Do you eat sitting on the toilet?

Well in Taiwan they do! Yummy, a toilet themed restaurant where you can eat a desert called “bloody poop” (strawberry sundae) and other disgustingly named foods.

Toilet themed restaurants in Taiwan
Toilet themed restaurants are not something new in Taiwan; it has been around since 2004 (or earlier) with people dining in a toilet like environment and eating from a mini toilet bowl.

I always thought that the business idea won’t last long; but with the recent exposure by foreign press and bloggers, it seems that these eateries are becoming a bizarre-food icon from Taiwan… something like eating fugu in Japan and live octopus in Korea.

Below are some pictures from Modern Toilet, a food chain that operates 12 toilet themed restaurants in Taiwan; these pics are from its outlet in Shilin, Taipei…

A toilet-themed restaurant is proving a huge draw for customers in Taiwan, eager to eat food off plates and bowls shaped like western loo seats and 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 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 ($6 - $10) for a meal set including 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 colorful 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 the restaurant over the Internet and took her mother and brother with her.

"There's poop everywhere! Y-u-c-k," says 6-year-old Jordan Lien as he and his family dine at the Modern Toilet, a popular Taiwanese restaurant chain that's expanding into China and other parts of Asia. The boy was looking at the poop-shaped lights and dish covers and the curry on toilet-shaped plates.

Diarrhea for dinner? That's the point. "It's supposed to shock and confuse the senses," says Modern Toilet manager Chen Min-kuang. But as Jennifer Finch, an American who was dining there, described it, "They do it tastefully. It's all very clean." (See the top 10 food trends of 2008.)

Every customer sits on a stylish acrylic toilet (lid down) designed with images of roses, seashells or Renaissance paintings. Everyone dines at a glass table with a sink underneath. The servers bring your meal atop a mini toilet bowl (quite convenient, as it brings the food closer to your mouth), you sip drinks from your own plastic urinal (a souvenir), and soft-swirl ice cream arrives for dessert atop a dish shaped like a squat toilet. (See nine kid foods to avoid.)

I went there on a Wednesday evening, and the place was packed with students and families who were having a jolly time eating out of the john. "It's very progressive and irreverent, like a practical joke," says junior high school teacher Chen Kin-hsiang, who went because her students raved about it. "It's a little gross when you see other people eat," she says, "but when you're eating, you don't notice it, 'cause you're hungry and the aroma is appetizing." Smell is one poop-like quality the chef does without. (See pictures of China on the wild side.)

The reasonably priced food includes curries, pasta, fried chicken and Mongolian hot pot, as well as elaborate shaved-ice desserts with names like "diarrhea with dried droppings" (chocolate), "bloody poop" (strawberry) and "green dysentery" (kiwi). Despite the disturbing descriptions, the desserts were great. But after seeing curry drip down a mini-toilet, I may never have that sauce again. (See pictures of what makes you eat more food.)

The Chinese can take this, Finch muses, because they are more nonchalant about bodily functions, such as burping, farting or even going to the bathroom — an act performed squatting sans doors in some places in China. But many Westerners enjoy the novelty of toilet dining too. Chris and Julia Harris took their visiting mother, who they say is obsessive-compulsive about cleanliness, to "freak her out," but she had a great time (though she refused to drink out of a urinal). The only people who have a hard time, says Chen, are the elderly who have exclaimed, "I will not eat on the toilet!" (Folding chairs and normal dishware are available for the faint of heart.) (Read "The Science of Appetite.)




HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM I am excited now!!!! I can now eat Edible Excretions while sitting on a toilet. So I guess you can say I can now eat poop and poop at the same time!!!! What innovation. I can't wait to see what they next century bring me :-)