Restaurants gone wild

If the wide variety of dishes offered by Beijing's 40,000 restaurants no longer whets your appetite, it's time you opt for more bizarre tastes. Next time you dine out, try a meal in total darkness, sink your teeth into a dish served on toilet-shaped porcelain, or raise the red flag while you toast with baijiu. Get out of your culinary comfort zone and don't let your taste buds have all the fun next time you plan a meal on the town. Today, Lifestyle looks at five of the strangest themed restaurants Beijing has to offer.

House of Poo Poo

This is one restaurant that doesn't deserve to be "poo-pooed" by diners. The scatological themed restaurant offers more fun than you might imagine from dining in a bathroom. Explore a menu that includes everything from excrement-like dishes for the brave to regular fried rice, hot pot, salads and spaghetti for the more timid. The "poo funny mud" - aka mashed potato - and beef curry arrive at the table floating in tiny toilet bowls. None of the dishes takes the theme so far as to look like real effluence, and thankfully all food tastes better than its presentation in a bog bowl suggests. Book a table for a group of cheerful friends and you'll find out that poo has never been so fun, or photogenic.

Opening hours: 9 am-10 pm

Address: 91 Dianmen Outer Street, Xicheng district

Tel: 8403-5296

Average price per person: 50-70 yuan

Trojan Fairy

Like in the timeless legend of Troy, you'll need to dive fearlessly into this pitch-black experience. The purpose of eating your meal in total darkness is that you sacrifice one of your senses to heighten the other four. A colorful Trojan horse backdrop at the atrium is pretty much all you'll see from this place. After that, you'll have to allow yourself to be led by wait staff to your table in darkness. Guests will be blinded to the table, company and food, making it ideal for couples who despise candle-lit dinners.

The menu features pumpkin soup and "Trojan steak," but you'll have to choose from three Western- and Japanese-style menus. While you might get away with smearing sauce all over your face, wait staff equipped with night goggles ensure you'll always be looked after. Bookings are essential.

Opening hours: 11 am-10 pm

Address: 8/F, Hunsha Dalou, 109 Xidan North Street, Xicheng district

Tel: 6616-0336

Average price per person: 250 yuan

Number 8 School Hot Pot

Treat yourself to post-80s nostalgia, provided you were born in the decade that brought us mullets, awful fashion and classic electro pop. Customers will have to show valid ID proving they were born in the 80s to get in. Only the first generation to grow up under China's one-child policy gets to enter this restaurant resembling a 90s-style Chinese primary school classroom. Portraits of communist icons Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin supervise hungry students seated at desks as they dine on hot pot.

Diners can participate in pop quizzes in between bites and, if you drop in on a Monday, you'll get to participate in a flag-raising ceremony while singing the national anthem. Word is that the mashed potatoes, sweet bread and fish tofu are among the favorites. Book ahead of visiting and don't be late, or the teacher might not let you in. Open for dinner only.

Opening hours: 5:30 pm-10:30 pm

Address: 8 Xinjian Hutong (east of Lingjing Hutong Station on subway Line 4), Xicheng district

Tel: 6608-8880

Average price per person: 45 yuan

The East is Red

The revolution lives on beyond the Fifth Ring Road, comrades! With a life-sized truck protruding through the wall, revolutionary slogans and portraits of Mao, it's hard not to get swept up in the Cultural Revolution nostalgia. Pigtailed waitresses dress in green overalls serve food, while a troupe of singers entertains crowds with "red songs."

Opening hours: 10 am-9:30 pm (nightly shows at 7:20 pm)

Address: 66 Beishangpo, Qinglong Bridge, Xiangshan Road, Haidian district

Tel: 6287-2185

Average price per person: 70 yuan

Heroic Mountain

If Kung Fu Panda is your only concept of China's most celebrated martial art, then book a trip to this restaurant. Martial arts fiction inspired this bamboo-decorated establishment where swords and bows hang from walls as wait staff dressed in traditional black robes serve food. The six-course set menu draws from the works of famous wuxia writer Jin Yong with the "beggar's duck" and steamed "hero fish" ranking among the favorites.

Opening hours: 11 am-10 pm

Address: 181-1 Dongzhimenwai Dajie, Dongcheng district

Tel: 8403-5851

Average price per person: 30-50 yuan