Eating in the dark

Sometimes you come to a restaurant or actually often a bistro, which is romantically lit with table lamps and candles “for fun”. You can hardly read the menu and from what you get on your plate you sometimes have to assume that you actually ordered it.

But it can be even worse, namely eating in a restaurant that is deliberately completely shrouded in darkness. Dine in the dark (DID), eating in the dark!

Senses

An important aspect of good food is the presentation of a meal, “a picture” must be visible on your plate. However, in this new restaurant in Bangkok you can't see your hand in front of you, so it comes down to other senses such as taste, smell and touch. I sniffed, jabbed my fork, and used my fingers to feel what was on the plate in front of me, then popped it in my mouth, hoping I'd taste what I ate. My table companions, other guests, all invisible, and myself concentrated on the three senses of smell, touch and taste to determine whether you had a shrimp or a mushroom in your mouth.

Inscrutable

Eating a meal has never been so inscrutable. Not only was it the first time I ate a meal in the dark, but it was also the first time my face got so close to the food that my nose was dipped in the sauce. I didn't have to be ashamed of it, because no one could see it, not even when I almost got the straw of my orange juice in my eye as I leaned towards my glass. There may have been food scraps stuck between my teeth, but my table mates may also have had food scraps on their lips during our conversation. No one was bothered by it, because invisible, I actually found that thought highly comical.

Skeptical

I admit that I was quite skeptical about visiting this “sightless” restaurant, but everything I thought of beforehand turned out to be completely different. The atmosphere in the room was pleasant during the two-hour dinner, despite the darkness: light buzz of the various conversations at the tables muffled by contemporary lounge music; the food, both the Thai If the Western dishes were of high quality and excellent in taste: the service of our host/guide was friendly and competent and the price of 850 Baht for a 3-course meal including water and fruit juice was also unmistakable.

Visually impaired

DID was opened in January of this year by experienced restaurateurs Julien Wallet-Houget and Benjamin Baskin. The initial goal was to introduce something new to culinary Bangkok, which would at the same time provide employment for the visually impaired.

Therefore, unlike some similar dark eateries in other parts of the world, where staff are equipped with night vision goggles, all 15, multi-lingual staff in this 60-seat DID are visually impaired people who are trained to guide guests and provide assistance to visually impaired customers. Despite this social aspect, DID has positioned itself as a fine restaurant, where gourmet dishes, pleasant atmosphere, efficient service and fantastic entertainment in the pitch dark have proven to be very good to combine.

Live music

Guests are offered a jazz night on Sundays, traditional Thai music and poetry on Wednesdays, acoustic music on Fridays and a guitar recital on Saturdays. A bit unusual really for these kinds of restaurants, where silence generally predominates during dinner, but Baskin says: “In the dark, people tend to open up to new experiences. The darkness not only heightens their sense of taste, but other senses are also used more intensively. The idea of ​​live music in the dark was to give a kind of mysterious feeling. The guests hear the music better and can give free rein to their imagination. According to the owners, the restaurant is completely full on weekends, and 70% of the customers are Thai.

Comments

Our guests react differently to this food in the dark. Some get extremely emotional, some get excited and some stay very calm, depending on their personality, cultural perspective and the people they're with,” says

Baskin, “In the dark you get a sensational feeling, but also moments of self-reflection. People start thinking about themselves and others, also about certain events in their lives, but especially important is the atmosphere in the restaurant, which is not spoiled by mobile phones, iPads and the like.

Location

The DID restaurant in Bangkok is located on the 2nd floor of Ascott Sathorn Building, South-Sathorn Road. Call 02-676-6676 for reservations and also take a look at the promotional video below.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL7iLFnt_Xg[/youtube]

Concise and free from a recent article (Dark night rises) in the Bangkok Post