Stoma The Whopper
Restaurant Review
The thing I dislike most about my work as the UK’s only homeless restaurant critic is not having a home. But after that, it’s having to try new things. I don’t like new things; I like old things. You can’t go wrong with old things because they’re old and therefore, even if they’re terrible, they’ll be dead soon. Unfortunately, our world—Earth, as it’s known globally—is a big ball of newness. New species...the news—everything always changes here.
So when I discovered last Sunday evening that the laminated paper with which I was wiping myself was actually a flyer for the opening of a new Americana-themed eatery, I wiped the worst of it on my sleeve and, after several days of handling pan, had cobbled together just enough coin to buy myself a seat at the table (they don’t let you keep you the seat. I did ask).
Stoma is the latest venture of one Blanders Gunch, the loudest voice of that golden generation of wireless chefs. Gunch, Juliax Bondarge, Vaginald Towch—those names sadly forgotten now, their shining stars occluded by the televisually-enhanced faces of a certain Mr Ramsey and that French-sounding-but-English-looking one.
The concept is delightfully simple: the best of 1950s American cuisine served via the surgically-excavated holes of local diseased folk.
Thematically, Gunch has nailed it. Squeezing through the provocatively tight entrance, trying one’s best to ignore the smell, the dining hall seats four comfortably or five agonisingly. The ambience is cosy. Low-energy halogen lamps, the host tells me, taking my potato sack, are the only source of light the insurance firm will cover, what with the gases and all.
With just the one booth, I’m seated alongside three other diners this evening. At least one of them is a woman, so I make a point of protecting my modesty with an unfurled serviette.
Our waitress, Bendy, appears from behind one of the large, brown boulders that decorate the otherwise empty cavern. The drinks menu is refreshingly sparse. I tell Bendy I’d like a vanilla milkshake but she says they only have chocolate, and so I curse her bones and settle for a sparkling water (I wanted still). I forgot to write down what the others ordered because I was still sulking about the vanilla thing.
Returning with our drinks (or their drinks—she had to go back for my water), Bendy starts reading off the specials. The lady opposite, Egret, goes for the hamburger, while her husband, Dresden, and whoever this other person is with us, after much deliberation, both settle on the cheeseburger. I also choose the cheeseburger, although it takes me much less time to decide.
An hour later, Bendy wheels our starters over to the table. Mine is a ninety-seven year old great-grandmother named Darling. A lifelong chainsmoker, Darling’s stoma is of the tracheal variety. I sucker my mouth around her throat hole as Bendy tips a big tray of liquidised mac and cheese down the granny’s gullet. Heavy nicotine notes and a thick slavering of nonagenarian mucous overpower the subtler cheese flavours, but the delivery mechanism alone warrants the exorbitant price of $76 (~£14 at time of writing).
My entrée is served through an unemployed philosophy lecturer’s colostomy outlet. Professor Keng, I’m told, has been digesting my cheeseburger for the last few hours, and is about ready to let loose. By this point, though, the novelty has worn off and, with the added inconvenience of having to crane my neck at a painfully awkward angle to suckle on Keng’s tube, I find myself more annoyed than enamoured by Monsieur Gunch’s latest experiment.
My companions are happy, at least. Egret is positively gulping down a mashed meat patty from her man’s catheter. Dresden seems to be enjoying his wife’s meal as much as her. The other diner chickened out and asked for their burger to be served traditional-style, between two buns—those buns belonging to a Nigerian teenager with Crohn’s.
All in all, Stoma has failed to impress this humble reviewer. While the simple, old-fashioned food certainly delivers on the taste front, the sphincteral doors and unspeakably unisex bathrooms reek of reinvention, of novelty for its own sake.
Rating: 8/10 (would have been a 6, but Sñr Gunch was very understanding about my repeated attempts to dine and dash).
Update: Since this review was written, Stoma has sadly lost its 5-star hygiene rating and also exploded.
Bendy reminds me of someone