with 'toilet ice cream' was a leap of faith for me to quit the stable but boring banking job and start my business despite strong objections from my family," he says.
The young entrepreneur is planning to expand his business to other cities on the island though franchising after adding more items to the menu.
"After the curiosity fades, we have to hold on to customers with upgraded food and services," Wang says.
AFP
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Yep, that comic is a real classic. It's my favorite too!
Koran flushing??
You've gotta see this sh*t...
"Waiter, this foie gras tastes like s4it and the soup tastes like piss!"
Constipation in this environment would give new meaning to the term "waiter".
I'll bet the place is a dump...
This just bowls me over -- a person would have to be plumb loco to eat there. Shows you what levels they will sink to. Urinal the good threads, aren't you, Blur? Well, take a bowel, my friend.
May I recommend an Rothschild from our wine list?
Yes, I doo get invited to a lot of these threads, it seeps to me. (Maybe it's because I Roto-root for the underdog, but I plumber don't know.) Unfortunately, it also distracts from my water main tasks and could become my water-loo. I must say, I am a very charmin guy although much more manly than that Whipple dude. Anyway, that's just my two cents worth, whereas others have called me a two-bit four-flusher.
I'm betting a straight flush that this restaurant isn't going to work, that it's going to tank. Bidet think it will. There's no time for chatting in such a place, you either have to eat or get off the toilet. And in winter the atmosphere will only get Koehler.
Someone could go in there, see their life going down the drain, and end up committing sewercide.
There is no reason toilet this thread continue. I know we are all just overflowing with puns, but it's time to wipe the slate clean and get a handle on a new topic.
"Reservation for Wang, potty of two".
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