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"Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today -- but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Undersea Restaurant | ||
| A restaurant located in its entirety under the sea. |
This is a very early (and prescient) description of what an undersea restaurant would look like.
| "She led him to a kiosk circled by large luminous green letters reading NAUTILUS. An escalator dropped them two hundred feet into a tall octagonal lobby paneled with rattan screens. A major domo escorted them along a glass-vaulted tunnel, out upon the floor of the sea. Dining rooms of various sizes opened off the passage, into one of which they were conducted, and seated at a table close beside the sloping glass dome. The sea lay beyond, with beacons illuminating the sand, rocks, seaweed, coral, the passing submarine creatures." |
| Technovelgy from The Star King,
by Jack Vance. Published by Berkeley in 1964 Additional resources -
|
As far as I know, the first true undersea restaurant was built at the Maldives Hilton in April of 2005:
You may recall the famous Coral Reef Restaurant at Disney World (I've eaten there - the food is great - sit in the second tier of seats to get a more panaramic view). I think this restaurant was built in the early 1980's (EPCOT opened in 1982); however, it is not a true undersea restaurant. The restaurant is on dry land; one large wall is shared with a (very impressive) aquarium.
As long as I'm obsessing on this topic, the earliest description of fine dining under the sea has got to be found in Jules Verne's 1875 classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea:
I think he saved the view of the sea from within the Nautilus for elsewhere in the book.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for contributing the quote for this item.
Ithaa is the only all glass undersea restaurant in the world. Set five metres underwater on a coral reef, Ithaa's innovative glass aquarium design gives diners 360-degree views of the surrounding reef life, while offering an exciting and novel fusion Maldivian-western menu. Ithaa, which means ''pearl'' in the local language, promises a unique dining experience, with humans inside the aquarium and the fish looking in.
I then entered a dining-room, decorated and furnished
in severe taste. High oaken sideboards, inlaid with ebony,
stood at the two extremities of the room, and upon their shelves glittered china, porcelain, and glass of inestimable value. The plate on the table sparkled in the rays which the luminous ceiling shed around, while the light was tempered and softened by exquisite paintings.
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Undersea Restaurant-related
news articles:
- First Undersea Restaurant
- Ithaa Undersea Restaurant Review And Video
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
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The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
