Oddity Central

Oddity Central

Curious Eats – Tokyo’s Legendary Black Hot Dog

Posted: 16 Jul 2013 04:23 AM PDT

Japan is known for its selection of weird foods, and today we can add one more item to the ever-growing list. The Black Terra Hot-Dog is one of the most popular fast-food delicacies sold in the Akihabara district of Tokyo. It’s over 30 centimeters long and looks like it’s been cooked a few hours longer than necessary.

Black hamburgers have been around for about a year now, ever since Burger King launched its Premium Kuro Burger in Japan. It has black buns and dark ketchup, but the meat patty and vegetables retain their natural colors. But the people over at Vegas Premium Hot-Dogs, in Akihabara, Tokyo decided to one-up the giant fast-food chain by creating a food item that is entirely black as charcoal. Vegas was already famous for the size of its delicious hot-dogs, which span over 30 cm in length, but ever since they introduced the Black Terra Hot-Dog, in March, their popularity has grown even more. You would expect clients to be turned off by the rubber-like sausage, but apparently people who see this delicacy advertised on the billboards in front of the fast-food joint just can’t resist the urge to try it.

black-hot-dog

French Artist Creates Amazing Portraits from Liquid, Solid and Powdered Foods

Posted: 16 Jul 2013 03:05 AM PDT

World, meet Vivi Mac, an amazing artist from France who can use virtually any kind of food to create detailed celebrity portraits. Although she has yet to display her ephemeral masterpieces in an proper art gallery, Vivi Mac has already made a name for herself online.

We’ve featured some amazing food artists on Oddity Central in the past, but none quite like this one. Karen Eland is a master coffee painter, Elisabetta Rogai uses wine as her medium, Kelly McCollam uses spices and food coloring to recreate classic paintings, but the self-taught Vivi Mac can take anything from chewing gum, to milk or crème brûlée and turn it  into an awe-inspiring portrait.  When working with liquids, Mac uses a simple plastic straw and her hands to guide the unusual mediums around a plastic tray which acts as a canvas. Just how she manages to capture the finest facial features is still a mystery to me, and I’ve seen videos of her doing it dozens of times.

Vivi-Mac-food-portraits

Singapore Nightclub Uses Revolutionary Pee Analyzer to Thwart Drunk Driving

Posted: 16 Jul 2013 01:16 AM PDT

Accidents caused by drunk driving are a major problem  all around the world, and the city-state of Singapore is no exception. With over 2140 reported cases of drunk driving in the last 12 months, authorities are having problems dealing with the issue efficiently. Luckily, Zouk, one of the hottest nightclubs in South-East Asia seems to have come up with an ingenious way to thwart the dangerous practice.

Statistics show almost every drunk driver thinks he is sober enough to drive, but what if you could show them they are wrong and convince them to take a taxi home instead? That’s the idea behind Zouk’s pee analyzing urinals. The nightclub partnered with marketing agency DDB Group to create a unique system of identifying and testing drunk drivers that would discourage patrons from driving home intoxicated. They started by replacing the usual parking coupons with RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Device) cards which were exchanged with car keys by the club’s valets. Then they fitted every urinal with pee-analyzing gadgets that could detect alcohol in the urine and reset for every new user. The gadgets were connected to an RFID reader which identified drivers through their parking cards. If their alcohol level was above the legal limit, the card was tagged and a message was displayed above the urinal, telling them they’ve had too much to drink and advising them to call a cab or use Zouk’s drive home system.

zouk-urine-analyzer

Comments system

Disqus Shortname