Essen im Dunkeln (Eating in the Dark)

During our break in mid October both Eric and me decided to go to Berlin, Germany because we thought it was going to be an interesting place to visit. Both of us stayed in Berlin for three days and in our last day we came across unsicht-Bar. Unsicht-Bar is a restaurant that offers a unique experienced that not many other restaurants offers this type of service to their customers. Unsicht-Bar offers its customers the ability to use their five out six senses and explorer their senses while eating in complete darkness. Inside the restaurant you are not allowed to use any type of device that uses lights because it defeats the purpose of the restaurant service. Eating in complete darkness might not sound appealing, but if you give it a try you will like it.

       The restaurant is hidden in Downtown Berlin and it is next to a cemetery, which is a bit creepy and maybe scary, especially at night. Both of us enter to the restaurant and the host asks if we had reservation and we reply no. The host told us that we need to make reservation two weeks ahead of time because it is usually pack with customers. However, it was our lucky day and they were able to make a room for us because someone cancel their reservation. When she told us that we could sit anywhere I was a bit confused because it was supposed to be pitch black without any lights. She gave us the menu and there were many unfamiliar dishes names because all of them except for the last one were in German. At the beginning I was surprised when she gave us the menu because it was supposed to be cheap, but it turns out to be around very expensive. If I recalled well, the cheapest dish was around 40 euros and the expensive dish was around 55 euros. We wanted to share the dishes, but they told us that it would be impossible to pass the dish back and forth because it was complete dark inside the room.Both of us decided to get the “Surprise dish” because it was in English and it was the least complicated one compare to the rest of the dishes.

          Both of us waited about ten minutes until our waitress shows up to take us to the dark room. Our waitress was a blind woman and my first thought was how is she going to take us to the dark room? My second thought was how is it possible for her to bring our food to our table in complete darkness and how is she going to find us inside the dark room?She told us that one of us needs to put our hands on her shoulder and the next person should put their hands on other person shoulder before we enter the dark room. At the beginning it felt like a maze because we were making a lot of left and right turns and then we got to our table.I was amazed of how well she brought our food and her ability to move around without hitting anything. Eating in complete darkness is not fun at the beginning because you cannot used your forks, knives, and spoon very well, so both us decided to use our fingers to find our food in our plates. We were inside the restaurant for two hours even though we felt that time stop while we were eating. I really enjoyed eating in the dark because it is a journey to find your food in your plate. After we were done eating we call her name and she took us to the first room were there’s light. During the process of leaving, I remember hitting myself twice at the wall, which was a bit painful, but overall it was a great experience.

 

                                                                                                          (Inside the dinning room) 

Miguel Flores

UC Irvine