Shun the neon bustier. Ignore the sequinned dress. Shiny/shimmery clothing is strictly prohibited. Switch off the cellphones (leave in the locker). Sign an alive-in-darkness disclaimer. Pee before sitting for the two-hour meal. Not that there’s no piddle-cubicle, but stumbling, falling, bumbling is a dark reality. The menu? You do not get to pick off the menu. The pre-set menu is a surprise. Hazard guesses about what’s on the plate. You cannot see the chair. Not the plate. Not even food. You can see nothing. It is Blackout - dinner in the dark. Not just dark. Absolute coal-black darkness. Not a speck of light. Just the whiff of potatoes, cheese, pasta…

The Blackout FAQs were swirling in my head when in the land of zillion neon lights, the car screeched into a dark parking lot. A green neon board glistened in Las Vegas’ Valley View Boulevard. BlackOut - Dining in the Dark. The neon flickered in an all-cap slanted font. On the glass window was the diktat of ‘Doing in the Dark’. Inside, girls in black were manning the counter and tiny Macs were placed on a table with framed photographs above it. More than a restaurant it seemed like war-zone as servers in black flitted in and out with night vision goggled strapped on their foreheads.

Am not afraid of darkness but eating in the dark felt a little dotty. With cellphones stashed in the locker and pre-dinner pee order heeded, it was time for food. Before that, the instructions in a not-so-dark room. “Beyond this black curtain, it is absolute darkness. Hold hands to walk to the table. Listen to what I say,” the night-vision-goggles wearing server started matter-of-factly.

“Stop. Turn left. Find your chair,” I had walked a few steps when finding the chair became a ridiculous hand-flapping in the air. There, there. There was wood. Hopefully, part of a chair to rest the derriere. “Knife on your right. Wine glass on the left. There’s tissue, too,” I patted the table for the knife and hand-hunted the wine glass’s stem. Voices from other tables resonated in the dark land. An innocuous giggle turned sinister without light. A fallen glass shattered the dark-silence. I was blind with eyes open. There was not even a silhouette. Just an easy-peasy solace that my hand knew where the mouth is.
“This is a rectangular plate. There’s a dip, fried finger food… The rest you decipher. You think ‘Eye appeal is half the meal’. Eat in the dark, it will heighten the other senses,” the server continued. I started moving my finger over an invisible plate. Suddenly, I dug into gunk. Sauce? Dip? Mayo? Licking the finer solved the sauce-mystery. And fried food? What was that? Potato? Zucchini? Mishmash? It was crispy, crunchy and scrumptious. Perhaps a mishmash, I concluded hurriedly.

Another rectangular plate. Then, a square. Another bowl. Some gunk. Pasta ribbons. Freshly town lettuce. Fried snacks. Carrot slivers. A dessert. Was it chocolate? Was it vanilla? I still can’t tell. For 7-courses, I played a quiet quiz in my mind - a, b, c, d or none of the above. For two hours, my taste buds were crusty with the unknown. I ate but I saw nothing. I actually do not know most of what I ate. I was too preoccupied with not dropping the glass, not picking the knife at the wrong end, not falling off the chair. Thankfully, there was no need for a pee-break.
At the end of two hours, my taste buds had blacked out and my eyes desperate for a ray of light. When I held the server’s hands again and bumbled past the dark, black, heavy curtains into the light, I sighed. That darkness in Blackout was bewildering. Yet, somehow bewitching.
Good To Know:
Six/seven-course food-only meal priced at $80 (pay extra for alcohol). Timings: Monday-Thursday: 5 PM–11 PM & Friday-Sunday: 2 PM-11 PM. Children 12 and younger are not allowed. Children 17 and younger must be accompanied by a paying adult.
Preeti Verma Lal is a Goa-based freelance writer/photographer.
First Published: IST