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Monday, March 2, 2009
World's craziest restaurants
World's craziest restaurantsFor centuries, restaurants have been making the same fiscal error time and time again: serving delicious food at reasonable prices. Truly a recipe for fiduciary disaster. Here at least are ten restaurants that understand, to truly make a profit in the food business, you want to guarantee your patrons eat as little as possible, then get the hell out. It’s called “high turnover.” Ask an economist.
Modern 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).
For Cannibals - 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.
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!
Complete darkness - 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.
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.
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.
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.
Condoms- 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).
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.
Buns and Guns - LEBANON
For the love of God, GET DOWN! Ba-CHKOW! JESUS CHRIST! It’s…a turkey sub on French bread. But what’s that on the side?! GRENADES!!!!! Wa-BOOOOOOOMers! Grenades means potato wedges.
It’s that kind of playful double entendre that makes Buns and Guns the premiere Hezbollah-themed fast food chain in Lebanon. After a lengthy battle with competing chains Burgers and Lugers, Khomeini’s House of Schwarma and Fuck Israel!, Buns and Guns became known nationwide as the “home of the AK-47 Kalashnikov” which you may be perplexed to learn is a beef sandwich.
And at Buns and Guns, it’s not just the item names that get your adrenaline pumping. They’ve gone all out to provide a dining experience as akin as possible to fighting for your life on a bomb-scarred battlefield in the DMZ. Special touches include chefs sporting battle helmets, sandbags out front, and menu items like the “Claymore” pizza, topped with peppers, onions, mushrooms, olives, corn and tomato. Pull one of the gooey slices away and watch as vegetarian entrails slop off onto your camo tablecloth! KaBLOOEY! Just don’t step on it!
And to make your dining experience all the more visceral, all Buns and Guns establishments play a continuous loop of rifle fire, mortar fire, and explosion sounds to eat by. And if any of the wait staff happen to have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, who knows what kind of exciting outbursts that could elicit? It’s the only restaurant in Lebanon guaranteed to seamlessly integrate into your daily routine of being bombarded with mortar shells.
The motto says it all: “A Sandwich Can Kill You.” Drop in today to find out how!
Beyond Green Roofs: 15 Vertically Vegetated Buildings | WebEcoist
Beyond Green Roofs: 15 Vertically Vegetated Buildings | WebEcoist
Vertical gardens bring lush, verdant life to even the coldest and barest of surfaces, both indoors and out. These ‘living walls’ increase interior humidity, purify the air and provide a much-needed touch of nature in spare, angular urban spaces like airports, museums and shopping centers. Here are 15 buildings with stunning vertical greenery, from 6-story elevator shafts to subterranean restaurants.
Edificio Consorcio, Santiago, Chile
(images via: Plataforma Arquitectura)
The Concorcio Building in Santiago, Chile is one of the world’s most eco-friendly office complexes. It uses up to 48% less energy thanks to the vegetation climbing up its exterior walls, which turns red in autumn.
Bardessono Hotel Vertical Tillandsia Garden
(images via: Land + Living)
Not all vertical gardens even need soil or irrigation at all. This ‘tillandsia’, or ‘air plant’ garden at the Bardessono Hotel in Yountville, California gives the visual effect of ‘floating’ plants by mounting the tillandsia to metal rods which protrude from the copper wall panel. They simply need to be misted with water from a spray bottle every now and then.
Urban Plant
(images via: World Architecture)
This architectural design proposal called ‘Urban Plant’ envisions a new way to deal with producing food for urban city dwellers. The tower has hydroponic vegetable gardens and integrated renewable energy systems that reduce energy use and give urbanites a sense of connection with nature amidst all the concrete.
