Over to Farringdon tonight for an unusual dining experience at a restaurant called
"Dans Le Noir?". The twist is that you eat your meal in a pitch black room, which sounded novel at least. The idea seemed to be that deprived of sight, our other senses would be enhanced, heightening flavours and smells. Plus I supposed you'd get some small idea of how it might be to be blind, doubly interesting as the waiters at the restaurant are blind. It is the kingdom of the blind and it turns out that the non-eyed man is king. The blind ended up leading the sighted and if they had chosen to they could have really fucked us over. We were in their domain now. Our normally reliable eyes useless to us, having to follow each other, shuffling with our hand on the shoulder of the person in front to us and to await instruction from our leader.
Straight away I knew I wasn't going to enjoy it as much as I had hoped. The sense that seemed to come most alive was that of hearing and some of the other diners, confused by the lack of vision, decided to compensate by talking much more loudly. The loudest people had rather grating voices and a rather drunk party at the table behind ours were amusing themselves by singing songs at top volume. Because as no one could be seen some basic rules of politeness and etiquette were lost and if you wished you could choose to behave in a selfish or anti-social manner. "Chicago, Chicago," sang one diner, before petering out with that song. You should really at least know the second line at least if you're going to start a song as simple as that one. I realised that it cut both ways and I could, if I had wished, shouted out "Shut up you annoying, selfish cunts" without much fear of repercussions. They could have tried to stumble towards me, but they'd never really know for sure who had spoken.
As an old man of 41 it's already hard enough for me in social situations as I often find it hard to hear the people around me, because of my ears tuning into peripheral noise. So being in the dark this problem became worse and wasn't entirely pleasant.
It was interesting being in pitch darkness though and my eyes were struggling to find something to latch onto and soon I began to think that I could see my hand in front of my face, but of course I was just imagining it, based on where I knew my hand to be.
I didn't really like the sensation after a while. It was like being buried underground, with a load of annoying screeching idiots and I wondered if this might be what Hell would be like. We were also placed on the same tables as people we didn't know, which I would really hate in normal circumstances and which made me a little uncomfortable now, though it at least led to an interesting game in which I tried to work out what the people might look like based on their voices. I have to say that I got nowhere near with the two people I was able to identify afterwards, imagining the woman to be tiny and birdlike (despite her rather loud voice), whereas she was nothing like that in reality.
We had to choose from one of four menus (meat, fish, vegetarian or chef's surprise - I assumed the last one would be a bowl of his bodily fluids, but there was no guarantee that that wouldn't be the case with any of the menus), but had no idea what the food would be. I chose the meat menu, hoping that the heightening of my senses would allow me to identify my meal. But alas when my starter came, beyond being able to ascertain that it was some kind of stuffed pancake I was utterly useless at identifying what I was consuming. It might have been pork, or chicken or possibly duck. It was very hard to locate the food or to get it on to my fork and was thus quite frustrating. Even when I used my fingers I wasn't getting too much joy and I realised that being able to see what you're eating, for me at least, actually adds a great deal to the experience. Far from making my other senses work to the maximum, it just seemed to dull them all, my ears being overloaded with the cacophony from the other table. It was hard to tell if the food was any good when you can't see it and not knowing what you'd get on your fork you could sometimes end up with a mouthful of dry rice. Beyond knowing that my main course involved a curry flavour and rice and noodles (odd combination) I couldn't identify what I was eating. I hoped maybe they'd tell us afterwards, but they didn't, which seemed like a missed trick.
Although I am glad I got to go along and see what it was all about, I didn't really have a very nice time. The food did not seem tasty enough - I certainly got more sensory excitement when I visited
The Fat Duck and maybe small taste explosions would have been preferable to difficult to eat dishes, which mainly ended up on the floor. But it made me like my eyes and being able to see, though conscious of the fact that my ears are not all they could be. It was a relief to get back into the light and out of the disorientating blackness. But that probably isn't the best review of a restaurant you can get - it was amazing to leave. It's still an interesting thing to do and worth a try, though if you
look through the comments it seems that a lot of people use it as a chance to do some groping (hopefully of people they know) in the darkness. And someone called Jordan who dined there the same night as me (though possibly at a different sitting) chooses to leave this rather tragic comment - "i lost a friend tonight, this was not a good experience, the food was not great and i had to leave alone, will not be back. i still love you lee im sorry XXX"
So there are many dangers there in the dark and I think Jordan's story might have made for a more entertaining blog entry. It certainly leaves you wanting to find out more. But did she just lose Lee in the darkness? Maybe he's still in there somewhere.
