Foodists

Bob Blumer eats curry out of toy toilets. Is that weird?

Bob Blumer can't decide which faux plastic toilet to eat out of first.

“In the ever expanding universe of food television,” quips food TV host Bob Blumer. “Do you ever get the feeling you’ve seen it all?”

Yes Bob. Yes, we do. We really do.

So what could our friend Bob Blumer (remember his Foodists video?), the legendary culinary adventurer who brought us such gems as The Surreal Gourmet and Glutton for Punishment, be up to these days worthy of our attention?

Weirdness.

Seems Blumer and his friends over at Paperny Films have just wrapped production on a new Food Network series, World’s Weirdest Restaurants.

Billed as a “global extravaganza of 52 eccentric, off-the-wall eateries,” Blumer’s new program took him to the four corners of the world to unearth the weirdest and wildest venues on the planet. Along the way he was served beer by a monkey in a Japanese tavern, he crashed a pop-up nudist restaurant in New York City, he ate curry from a toilet in Taiwan and he engaged in some seriously high-speed acrobatics in Amsterdam.

“We spent six months circumnavigating the globe in search of mind-bending, jaw-dropping restaurants.  I dined in a rabbit hole, a prison cell and a laundromat,” Blumer says. “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.”

Yeah, but judging by the series trailer, it doesn’t look like Blumer had the guts to eat naked. But it looks like he’s having the time of his life (he really does have my dream job).

Each episode of World’s Weirdest Restaurants takes viewers to four different, eateries from Tokyo to Milwaukee, Amsterdam to Portland and many places in between. Vancouver even makes an appearance during a lighthearted segment about culinary speed dating. Part food show and part travelogue, World’s Weirdest Restaurants appears to be a sure bet for foodies with a case of wanderlust.

But with the TV airwaves saturated with shows about, culinary travel, extreme eating or bizarre foods, is there room for another?

Apparently so.

Our hope is that our favourite gastronaut—or should we say “gastroNUT”—Blumer and company really dig deep to deliver on their promise of weirdness. Eating in the dark or out of clean little plastic toy toilets isn’t going to cut it. That’s not weird, that’s just gimmick. We want to see stuff like robot chefs, little people serving Hobbit fare, vampire fetishism, cannibalism, and bestiality themed culinary exploits (these are all real restaurants by the way—we can’t make this shit up).

Come on Bob—get your weird on.

Let’s all tune in to the premier of World’s Weirdest Restaurants on April 4th (9pm ET/9:30 pm PST) to Food Network Canada and see for ourselves.