Musée du Quai Branly
(images via: FrenchGardening.com)
Perhaps no one is more well-known for vertical greenery creations than Patrick Blanc, who is responsible for the breathtaking living walls at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. The walls are entirely cloaked in plants, from the sidewalk to the rooftop. Blanc devised a patented system that consists of metal scaffolding and polyamide felt stapled to 10mm-thick plates of expanded PVC. The felt retains the water that seeps down from a drip irrigation system mounted at the top of the wall. The Musée du Quai Branly green wall is made up of 15,000 plants and 150 different species.
Parti Wall
(images via: Archinect)
This outdoor installation, created by ten young architecture and design firms for a newly converted loft building in Boston, transforms a blank brick wall into a lush, green environment. Sedum panels were sewn onto a mesh substrate and fastened to cables for a modern, artistic effect. The prototype is meant to illustrate how Boston’s scattered brick surfaces could become opportunities for zero-footprint public art.
The Moss Room Restaurant
(images via: EaterSF)
The atmosphere at The Moss Room Restaurant in San Francisco is certainly unlike any other. Diners descend into a subterranean room, housed within the Academy of Sciences, that has a unique feature: a wall covered in moss. Designed by Olle Lundberg, the restaurant features a 40-foot living wall that draws moisture from a large water tank in which African jumping fish will reportedly soon live.
Ann Demeulemeester Shop by Mass Studies
(images via: Design Boom)
The Ann Demeulemeester shop in Seoul, South Korea features undulating living walls made from a geo-textile planted with herbaceous perennials. The verdant look is even carried into the interior of the store. Mass Studies, the Korean architecture firm responsible for the design, wanted to incorporate nature into what can often be cold retail environments.
CaixaForum Museum, Madrid
(images via: juanpg, funksturm)
Patric Blanc designed the beautiful vertical garden on the exterior walls of the CaixaForum Museum in Madrid. More than 15,000 plants from more than 250 species cover an entire side of the historical building, built in 1899. The plants are arranged in such a way that they form a painterly design, with arches of color creating a sense of movement.
Unique Potted Vertical Garden
(images via: CSLab)
We’re not sure where in the world this incredibly unique vertical garden is located, but it sure is impressive. They’ve taken a low-tech approach to covering vast white expanses of wall with flowering plants, each one potted and attached to the wall individually. The question is, how do they water them all?
Topiade Façade for Louis Vuitton
(images via: Cube Me)
In an attempt to refresh an aging Louis Vuitton building without a major reconstruction, architects Gregory Polleta and Sung Jang came up with a brilliantly simple solution: covering it in a changeable arrangement of topiaries. The project, ‘Topiade’, uses greenery-covered forms that can be changed regularly for a fresh new look.
Midori no Tobira
(image via: Cee)
Designer Kazuyuki Ishihara created ‘Midori no Tobira’, which means ‘Green Door’, for the 2008 RHS Chelsea Flower Show. It’s designed as a Japanese roof garden, for a space that gets a lot of sun and strong winds. Sedum and moss covers nearly every surface, including the walls and roof, giving it a hidden secret garden feel.
Parabienta Green Wall from Shimizu
(images via: Treehugger)
The ‘wall surface afforestation system’, or ‘parabienta’, was designed by the Shimizu corporation as a lightweight and low-cost way to green up uninteresting exterior surfaces. For about $80 per square foot, a building can be given a whole new look using planted panels of sponge-like polyester-blended soil.
Edouard François ‘Flower Tower’, Paris
(images via: Design Boom)
Architect Edouard François created the ‘Flower Tower’, a building completely veiled with potted bamboo, in Paris in 1999. The Flower Tower is a residential building bordering a park that has been made to blend in a little better with its lush surroundings. The bright white pots stand out while the bamboo give the residents privacy and a feeling of living in a more rural, natural environment.
Siam Paragon Shopping Center
(image via: Pseangsong + pingmag)
In another example of Patrick Blanc’s stunning green walls, the Siam Paragon shopping centerin Bangkok Thailand features a lush, rainforest-like cascade of ferns, vines, sedum and moss in various shades of green, yellow, red and purple. The greenery surrounds the building’s 6-story elevator shaft to dazzling effect.
