Wacky Theme Restaurants Still Exploding In Tokyo

Japanese designer La Carmina knows all about the weirdest theme restaurants in Tokyo. Here, she takes travel host Andrew Zimmern to a wacky, jail-themed restaurant.

Monday, May 10, 2010 17:39 GMT

Japanese designer La Carmina, author of Crazy, Wacky Theme Restaurants: Tokyo! (Mark Batty Publisher), visits Tokyo several times a year to scope out the city’s most bizarre eateries.

She recently took Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern to a jail-themed restaurant where they were handcuffed and taken to a cell.

On the way, monsters attacked them and they drank red slushies out of a mannequin’s head.

Carmina says strange restaurants are popping up more than ever around Tokyo because tourists have taken a keen interest in them.

And they certainly have plenty to choose from.

She says men love “maid cafes” – where women in skimpy maid outfits clean their ears – and women love “cat cafes,” where they can eat while petting kitties.

There is also a “baby cafe,” specifically for baby playdates, and a new Transformers-themed diner that just opened in the “nerdy district.”