Bizarre dining experience

ILLUSTRATION | JOSEPH NGARI

What you need to know:

  • The latest practice of sky-dining (yes I realise it could all too easily become sky-diving) where a table of restaurant devotees is suspended over an open sky
  • If you have no fear of water, the Waterfall Restaurant in the Philippines may be just the place for you

I recently attended a beach dinner: an occasion that revised my views about dining in exotic locations. Of course there is nothing like a meal with good friends in an unusual location – but note my emphasis on the word unusual. Today’s dinner locations have strayed from the environs of the unusual into the territory of the bizarre.

The first challenge with the beach location was my disorientation. One wonders how any intelligent person can get lost on a beach given that this is a geographical phenomenon that generally surrounds an island-like formation; indeed just strolling in the same direction should eventually bring you back to your starting point.

That notwithstanding, I managed to lose myself! In the process I discovered what may become the next big exercise craze – walking on damp sand. It is really quite difficult; and exercises various parts of the body including the feet, ankles, calves and humility muscles. The best way of doing it is to abandon your shoes altogether and trust your sole.

My sole finally made it to the party, whereupon I collapsed into the nearest dining chair, which promptly sank into the sand. Indeed (in conformance with the well-known principles of physical science) it sank further and further into the sandy shore as I consumed more of my dinner, until my companions could barely see my face above the tablecloth.

Since there was a brisk wind blowing in from the sea (I presume of the type and velocity that propelled Vasco da Gama to Malindi) my attempts to chew my food and converse with my dinner companions were regularly interspersed with a sharp slap from a flapping tablecloth. (Not quite the thing when you are a former central-province-ite who is attempting to contend with a bony kingfish.
Despite the valiant capacity-building efforts of Karatina fish-kebab vendors, I retain a primeval fear of expiring on a beach with a kingfish bone lodged in my throat!)

Despite the graphic way in which I have described my beach-munching trials, this venue pales by comparison with some of the other locations that are becoming part of the international dining scene. Take the latest practice of sky-dining (yes I realise it could all too easily become sky-diving) where a table of restaurant devotees is suspended over an open sky.

Indeed this arrangement is so faddish that there is a website called dinnerinthesky.com that encourages you to arrange your events in this fashion. I suppose if the event is a marriage it may be a very good way of permanently removing your mother-in-law from the scene at the earliest possible opportunity! For any other occasion, I am curious about how the waiters perform their duties in this situation.

MONKEY WAITERS

If you have no fear of water, the Waterfall Restaurant in the Philippines may be just the place for you. Here the diners are placed in the direct path of a cascading waterfall, and enjoy their food with their legs suspended knee deep in water. The experience is made worse by rambunctious tourists who cavort in the water, increasing the risk of becoming entangled with a slippery visitor who has lost his footing!

If that is not odious enough for you then you can move a little further east to Japan where the Kayabukiya Tavern in Japan employs two monkeys as waiters (okay you may be saying to yourself that there is nothing unusual in that.) The senior monkey, Yat-Chan serves drinks, while the junior ape-waiter, Fuku-Chan provides diners with hot towels for their hands. I hope I am not giving ideas to all the Mombasa restaurateurs who are irritated by monkeys that lurk around their eateries.

Also in the east, Taiwan this time, is the Carton King restaurant where all inanimate objects are constructed out of cardboard. How interesting! I
At Coventry Airport in the UK, a DC6 airliner has been converted into a fine restaurant (perhaps to help traumatised passengers forget all the cardboard food that they have consumed in airplanes.)

Splash out and dine out this Saturday.