Zurich Airport Hanging Vines
(images via: Land 8 Lounge)
Cascading vines at the Zurich Airport in Switzerland bring in a little exotic color and texture, serving as an art piece encased in frosted glass. The vines, which are various varieties from faraway places like Malaysia, span three stories and soften the building’s spare, angular design.
12 Most Amazing Pools in the World | BootsnAll Travel Articles
12 Most Amazing Pools in the World | BootsnAll Travel ArticlesIt used to be that all you had to attract people to your hotel was build a pool. As tourists evolved, the pool was considered a must. Thus the indoor pool became a standard of luxury. Today, both of those types of pools are anything but impressive. It is this reason that many hotels are spending thousands, if not millions, on their pools in hopes of attracting customers. Check out some of these luxury hotel pools to see what we are talking about.
1 - Crown Towers Hotel in Taipa Island Macau
This is a cool infinity pool that looks out over a breathtaking skyline from several stories up. This is definitely a great place to enjoy the sunset in Taipa Island.
>>Crown Towers Hotel in Taipa Island Macau2 - Burj Al Arab in Dubai
Leave it to the hotel designer in Dubai to create a pool of this magnitude. It’s just too bad you probably have to own a helicopter to be able to comfortably afford to swim here.
>>Burj Al Arab in Dubai3 - Golden Nugget Las Vegas
While the pool might not seem too cool at first glance, notice the salt-water aquarium complete with sharks that is flush with the pool. There is also a clear tube slide that goes through the aquarium and into the pool.
>>Golden Nugget Las Vegas4 - Blue Lagoon Geothermal Resort in Grindavík, Iceland
Ok, technically this isn't a pool in the typical sense of a hotel pool. But, it is a warm body of water that you have to pay a pretty penny to get into. Therefore it falls into the category of a luxury hotel pool.
>>Blue Lagoon Geothermal Resort in Grindavík, Iceland5 - Begawan Giri Hotel in Ubud, Bali
This small villa style hotels pool might not be big, but it has a million-dollar view. Combine that with the fact that at any given time you will probably be the only person in the pool and you get one luxurious little swim.
>>Begawan Giri Hotel in Ubud, Bali6 - Mandarin Oriental in New York
At the Mandarin Oriental hotel, you can enjoy the famous New York skyline while lounging in the pool any time of the year.
>>Mandarin Oriental in New York7 - San Alfonso del Mar in Chile
The pool at the San Alfonso del Mar is a mini ocean in and of its self. This pool is easily large enough to enjoy water sport activities like paddling and sailing, and it’s by far the largest freshwater pool in the world.
>>San Alfonso del Mar in Chile8 - Four Seasons in Costa Rica
There is no better way to appreciate the coast of Costa Rica than from this infinity pool at the Four Seasons Hotel.
>>Four Seasons in Costa Rica9 - Six Senses Hideaway in Zighy Bay, Oman
This small infinity pool might not look like much at first, but when you take into account that the pool comes with your own private section of beach, cabana, pool, and more; it gets pretty luxurious.
>>Six Senses Hideaway in Zighy Bay10 - Perivolas Luxury Hotel in Santorini
The infinity pool at the Perivolas Luxury Hotel may be one of the most famous hotel pools. It has one of the best views from any hotel pool and has been featured on a large number of travel magazine covers.
>>Perivolas Luxury Hotel in Santorini11 - Atlantis Resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas
The sheer size of the pool at the Atlantis Resort is enough to get it on the list. But the pool features a number a slides, waterfalls, grottoes, and more.
>>Atlantis Resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas12 - Hotel Villa Mahal in Turkey
The infinity pool at the Villa Mahal made our list because it is a simple infinity style pool that does what infinity pools were made to do; give you the illusion of a pool that drops into the sky.
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