Any experiences to share about dining in the dark?

In My Humble Opinion
1

As I have a dinner in the dark coming up on 10 November I wonder if any of you have experiences to share.

The only thread I found was this thread, but the only poster with personal experience to report seems to have been Hallucinex.

In our case:
[ul]
[li]it’s at none of the restaurants referred to in the thread I linked but in Stuttgart, Germany[/li][li]meal has been pre-chosen and prepaid; we get a bag of coins to buy drinks[/li][li]we have to turn up on time and get led to our seats by waitstaff[/li][li]waitstaff is blind; cooks are not[/li][li]we must take nothing light-emitting (watches, phones, etc) into the restaurant, also no handbags or other bags (as those are tripping hazards)[/li][li]dinner plus an undisclosed artistic program (also in the dark) takes 3.5 hours[/li][/ul]

So, any personal experiences to offer?

2

Is this a dinner to get people to experience what it’s like to be blind? I’ve never heard of it. Can you explain the purpose?

3

One hopes dinner isn’t, say, a steak, where you like to get a damned good look at it to make sure there aren’t any nasty bits.

4

I think that’s kind of the point though. To challenge your senses and preconceptions about food, by eliminating sight from the equation.

5

I went to one that is part of the chain here on the West Coast of the States, Opaque. I ate at the one in San Francisco, but they also have versions in Los Angeles and San Diego. The idea is that without your eyes to see what you are eating, your other senses get heightened and the food tastes and smells that much better.

You look at a menu (prix fixe) before you enter the darkened area. This is the San Francisco menu:

Appetizers:
Baby Greens Salad with Red Beets, Pt. Reyes Blue Cheese,
Candied Walnuts and Balsamic Vinaigrette was very tasty.
Seared Sesame Crusted Ahi Tuna, Cucumber, Red Grapefruit with
Soy Glaze, Wasabi Aioli was terrific.

Entrée options:
Grilled Free Range Chicken Breast over Roasted Summer Squash,
Roasted White Corn, Basil Pesto

I had the Grilled Beef Tenderloin, Mashed Potatoes, Sautéed Green Beans, with
Green Peppercorn Sauce and it was tender and quite tasty.

Espresso Infused Panna Cotta, Chocolate Sauce, Blueberries
and Pastry Sticks

When you first arrive, you are greeted by the host who explains how everything works. They hand you a menu and tell you to take a seat at the few chairs towards the back of the reception area. Once you decide on what you want for the three courses, you place your order with the host. After a few minutes after ordering your waiter comes out to guide you to your table. I like that the waiters here are blind because they are the perfect people to guide you through the dark. Once you round the corner into the darkness you literally can’t see anything! Trust me…no matter how hard you try…your eyes will never adjust to the darkness.

The food itself was pretty standard American food. Nothing in particular stood out. Everything was decent. You are really paying for the experience and not the food. It was just fun to have to navigate your way around your food, pour/drink your wine, and feed each other in the dark.

6

In this case it is run by an association whose stated goals are to make the seeing better understand the blind, and to create jobs for blind people. In other cases it’s a purely commercial event (I gather there are even restaurants that have their usual, seeing waitstaff use IR vision devices)

7

Note to self: wear stuff that won’t show stains later. There’s no way I wouldn’t spill red wine.

8

Oh. I assumed this was that weird dating-in-the-dark thing, and that, by blind, you meant that the waitstaff didn’t have night vision.

9

Is your date someone you could make out with while waiting on appetizers?

10

I went to a restaurant like this a few weeks ago with a large group of friends. It was a lot of fun! The food was quite good and it was interesting trying to cut it up/take bites without seeing the plate. Every bite was a surprise, since we couldn’t tell what we’d picked up (though some of the men admitted they ate with their hands, all the women managed to use cutlery without too much trouble!)

The room really was pitch black - no shadows or outlines of things were visible. The drinks were served outside the room and the waiter brought them to us or replaced them when we asked. In our case, they made it easier by having a placemat at each spot, so I just set my glass outside the top edge of the mat and used the edge to find my way around to the glass again. I really didn’t find the whole experience to be too difficult, after the initial minute or two of disorientation.

One thing, though, is that the restaurant was loud! We went on a Saturday evening, and it was all large groups trying to talk over one another. Us French Canadians are bad enough at speaking loudly, but it seems when we can’t see, we start to yell. It was difficult to have a conversation with anyone other than the people immediately beside me. Our waiter told us that weeknights tend to be much quieter.

And yes, every single couple in the group admitted to groping their spouse/partner at some point in the evening :wink:

11

Thanks for your experiences.

I have been yesterday, and the experience really was worth it. At 59 € (80 USD) plus drinks it wasn’t cheap (I’d estimate 20-25 € for the same menu in a normal restaurant) but the food, though OK, isn’t really the point. The setup is quite labour intensive (a waiter/waitress for 12 diners; we sat down shortly before 7 PM and left at about 11 PM.)

