In the course of my culinary travels I've encountered some odd things . . .
Did you know that the new trend in restaurants is to create outrageous bathrooms? I've noticed some bizaare and some really fun ones in my travels lately and want to share them with you.
First an old bathroom in a 17th century Château de Raissac where I stayed while touring the Languedoc region of France. Because they served me dinner AND breakfast I included this huge over-the-top PINK bathroom. see the article here: RICHARD FRISBIE - Chateau & Wine in Southern France
In Macau, at the Hotel Lisboa, where I had the Best Dim Sum in the World, there was a totally automated bathroom. The door opened automatically, the sink, the flush - everything was automatic. Oddest part was the Urinal. See the shoe shaped metal risers? Standing on them the floor was also flushed when I finished! Talk about Bizaare!
In Scranton, PA, at the Cooper's Seafood Restaurant, the newly decorated men's room was all in Beatles memorabelia, with vintage album covers (very collectible!) and photographs, and even old Beatles music playing - it was a HOOT! I asked about the ladies room, but it hadn't been redone yet because they couldn't decide what to do. I suggested Frank Sinatra. Check out the restaurant here: RICHARD FRISBIE - Scranton PA - Part Second
On a recent trip to Rio de Janeiro I ate at the fantastic restaurant La Pre Catalan. Their bathroom was standard, but the entrance room was a stunningly designed oval room with sculpted metal walls and a fabulous chair. 
This place was most surprising. The popular churrascarias (Brazilain BBQ) restaurant, Marius, in Rio de Janeiro, was the second pirate themed eatery I'd been to in less than 3 weeks! (Cooper's Seafood Reataurant, in Scranton, even had an octopus on the roof!) I don't know what I expected from a restaurant whose waiters were buccaneers, and with a floor deep enough in dried eucalyptus leaves to scuffel through, (!!) but a colored loose rock bathroom floor - unbelievable! The rocks also filled the sinks and the urinals (under the ice) in a truly over-the-top example of imagination run wild - What Fun! Marius
So, what about you? Have you seen any outrageous or fabulous bathrooms recently? Can you top these?
RICHARD FRISBIE is a food column published twice a month to Gather Essentials: Food (this is not one of them)
Join his Food Video Forum and see the best food videos on Gather: http://foodvideos.gather.com/
BIO - Richard has been writing culinary travel articles for more than five years as a columnist for his local newspapers, and as a regular contributor to the many Hudson Valley, Catskill Mountain and other regional New York publications. His most recent addition to that list is a wine column called “Fruit of the Vine” for Life in the Finger Lakes magazine. Online, he writes frequent articles for EDGE publications and Travel Lady, as well as Gather.
You can read all of Richard's articles http://rfrisbie.gather.com/
or find him with the other Food Correspondents, plus celebrity chef content and plenty of other Foodies at http://foodtalk.gather.com
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Comments: 64
SANDY - you live! Great to hear from you! Now, how would it look if I took my sister to the bathroom with me? (smiling!)
Madame - if we can't have fun, it's not worth doing. Glad you liked it!
(And this must be the first time a bathroom picture is the feature on the Gather front page!)
Lea - I can't find the photo of the urinal with a cover on it (like a toilet hanging on the wall - Bizarre!) or the one where each urinal had its own stall - but I always photograph nice and/or unusual bathrooms.
JoAnn - where ya goin'? I'll tell you which bathrooms to see and which to avoid!
I don't understand the rocks on the sinks, let alone on the floor. If they had the same in the Ladies Room, I bet the ladies in their heeled shoes would be complaining about walking on them! I've ruined a few heels walking on gravelly surfaces!
And standing on the risers on the floor that got flooded... was that enough height to save your shoes from getting an unexpected laundering?
Talking of bizarre... in the Philippines, we encountered a great number of public restrooms, some were even first rate restaurants (!) where the toilets did not have any SEATS. It made me wonder if someone had come along and stolen them all for a weird collection of some kind?
Flushing the metal risers isn't bizarre at all - when was the last time YOU cleaned up after a guy?
Great idea!
Yes - the risers were designed to keep my shoes dry (at least from the flush!) while it cleaned up any mess I'd made. I thought every mother of little boys (and big boys) would really appreciate this function!
