Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Dining in the Dark

I managed to get a good deal for this on LivingSocial, so hubby and I tried it out. It was a really unique experience, and I would recommend it to anyone who is keen on trying something different. This is not about the food at all.

Until I tried this, I did not understand how a room could be so dark, for a sustained period of time. We dined there for about an hour, if I recall correctly, and our eyes never 'adjusted'- so we were well and truly 'blind'. Our blind guide walked us to our table (we formed a train holding on to each other's shoulders), and showed us how to figure out where everything was on the table. He showed us how to run our fingers alongside the table edge, to pick up our drink.

Without our sense of sight, we experienced first hand how our sense of taste and smell tried to compensate. Every flavour and texture felt like it had been enhanced, and it was fun trying to guess what it was that we were eating. Some of it felt so familiar, but yet I couldn't recall what it was. Was that salmon? Or duck? Surely one could tell them apart, I thought. But it wasn't so easy after all!

Another thing we learnt was this - your fork or spoon doesn't find it's way to your mouth so easily when you can't see. Strange, but true. And what if you dropped some morsels of food on the table, or on the edge of the plate? I used my bare fingers a lot that night - had to do a lot of feeling around.

An interesting experience indeed!