On arriving, checking in and leaving bags, etc. our waitress was summoned from inside via her radio headset and introduced herself (usually very uncommon in Germany - but we needed to call her by name inside; instead of just making eye contact). Guests were then led by party, conga line fashion, through three offset heavy curtains forming two successive light-locks. As the others said, darkness was total - we just saw black with random noise from our eyes the whole time. After having our hand guided to the back of our chair it wasn’t difficult to sit down.

As our waitress later explained, when the first guests arrived she navigated by having learned the layout of room and tables; which needed to be replicated exactly every time; once we were seated the noise of diners’ conversation was another useful navigation aid. Waitstaff moving around softly clucked or sang so as not to get in each others’ way.

As related by mnemosyne conversation in the room was quite loud - partly we did talk a bit louder, but mainly because every interaction needed to be verbalized in every particular (Name? - Yes? - Could you pass me the bread please? - OK I am handing it across the edge of the table at your left-hand side - OK I feel the basket … got the bread. - OK I withdraw the basket now.) That went for transactional talk as well as for ordinary conversation where a lot of usual nonverbal cues needed to be verbalized. Our conversation was about as frank as it usually is with us (i.e. very) - once we’d determined we were not acquainted with our nearest neighbours ;).

Actual the business of eating and drinking wasn’t all that difficult. Once you totally had given up on vision and felt around the table for everything you soon developed a mental map. It got so I’d just pick up knife and fork, or my wine glass, without needing to feel around because I knew where they were.
Cutting meat (a roulade), and eating with knife and fork, proved no problem either (well my companion said she used her hands sometimes - perhaps men’s better spatial awareness does come in handy sometimes.)

We did eat more slowly - about 3 1/2 hours’ leisurely eating (soup, main dish, dessert) and drinking (wine, espresso); we’d have taken not more than two hours for that in light.

The drinks we had to pay out of a coin bag included in the price - 2 euro and 50 cent coins which were a bit difficult to distinguish at first by their small difference in size and different coarseness of the milling.

For bathroom breaks we were led on demand outside to the light, and back again, by our designated waitress.

There was a half-hour artistic interlude, improvisational music, and we happily vied with each other trying to identify instruments.

In between courses our waitress had time to answer questions about her schooling, how she navigated around, what she did for shopping etc.

In that restaurant there were just two menu options - with beef in main course, or vegetarian. We were left to guess what we ate (e.g. for the soup we dithered between unusually spiced cauliflower and unusually spiced asparagus - it turned out to be kohlrabi.) The culinary denouement was when we left - the menu was posted at the exit by then. (“Ha! I told you so.”). Curious how even ice cream flavours are a bit difficult to guess lacking visual cues.

My sense of time was a bit off - I’d have estimated the 4 hours that we were in darkness as perhaps 2-3 hours.

Also curious - my companion said she’d closed her eyes after some time, while I was more comfortable keeping my eyes open all the time.

No cuts, no stab wounds, no food or wine stains and with about 70 diners in all I just heard two instances of something being knocked off the table.

12

Any under-the-table shenanigans?

13

See, i disagree, at least in part.

For me, the simple novelty of being in the dark isn’t enough. I understand that they’re trying to make a point about the difficulties of the visually impaired and all that, but this is a restaurant, and if they’re going to charge twice as much as normal for their food, then the food itself should be good.

I just looked at the menu of Opaque, the chain mentioned by Fried Dough Ho above. They have one here in San Diego, and i thought it might be worth trying out. Well, i’m a vegetarian, and here’s the menu for me:

My preferences would give me a tomato and mozzarella salad, a vegetable mélange, and a chocolate dessert with white chocolate sauce, all for the bargain price of $99 plus drinks plus tax plus tip. There are decent vegetarian restaurants in SD and in San Francisco where i could get similar fare for about half to two-thirds that price.

While the idea of the experience is intriguing, i’m not interested in paying that much for it, i don’t think.

14

While camping at Assateaque Island, I made a skillet dinner from a box. Due to problems getting my Coleman lantern running, I was working in the near dark. Halfway through the meal I finally got the lantern working, only to find hundreds of mosquitoes in the meal. Our DEET kept us comfortable, but they swarmed the food.

15

Vegetarian here, too, and I agree that isn’t a very good value. :confused:

16

I camped there once–the mosquitoes are HORRIBLE! Flies, too, if I remember correctly.

17

I’m not sure I could eat food I couldn’t see. What a terrifying proposition!

Curses! Now I need to try this. . .

18

From what I’ve heard*the purpose is two-fold:

  1. To experience what being blind is like, to realize some of the difficulties blind people have in daily life and thus be a bit more emphatic and considerate
  2. By eliminating sight, concentrating more on the taste and smell of food, and thus enjoy it more.
  • I haven’t been to a blind diner yet - they are rather expensive at around 40-50 Euros - but I went to the blind exhibition in Rosenheim and through a parcours from the CBM.
19

Wow, those prices are insane. ONoir in Montreal charges $32 for a two course meal and $39 for a three-course meal, and drinks are extra. The quality of the food is as good or better than a lot of other restaurants with a similar menu, and the prices are in-line with that, particularly for such a downtown location. At that price, I’d definitely go again (and my mom has said she’d like to try it, so I just might!)