Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Dinning in the Dark

Most of you probably thought I stopped eating or died, but I have done neither. This readjusting thing is just starting to set in. My mom came to town for the Easter holiday and I was able to take her to a great restaurant Nick took me for my birthday, Market 17. It specializes in local foods that are natural or organic. Can't get much better than that can you?

Well, it does. How does dining in the dark sound? Scary. Messy. Sloppy. Creepy. These are just some of the thoughts that ran thru my head when the opportunity arose. Ofcourse we did it. You can chose 4,6, or 8 courses. The waiter suggested 6 so we went for that. Being escorted into a small room with curtains blocking out the light there was a dim chandelier lit. The waiter, Brian explained that we will now need to get used to using our sense of smell, feeling, and taste. He removed the light and came back with his night vision goggles on and all you could see was a small red dot.

The food was all very good, nothing crazy, we started with salad, appetizer, a fish, 2 meats, and dessert. Since your sight is gone its amazing how much stronger your sense of smell is. Forget about eating with silverware and just dig in with your hands. This really helped you identify what you were eating. After every course Brian the waiter came back and could see what we had or had not eaten and would test our skills of what we thought we ate. My mom was trying to psych me out near the end when it came to the second meat as she was thinking it was something weird or gross. The dessert way by far my favorite. Miracle fruit.  You chew it for about a minute and then eat different fruits with different levels of acid. The restaurant serves you a plate of pieces of fruit including a limes, lemons, and grapefruit. My favorite by far was the lemon!!! It was amazing. The crazies thing is miracle fruit originally from Africa, is now being locally grown in South Florida! If you can get you hand on some of these your in for a great experience.

Back to the whole experience, even though you can not see your food, dining in the dark was awesome. There was nothing to be scared or nervous about, if anything its just one more way to enjoy your food. It isn't all about the presentation!