The Strangest Chinese Restaurants in the World
There are 500 Spice World restaurants around the world. They are famous for their robot staff, shared hotpot cooking at the table, Hello Kitty stock cubes – and Barbie dolls wearing beef ballgowns.
From Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen to Sydney’s Chinatown, the offbeat Spice World restaurant chain has a cult following.
I took two friends up the escalator to another world, when we visited the Australian flagship at 403a/411 Sussex St, in the Haymarket, Chinatown.
We were greeted by a broken-down robot parked in the foyer, and another one offering lollipops at the front counter.
Trapped in the Private Room 666
I’d come to Spice World Sydney, partly to see the private, numbered rooms, thinking about a year-end dinner for my fellow astrologers, psychics and numerologists. And so it was, that I tried VIP private room 666, with its bright red, rather devilish interior.
In Western numerology, the number 666 has a bad reputation. In China, 666 does not mean “devil” or “beast” as it does in Western culture. Instead, it’s a compliment, meaning “awesome,” “cool,” or “smooth”. So, not the New Testament reference to the number of the beast. And yet, within minutes of closing the door behind me (to see if the high noise levels in the restaurant could be reduced) – it shut fast.
I was, in fact, trapped in a kind of Chinese hotpot hell for several minutes, while three waiters tried everything to get me out. In the end, I stood on a chair and heaved the door open with both hands.
On the way back to our table (where I had been frantically texting George and Alicia for help) I was also pursued by a cat robot waiter. I kid you not.
Admittedly it was on the way to another table, but if you get in the way of the Spice World’s feline staff, they do not stop.
Centre Stage Hot Pot
The broth in the shared hotpot was simmering nicely on my return, with dumplings, noodles and vegetables ready for dunking.
It’s a messy business so Spice World offers paper bibs. Not very sexy if you’re on a first date, but necessary to avoid splashing.
I asked a (human) waitress for two of Spice World’s most famous offerings; the Barbie doll wearing a meat dress and the gigantic Hello Kitty stock cube. Both were sadly off the menu.
It seems that plastic dolls wearing thinly-sliced wagyu beef are a thing of the past; inspired by Lady Gaga’s raw beef frock at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, Spice World was onto a winner there, in free publicity terms.
This, like the melting Hello Kitty soup base, could not be procured, although we could at least raise a toast to Lady Gaga.
No Veuve Clicquot champagne either – despite there being dozens of bottles on display at the bar.
How was the food? Delicious, though there was enough soup left over to pack several plastic containers.
Named, presumably, for the 1997 film (Spice World – the Spice Girls Movie) and famous for its now-defunct Lady Gaga tribute, this chain is obviously the brainchild of a pop culture fan.
Video games complete the experience. Just don’t go into Room 666 without supervision.
Book Spice World, Sydney, here.
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