A restaurant’s ambiance – the mood set by the music, furniture, architecture, smell, and lighting is vital to the dining experience, almost as important as the taste of the food. Imagine eating in pitch black darkness, not the brownout kind of darkness, where you can make out hazy shapes to guide you, a darkness where you can’t even see your own hands in front of you.
Dinner in the Dark, a captivating and enchanting dining experience held at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati City is the first of its kind in the country. This event seeks not only to heighten all senses as one would taste the food in darkness but to bring awareness of people who have lived in the dark – without their eyesight – for many years now. This gastronomic event is actually just a small part of bigger series of workshops – Dialogue in the Dark, organized by Dialogue Social Enterprise, a social enterprise that offers awareness, workshops and exhibitions while creating jobs for marginalized people. The Manila run of Dialogue in the Dark is presented in collaboration with co.lab and Raintree Restaurants. For this special pilot dinner, the Coporate Chef of Raintree Restaurants, Chef Kalel Chan, prepared the menu.
A Blind Date
Before the dinner, we were told to surrender anything that might reflect or generate light such as eyeglasses, rings, watches, earrings, necklaces and mobile phones, so as not to ruin the experience for others. When we asked if cameras were allowed, they said yes – but no flash. Very funny.
We were led into a dark room, and we were told that they didn’t just turn off the lights – they duct taped windows and doors and set-up heavy black drapes to create a tunnel to cover doorways so that when people enter and leave, light won’t enter the room. You can’t see any shapes or even shadows – the whole place was really drowned in darkness and obscurity. Our blind waiter / guide, led us inside, and told us to let the wall guide us. Apart from that, we also held the shoulder of the person in front of us so we won’t get lost. We were seated in a table, and he told us about the utensils in front of us. When everything is pitch black, and you can’t see anything, you really want to get a sense of how the place “looks” by touching, so I made sure to orient myself with the utensils and shape of the table. The table was round.
Groping in the Dark
Our first course was soup. They served the soup inside a coconut bowl or a husk on top of a stone block. Everyone was careful not to move around too much or too fast, to avoid any table accidents. The texture of the stone and the coconut bowl really helped enhance the experience, especially because we couldn’t see our food. The soup had chicken and it tasted a bit like tinola. The soup also had coconut strips and coconut meat, and since it was served in a coconut bowl, I could easily guess that it was chicken binakol. Thankfully, we were served boneless chicken, so we didn’t have any problems with eating it.
Our next course was salad which was served in a rectangular plate. Again, when you can’t see what you are eating, your first instinct is to establish the boundaries of your plate so that you don’t make a big mess and spill your food all over the table. Our salad had green mango strips and there was a big crunchy something in the middle. I guessed it was ukoy, but it wasn’t super shrimp-y so I had second thoughts. The salad also had what seemed like grapes on it, which turned out to be cherry tomatoes. When you eat salad, you normally have a little bit of everything with every bite, so that each bite of the salad is balanced in flavor. This wasn’t possible here since I spent half my time trying to find out where my food was. The other people at the table resorted to eating with their hands so that they could find their food faster.
A Bit of a Bite
The main course was served in a square plate, and when I tried eating it, I managed to eat several spoonfuls of rice before I found the lapu-lapu fish fillet on my plate. It was served with crab fat sauce that was very rich, and would’ve been great with the rice – had I been able to eat them together. I had to bring my mouth close to the plate so I could eat without spilling too much food on the table, but I still ended up eating off of the table. Near the end of my meal, I found out that I actually had greens on my plate, and I had to eat it all at the end after I had finished my fish and rice.
The last course was a trio of desserts that included a calamansi sorbet, chocolate puto, and leche flan served in an egg shell. We didn’t know what we were eating, and I excitedly bit into my first dessert, which turned out to be a “crunchy” leche flan. I had to ask our waiter, if the leche flan was served in a candy shell, because I already had the sinking feeling that there was something funny about my dessert. Our waiter laughed and he told me not to eat it if I didn’t want salmonella! Crunchy. All in all, the desserts were a great way to cap off our meal, even if I ate half of the eggshell the leche flan came in!
Afterwards, we had a debriefing and we were able allowed to take pictures of all the food we ate. We found out that we had spent almost two hours during the dinner. It certainly didn’t feel like two hours and we were told that in total darkness, the passing of time is a more abstract concept because you can’t see the clock or your watch. I can’t say if the experience would’ve been more enjoyable had we been able to see the fancy presentation of the food – eating in the dark has its own unique thrill.
Dinner in the Dark is an experience good for families, friends and lovers, especially if you like experiencing new things. For people who love surprises and who want to grope in the dark, this is also an ideal place to dine in, guess and be mesmerized – all emotions not-withstanding. -#EatsNowOrNever
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