Sex on a Drip: worth a flight to Singapore?

bioephemera — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:00:20 +0000

The "gastronomical cocktail" called "sex on a drip" is just one reason to hop a plane to Singapore and visit The Clinic, a theme restaurant that's probably not for the squeamish.

Their website boasts, "Clinic's unique alfresco is easily identified by its hospital whites, colourful pills, syringes, drips, test-tubes, and paraphernalia in all manner of the clinical, all in tribute to the tongue in cheek pop art of Damien Hirst." I don't know about Hirst - rotting, half-preserved sharks don't make me hungry - but their website is definitely fun in a trippy, pharma-chic way, complete with quivering radiographs, random medical graffiti, and rainbow EKG traces.

The Clinic: photo from slack12's flickrstream

According to a review at designboom,

the restaurant is designed from top to bottom in a medical theme. wheelchairs, hospital beds, operating lights, test tubes and more, the design is completely off the wall. The interior is far more subtle than the al fresco seating out front. Although there is no doubt that clinic stands out from the crowd, it may have gone too far.

If anyone happens to be visiting Singapore, drop by the Clinic, and let us know how it is!

bioephemera Wed, 06/24/2009 - 16:00

Categories

Medicine

This is one of the craziest ideas that I've seen in a long time. And I like the novelty of it a lot!

I don't think that interior would stimulate my appetite.

Anthony Bourdain visited this place on an episode of "No Reservations". You can probably find the segment on YouTube or Vimeo. IIRC, he thought it was a bit creepy/weird and wasn't impressed with the food.

There's a campier take on the theme at Hospitalis in Riga, Latvia.

A few years ago, Damien Hirst did decorate a restaurant called the Pharmacy, with a medical theme, although it wasn't carried quite as far as here. It wasn't very successful, and closed some time ago.

I should think that the main drawback of any hospital-themed restaurant is the association not only with illness, but with hospital food. Not especially appetising!

Yeah, I don't think much of Hospitalis, honestly. It's cute, but I don't think it has enough drama to actually make eating food in a clinical setting attractive. I don't really know Anthony Bourdain's perspective well enough to know if I should find his creepy/weird reaction a plus or not. ;)

As a note (not a complaint), the person whose photostream the first image is grabbed from seems to do some editing to enhance the bright colors of their photos. I imagine the outside is a bit more dull than that.

OTOH, I think it's interesting, since it probably shows how the owners WANTED it to look (although perhaps with a bit more shiny silver - that photographer seems to focus on flat rather than metallic colors). I don't think the photographer is changing anything more than (from a perceptual, not necessarily technical, POV) the brightness of the colors, so it's also interesting to see what colors are 'hidden' in places you wouldn't think them to be (see the pier picture a bit later on in the stream).

Reminds me of the way EM photos are colorized. Seems a good way to bring out detail when the observers are aware it's either false color or modified color.

The technique used to brighten the photo colors is called "high dynamic range." Basically they take multiple shots at different levels of exposure and merge them so none of the detail is lost due to being too bright or too dark.

That said, the interior shot reminds me a bit of Silent Hill. The idea of institutionalized medicine as nourishment is a provocative one.

I wonder what they do when someone chokes.

so dreikin and Lobster, do you think people might not realize this photo is enhanced just by looking at it? I thought it was obvious enough not to mention it in the post, but now you have me wondering. I really like slack12's stream, but he doesn't include explicit technique notes on his photos, and I didn't want to attempt to describe the techniques he was using in this particular one.

Re: Damien Hirst

He opened a pharmacy-themed restaurant in 2000.

Creepy. I like my restaurants to look like restaurants, and allow the focus to be on the food and drink.

that looks so cool!

paraphrenalia

Sex on a Drip: worth a flight to Singapore?