Opaque

Written by Wifey AND Hubby!

For this week's date night, we went to Opaque, which is a unique dining experience. Essentially, you get to experience what it's like to be completely blind, as you eat in a dark room. The wait staff is blind, and helps you by telling you the location of the bread, wine glass, etc. It's a pricey meal, so thankfully we had a Groupon that was 50% off the normal price. Since it's kinda a unique experience, we decided to both write about it so you see two perspectives!

Wifey:
I saw about this on Food Network years ago, and always wanted to try it. It has actually been on Groupon a few times, but since it's pricey, it took awhile to convince Hubby that we should splurge. ;-) And I'm soooo glad we did, because it's quite the experience!! So... when you think "dark", you think about something like your bedroom with the lights off. HA. No, that's not dark. Opaque is located in a basement, with no windows, and no light. It's not just dark, it's pitch black. There isn't even so much as an red light blinking from security cameras. As a result, the first few minutes after being seated, I was fighting panic. I kept waiting for my eyes to adjust, and the room to gradually come into focus, but since there is NO LIGHT AT ALL, that was impossible. My vision was just going crazy trying to form images. Thankfully, Hubby figured out that if you closed your eyes, it wasn't so bad, and then I realized that I could "anchor" myself by focusing on my other senses. After gripping Hubby's hand, sipping some water, and smelling the rose petals that were spread on the table, I was able to gradually relax. Then, the fun began - we got food!

Now, if I was trying to put together a menu for people eating by touch, it'd all be finger foods. Hot pockets... pretzels... candy bars.. :-P But, then, you're not getting the full experience of being sightless! So, Opaque has a regular multi-course meal - bread, salad, entree (chicken/steak, veggies, & rice), & dessert (a sort of mango mousse for me, chocolate lava cake for Hubby). I pretty much failed the very first challenge - they brought out a little mini-appetizer on a spoon, and I promptly lost it, as it rolled off my spoon. Then, I tried for bread. And promptly suck my fingers in the butter bowl. This happened at least 4x during the meal. :-p I wasn't faring much better with the salad - half the time, my fork ended up empty, and I was crunching down on metal, wondering what happened. After awhile, I kinda gave up - by the time the entree came out, the first thing I did was poked every square inch of the plate to find out what was where. And when I was done with dessert... or thought I was done.... yeah, I licked the plate. Good thing too, because I had missed some rather yummy strawberries! But beyond the rather funny challenges of trying to get the food from your plate to your mouth, it really was an amazing experience. I actually started to savor food in a new way as I was desperately trying to figure out exactly WHAT was in my mouth. The meal felt more intimate, because while you could hear there were other people in the room, you couldn't SEE them, so they gradually just became background noise. And when I got to my dessert... instead of drooling over the appearance, I just took a few minutes to inhale the aroma.

After the meal, we sat waiting for the check... and well, Hubby and I got silly. Apparently, great minds think alike because as I was balling up a rose petal to flick across the dining table, one suddenly hit me! One of us would throw something... wait... and you'd hear a voice: "did I hit you??". It was pretty funny. :-p

Anyway... it was an awesome experience, and highly recommended!!!

Hubby:
As Wifey said, Opaque is an experience everyone should try at least once. The claim to fame here is that by removing one sense (sight) all other senses are heightened, in particular smell and taste. The food is enjoyed that much more and you should (in theory) be able to detect nuances and flavors that otherwise under-appreciated when you can, you know, see your food.

While I'm not sure I had developed a finer palette immediately, using your sense of taste to identify first and taste later certainly added to the experience and gave me a greater appreciation, I suppose, of what I was eating.

And, I have to hand it to them, I ate a salad + dressing that I actually enjoyed! That's a first for me, as I am convinced all salads are evil and salad dressing is the devil himself. But .. this was tasty! It had pears and caramelized walnuts and leafy-something and bitter-something-else. Who knows, it was delicious.

So the food itself is pretty good, and you'll have to take that at face value. I am no foody - it either tastes good or it doesn't. This meal was delicious, so take that for what it's worth :)

The experience itself is what made the evening! Eating the pitch-black dark was great fun, and you can't help but give your utmost concentration to the person you're with (in this case, Wifey). I'm not sure I've ever hung onto every word she's said before to quite this level! It was in part because listening to hear I could not help but to track and "place" where she is while my imagination filled in what I couldn't see --- her gestures or facial expressions or whatever. So, even though it was dark my imagination went into overdrive and visualized everything - from where the plate is to what's currently in front of Wifey to when she's drinking her wine or whatever.

.. and then we have the pranking. The table itself had rose-petals strewn all across. We had a salad each. Salads have leafy goodness in them. Rose-petals are leaf-like. And edible.

The temptation was great to just silently plop a petal onto Wifey's plate. Oh, the lols that could have been had but I couldn't do it. Instead I resorted to pelting Wifey with the petals instead. Lols were still had, but no one consumed any petals (that I am aware of at least).

Yes, we are children. Grown children. It is wonderful :)

While on the expensive side (er, very expensive side) Opaque really should be experienced by everyone at least once. It's real interesting to eat your food and have conversations in the dark, and gives you a whole new appreciation of the company you're in :)