Tuesday, 17 December 2013

More than a Toilet - Delicious and Happy! 便所欢乐主题餐厅

So some of you may recall from one of my earliest blog posts where I spotted a sign for a dubiously themed restaurant:
Enticed by the array of urinals decorating the walls and the pictures I'd seen on the internet, we decided that this was one trip that had to be done before I left. With this chain originating in Taiwan and now having stores in other parts of China, and intrigued by the regular long queues that stream out of this restaurant at peak times, my friends were also interested to find out what the fuss was about.


After being greeted by an ominous-looking pair of legs sticking out of a bath tub with dry ice fumes coming out of it, and with poo-shaped cushions welcoming us to the plush seats, we knew this was going to be interesting. 
Settling in to our comfy toilet seats
Toilet seats at More than a Toilet, complete with working buttons!
The major downside to this restaurant is that they are taking full advantage of their novelty status and charging an arm and a leg (not the ones in the tub) for the food there. At about £15 for a main meal, we decided to forgo the food experience in favour of a light snack and taking photos. So we ended up sharing only one pizza (costing £8, which wasn't even on a par with a Pizza Hut or Domino's standard) and one desert (chocolate profiteroles served in a toilet shaped bowl). 
Trepidation on the first taste
The chocolate profiteroles were much better than the pizza and I was happy to tuck right in
We scraped the bowl clean on account of the sharing, but it didn't really do anything to reduce the unsavory appearance!
Generally, we concluded that this establishment was in the business of selling pictures, rather than food, so we ended up going for a big slap-up meal afterwards at another restaurant Linglong Town, where we ate a huge amount of food for nearly the same price! They also specialise in a very wonderful version of maqiu (麻球) which is a deep fried glurinous rice dough ball with red bean paste inside, just like a Chinese doughtnut, but rolled in sesame seeds. I discovered maqiu after they started serving is for breakfast in the canteen, and whenever I see it, I always make a beeline for it and buy at least one or two. They are a sublime union of gooey, juicy and crispy tasty goodness that makes them irresistable for me. They are normally small enough to fit in one hand, but this restaurant makes an awesome version that is about ten times the normal size. Although it's mainly full of air, it looks spectacular, and is no less tasty!
Giant maqiu 麻球 at Longling restaurant

I'd love to learn how to make them at home to feed my habit, but apparently they are quite hard to make and you have to be very skilled to get them perfectly spherical. Sounds like a challenge!
Have you been to a More than a Toilet restaurant? Or any other crazily themed restaurants?

No comments:

Post a Comment