Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Over-over-eating: Extreme dining in the 21st century

Someone was high when they whipped up this idea.

http://www.dinnerinthesky.com/techn.php

You can make reservations to eat dinner at a table that is dangling precariously from a crane. Genius! I wish I was there when they came up with it. "Yeah, then we take 22 putzes, and just hang them up there while they eat." Note the prices are not listed and reservations must be made 2-3 months in advance while they get permits from the city to hang your greedy ass up in the air. How much do you figure a meal like that would put you back? 50 K? 100K? Craziness.

Despite my manliness I find the idea frightenning. Isn't that just asking for trouble? I mean it's dangerous enough as it is, but you'll be the envy of all the chumps stuck eating food on solid ground. They'll be sending evil thoughts skyward to your table. I can see myself eating a hot dog from a street vendor or something.

Me: "They really think they're better than me, don't they? Up there eating their filet mignon and sipping the finest champagne... Wearing their fancy clothes and telling hilarious, rich-people stories!!!" Then I'd toss my half eaten hot dog at them, miss their silly floating table and weep bitterly as I watch my discarded lunch land in a pile of reeking hobos.

Imagine Paris Hilton's next birthday party. Who knows? Rusty links in the chain? I can see her inviting James Lipton and he starts getting rowdy. Jumping around, yelling and being belligerent. Then Dennis Franz makes a disparaging remark about Rosie Odonnel's sexual orientation and they start fighting. You get that crane to swinging and next thing you know you got Jack Black and Monique are singing: "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Paris Hiltoooooon.... Happy birthday to-" *SNAP* "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
And it lands on a car and explodes in a magnificent fireball. That'll end a meal real quick. Then the next day on Oprah Winfrey when a horribly mutilated Paris talks about the experience she'll say, "You know the worst part, Oprah? The steak was over cooked."

I've been expressing this a lot lately but once again I cannot help but be overwhelmed at the opulence of North American society. You hang people in the air so they can have an expensive meal? Seriously? Not to sound bitter but... what's that??? I often imagine what extra-terrestrials will think of us if they find the remains of our society. "Ah yes, and this is a crane, used to hang people in the air while they ate. We believe it helped them to digest their food."

No, it was just another way for people to quickly burn an embarassing excess of money. Of course who am I to draw the line? I think it would be cool to eat at that restaurant that was built underwater.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66xHjjBxJfQ

That's pretty extravagant. Still, my mind can't help but conjure terrifying images of a shark crashing through the glass and devouring the frantic patrons. "This wasn't on the menu!" I'd cry.

Jen told me a funny story where a man went to the revolving restaurant in montreal. He went to the bathroom and found that it didn't rotate with the rest of the restaurant. When he emerged he was so disoriented he couldn't find his table. And then there's O'Noir where you pay a little extra to eat in the dark.

It's like something out of a science fiction comedy; Restaurants with themes so contrived that it actually makes eating inconvenient, even dangerous. The sky's the limit indeed. I can imagine a restaurant that's on one giant ski, and you eat at a table that's sliding down a snowy mountainside. I'd like to eat a meal, where the table is in this transparent, temperature resistant dome floating on a bed of magma inside an active volcano on the verge of erupting. Or you take this crane idea, except you fasten everyone to their seats and hang everything upside down over a field of land mines with starving lions roaming around. Or what would you think about a restaurant that serves only seafood? Fish, lobster, crab, emperor penguins, shrimp ... I think that would be pretty good. Ah, to be wealthy.

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