I've seen bars decorated in toilet seats, I just never knew where they got them all - the Philippines, huh? Truly bizarre!
Thanks for clarifying that oddity, about the rocks on the floor being just a design!
Adding to the Philippine no-seats- bathroom situation, we were told to never travel around without our own roll of toilet paper. You can imagine why LOL...
I don't fully understand the rocks in the sinks as after washing your hands in a busy restroom how long it would take for the sink to drain.
In the Philippines, where the standard of living is generally inconceivable to most people used to the comforts and taken-for-granted daily niceties, tourists must come face to face with the mind-boggling rule of conduct on the road--- the necessity of providing their own toilet paper each time they entered a public restroom.
But... one must consider the said country's standard of living and make no unjust statements about their culture. Where poverty is rife, even toilet paper becomes a material target for pilfering. Hence, the practice of providing public restrooms with toilet paper has become an expense that could no longer be absorbed financially by responsible people. Sad, eh?
Click on this book cover
That clear/opaque bathroom sounds positively weird! I'd be waiting for the smoke to fade the whole time I was in there. My luck - someone in the restaurant would be mean enough to wave and point even though they couldn't see me - just to make me think they could!
That bidet toilet combination sounds great. I noticed in my trip to France, only the pink chateau bathroom (above) had a bidet. None of the other establishments did - yet the French invented them!
After a thorough search of the men's room, he deduced the only possibility was a smallish, somewhat shallow crystal bowl sitting atop a counter, which he'd assumed was decorative art glass. Although there were no faucets and no visible infrared sensor, it did have a drain hole, so he stuck his hands in the bowl to see what would happen. Water shot out of a hole in the marble backsplash. Dad was still chuckling about this "fancy plumbing" two days later. He said he's sure there must have been soap there somewhere, but he never did figure out how to access it.
All the men's room had was a foot-massager...
I just happend across your fun article. I have friends who just love the Beatles!
In Europe, they seem to design them more. When I was little, we traveled through Europe. The bathrooms in Paris were fancy looking, the ones in Italy had both a toilet and a badan? I can't remember how to spell anything these days.
I think you've got me beat though. The one with the Beatles memorabilia is very cool.
I'm going to have to start taking pictures of unusual restrooms!
Long ago in Korea, I took a picture of the typical Asian ceramic trough in the floor style toilet for the benefit of friends in the US who wouldn't be inclined to believe. I needed a toilet when touring Sacre Coeur in Paris and discovered 2 ceramic footprints over a hole in the floor and a chain hanging from the ceiling to flush it. In Taipei, in contrast with Seoul, I found western style "throne" with a seat that lighted up and was warmed. During my childhood and teen years, I went to a summer camp in the Poconos that had ordinary outhouses behind the cabins.
Throughout Spain, in my days of traveling on a very tight budget, I often stayed in 1-star pensiones where there was a primitive bathroom down the hall--but every room had its own sink and bidet. In Lisbon, I stayed in one where there was a sink attached to the wall in the room, but no plumbing. In the morning, the landlady brought me a plastic bucket to set under the drain hole in the sink and a jug of water she had warmed on the stove.
Duckie, I've had to carry my own toilet paper in many European and Asian countries. And I've found Americans to be major TP thieves. Many years ago a US classmate in Madrid told me she'd bought no TP all year because she always stole it in restrooms.
Yeah, I'm disappointed by the lack of response to good writing by you and other Gtherites whose writing I admire. Just before this article, I was looking at one that had o rhetorical structure to speak of (no intro, body and conclusion--and even referred to the main idea in the first sentence using "it"!) and loaded with spelling atrocities. It had twice as many positive comments from (airheads?) as I usually see on your good writing, or Mme. Donna's, or Kevin Weeks's, or Sonia M.'s. Depressing, isn't it! Just know that those of us who know a thing or two about writing may be a minority that even Gather staff fails to appreciate definitely appreciate your good work! The masses always love the junk; the far less numerous quality appreciates quality!
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977409957
These useful articles rarely reach 10 views and 2-3 comments. They address real vocabulary problems so often displayed here at Gather, but the miscreants are apparently uninterested in learning to mend their ways. Sigh.
But then, have you noticed a certain amount of actual pride in ignorance that some display? Ptui!
weekly language articles
thanks for the link!