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Tasting! Smelling! Feeling! Hearing!
Well, we have now dared to eat fully blind in the dark, which is definitively a very stark experience. But it really works better than one might assume. We had feared that we would have to eat with the fingers – as how should you know when your plate is empty?! Or you end up being fully stained?
The location of the unsicht-Bar is the restaurant Mehring and the Dinner in the Dark is a 4 course menu including an aperitif. So at the beginning aou get a really nice welcoming and a delicious drink. 🙂
This door leads into the darkness. No, not quite. As now the candles are still lit.
As soon as the guests have been brought their drinks, Arthur (the blind waiter) encourages us to blow out the candles. And then it gets dark. Really dark! Actually you have never experiences such deep darkness before (except you have been in the Dunkelmuseum in Frankfurt – this is also absolutely worth an experience!)
What follows is the first course. Arthur places the plates with ease in front of us and explains us by means of clock times where is what on our plates. Unfortunately I have had a look at the website before and had seen the menu. It might have been even more interesting not to know in advance what is being served. But everything tastes exactly as it should. The first course was a salad with really delicios dressing and salmon. But though I could not tell what kind of salad it was…?!
And you can feel everything quite well with your knife. So it is not necessary to recheck with your fingers.
The second course is a delicate tarragon zucchini soup. But if I had not read before the menu, I would not have recognized this very special condiment.
And just the same way it was in the Dunkelmuseum (where you blindly walk in a reconstructed city and notice for the first time how loud the traffic is) now I also find it extremely loud in the restaurant. If you cannot see anything, you seem to hear better… Somehow very tiring…
The route to the toilet is also an experience. Holding on to Arthur’s shoulder I went in polonaise march through the double door and then again into the light.
He is running at breath-taking peed through the darkness… This is awesome… And when you nearly stumble because you can hardly keep up with him, he says: “I feel already like a turtle!” Very funny…
The third course ist he main course. Afterwards Arthur asks the guests, what they think that they have had. “Chicken”. “Pork”. „Dog“. Arthur: “Pork-dog?“ 🙂 Well, I had chicken, mushrooms, onions, celeries, beans and roast potatoes. Sometimes a bean stray my cheek, but apart from that everything worked surprisingly well. And it was easier as I thought. It’s a pity I could not see what I was eating.
After a little pause the fourth course was served…
Arthur: You can have afters at home, here you will have a dessert.”
Nach einer erneuten kleinen Pause gab es dann den vierten Gang …
…well, the dessert. Delicious banana quark with grapes and roast muesli. After that you are really stuffed. At for the last part o fit I found it quieter again.
Once you are outside again, you get to know what you have actually eaten.
It was really scrummy, funny and a very recommendable experience. When you come back to light, you are just happy that you can see again – or happy that you can see at all! Really enviable the way Arthur has become able to accept his blindness with humor and ease…
unsicht-Bar
Gaststätte Mehring
Luxemburger Str. 319a
(Ecke Klettenberggürtel)
50939 Köln
Telephone: 0221 374312
dunkeldinner@unsicht-bar-koeln.de
www.unsicht-bar-koeln.de
There is also an unsicht-Bar in Berlin and in Hamburg. And the Blindwalk through Cologne is for sure also interesting!
P.S. Thank you very much to all my colleagues for this supercool wedding present! 🙂
Monique De Caro
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