NY: When choosing where to dine out, options generally tend to revolve around the county or region whose food you feel like eating.
But Canadian foodie and television host, Bob Blumer, has spent the past six months circumnavigating the globe in search of the world's weirdest restaurants where choices transcend cultural tradition and range from naked dining to eating out of a toilet bowl.
According to the Daily Mail, next month, Canada's Food Network will air Mr Blumer's new series in which he and his camera crew sample the delights of 52 off-the-wall eateries, the most wacky of which were discovered in the US and Tokyo.
'I dined in a rabbit hole, a prison cell and a laundromat, and was served by monkeys, cross-dressers and Neanderthals,' Mr Blumer explained on PaperNYFilms.com. 'I've definitely eaten at some crazy places in my life, but nothing compares to what viewers are going to see in this new series.'
Speaking to the team on Canada's The Morning Show about his weird and wonderful revelations, the 'culinary adventurer' admitted that in most cases 'the environment actually helps the food along because there's not much focus on the food.'
At Modern Toilet in Taiwan, of the curry he ate out of a toilet bowl, Mr Blumer reported: 'You think to yourself, okay maybe there's some people over there who think it's kind of fun. It's a franchise!' 'They do like the poo humour,' he added.
Contrary to the anchors' presumption that the show will be a huge boost to the eateries' business, the host confessed: 'Often we would call restaurants and there was a very beaten path...they're very popular not only with customers but camera crews like to cover them.'
Among the abundant oddball places visited was an Italian farmhouse where risotto was doled out by a tractor and the dishes cleared at the end of the meal by a donkey.
'We were in Tokyo for three weeks because there are so many weird restaurants [there],' Mr Blumer said, recalling one where Macaque monkeys brought him his beer and another animal friendly cat-themed restaurant.
Confessing to a disappointing dearth of weirdness in Toronto, he did sample two places in Vancouver, one of which was a speed-dating-themed pop-up called No Fixed Address where couples were paired up by the restaurant depending on which dishes they had chosen.
'There was rabbit on the menu which I thought was interesting because not too many people will choose rabbit in a dating situation,' he laughed. Perhaps more interestingly, however, were the eateries in America.
In New York he dined blindfolded on one occasion and among nudists on another - resisting the temptation to join in the fun.
At Deco's Dog Cafe, hungry canines were dressed up in their best costumes as pet owners treated their beloved dogs and their dates to an evening out.
And tipping proved a conundrum for the foodie at Dick's Last Resort in San Antonio where the wait staff insult the customers, yell and throw menus.
'The service is just terrible,' he told his morning show hosts, 'which is the whole deal. And then at the end of the night you sit trying to figure out how you're going to calculate your tip.'
And as if his cholesterol levels hadn't probably suffered enough of a beating from six months on the road, the Heart Attack Grill where patrons are given hospital gowns and waited on by attractive nurses, offered such a fattening menu when Mr Blumer sat down he was prepped for 'bypass surgery'.
