dining in the dark

my gf and i went to opaque on friday. kaori and chris had fun in the opaque up in sf, so i figured i'd try eating in the dark. per the opaque website:

Just imagine, that you can not see for an hour or two, that you are abandoning vision in exchange for a new, multi-sensual dining experience. Opaque is enhancing our senses of taste, smell, touch, and hearing by abandoning one that we often take for granted – this is “Dining in the Dark”.

Brought to you by Opaque, the dining in the dark experience allows you to willingly plunge into a world of sensitivity you have never experienced before, taking you through a journey of taste, sound and touch, all in the dark.

(yes, this is a restaurant not some viagra dealer). the restaurant is located in v lounge in santa monica, on 2020 wilshire (heh, didn't even notice the 20/20 reference). we were greeted at the front by what we thought was a doorman. however a few milliseconds after my gf asked him "do you want to see our ids?", i noticed he was blind. turns out all the waiters are blind, and they meet you at the door.

you look through a menu and order in the lounge, which is normally lit. the food is expensive (esp considering they don't spend anything on decor or lighting...), but you're paying for "the experience". after ordering, your waiter leads you single file into the dining area.

the dining area is pitch black. consider what pitch black really means. before you go to bed at night, closer your eyes, and put your hands over your eyes. that's pitch black. stated in another way, based on vision alone, i couldn't tell whether my eyes were open or closed. i was pretty tentative when i first got into the dining area, even bordering on freaking out for a couple seconds, but i settled down after being sat.

the first part of the meal turned adventure is buttering your bread. even grabbing a piece of bread and the bowl of butter is a nontrivial task. a few fingers ended up knuckle deep in butter, but that's not much different from most of my meals i suppose. next, they bring out a small anonymous appetizer for you to identify by taste/touch. it's a pretty easy guess, but i'll give you a hint, it's ellipsoidal and it's got a nice surprise inside (extra credit if you're thinking balut).

eating your salad is pretty difficult when you can't see what's on your fork. often, i'd find that i'd raise my fork to my mouth expecting that there were tomatoes or lettuce on it and i'd find the fork empty. the preferred technique for most of the dishes of the night was using my left hand to push food onto my fork, lowering my head close to the table (to minimize fork to mouth distance), and then shoveling.

next, our waiter came by and told us we were going to play the feeling game. we told him that we were already playing that game, but apparently he had something different in mind. he brought out a bag of small items which we had to figure out. apparently, we were the first people to figure out all of them, althought that may be just something he says to all the guests.

we ordered the filet mignon for our main entrees. the restaurant wants you to believe that depriving you of sight elevates your other senses, namely taste. that may be true, but it's difficult to distinguish the effect from the salty salad or the extra buttery cous cous. i liked the extra seasoning of the dishes, but it may be a little much for some. the desserts were good, but if you're a neat freak, you may have issues eating chocolate lava cake and ice cream in the dark (aka with your hands).

our waiter saw that we were on a date, so he took it upon himself to provide an air of romance, even singing a song. most disturbing was when he snuck up on us to hand me a rose to give to my gf. without sight and given my poor hearing, i lack awareness of my surroundings, so when my waiter snuck up to our table to handed me the rose, i wasn't sure who was grabbing my arm. my gf had told me about what i thought was an irrational fear of hers: of people randomly touching her. now that i've had a large man sneak up on me in the dark and hand me a rose, i can now say i share that same fear.

the bright part of the evening was the after dinner mint. they give you a certs mint, which, when bitten into, lights up like a small thundercracker. sitting in the dark for a few hours makes it seem especially bright, it's actually continues to sparkle for a good time after you first crack into it. all in all, it was a pretty fun night, a little expensive to do more than once every few years, but something you should try out once if you have a chance.