It’s popular, everyone’s giving it a try and it gets very mixed reviews. You decide to give it a go. “What the worst that can happen? It’s only a few hours on a Friday night.”
You feel good, but a little nervous. You hear voices but you don’t know where they’re coming from. You keep wondering when this feeling will be over, but you’re having fun so you lose track of time. You have long conversations without even looking at the person you’re talking to.
Does this sound like the first time you got high? Probably. And its a lot like eating at Bangkok’s newest novelty restaurant DiD, or Dine in the Dark located on the second floor of the upscale Sathorn hotel, The Ascott.
The concept of the eating experience is simple: Enter a pitch-black dining room and be served by blind service staff.
It’s important to note that this isn’t anything new. The gimmicky idea has experienced great success in most Western cities from London to Los Angeles, so it was only a matter of time before it landed here.
So how does eating in the dark stack up in Bangkok? The formula for analyzing a regular restaurant doesn’t apply here as the ambience is…well…just darkness. And the food? Nothing special.
But it really is the unusual and impressive service that’s shining beacon of hope for this operation. The sight-impaired service staff gets its right consistently. They’ll fill your glass with just the right amount of wine, they’ll put down a perfect place setting after each course, and they’ll do it all with charm.
“Charming staff” is such a trite term, but we really mean it here. They say being blind increases other senses, and we’re prone to believe it—because the wait staff’s sense of humor is sure to get a chuckle out of anyone.
Even with the supposedly heightened sense of taste, the food will not impress. You have the option of Thai, international or vegetarian. The menu changes, but when we visited we opted for the international menu which consisted of a garden salad with chicken, Duck à l’orange, and a simple caramelized banana sundae. These staple dishes aren’t different enough to leave us guessing what they are in complete darkness. The menu could use a large injection of interesting ingredients or at least an unusual way of using garden-variety ingredients.
The funny thing is, the presentation isn’t all that bad, but its only after the meal is over that you see how your dish looks. And these aren’t the kind of dishes that are meant to be consumed in the dark, either. You’re often left guessing how much of your entrée is left or where your food disappeared to from your plate to your mouth. Our guess is that lots of food ends up on the table and floor, it wouldn’t be a pretty sight if someone were to turn the lights on mid-meal.
Good food can make customers come back again and again, but it’s the people and overall experience that make the meal. You wont come to DiD and be mesmerized by the sparkle in your date’s eye from the glinting soft light of a candle. You will, however, find yourself engaging in a confusing dialog about how weird the whole thing is and end up laughing about how you heard someone across the room announce that they’re eating with their hands.
If you’re invited to DiD by friends who aren’t nyctophobic or afraid to get messy and aren’t foodies, then give it a try. It’s not good for a date (insert blind date joke here) and it isn’t the type of place to have a serious discussion either. That leaves us with just the novelty of it all – but that’s what Bangkokians love.
