The Weekender . Blind Date

Have you ever been on a blind date? Share the experience in 300+ words and use photos you took yourself where you can.

This is an interesting one for the gun swinging aussie because I have been on a blind date. Now being me I always like to take a different slant on things. I will not take the traditional approach around the time I asked to go on a blind date with a girl I had never seen before. Nah there will be plenty of juicy tales on weekend engagement for this. I will tell you about the time I was actually blind on a date.
Before you ask, no I did not lose by some unfortunate nail hammering accident. No I was a place called Clerkenwell in London with her good self and we heard about this restaurant called Dans Le Noire. For all you slack jawed philistines on Hive , this means In the Dark in French. So the jist of it is that when you lose one sense then your other senses increase. So this restaurant actually dines you in the dark. Not only this but the staff in the restaurant are all on the blind spectrum so they are fully blind or they are visually impaired. Don't ask me how this works but it does.

So off we went fully sighted with our 4 eyes to Dans Le Noir. We were met at the door by one of the waiters. There were a few other customers waiting in the lobby so we were led to our table in a sort of school line train where each person held hands while the waiter led the way. They sat us down in the pitch dark and asked if we had any dietary requirements. I say pitch dark. It really was dark dark. I was waving my hand in front of my partner and she could not see a thing. Now the menus are famously kept secret as is the experience so when the meal is served you do not really know what the hell you are eating which is slightly nerve racking. The good news is that this is a top restaurant so whatever you do get is delicious.
So the starters came down in the pitch dark. I was unable to see herself but it was pretty much the same as a chat in bed. You are a bit quieter in case you wake the kids. I think the starter was a walnut salad. Goats cheese and beetroot are strong enough flavours even without the senses improved so it blew my socks off eating it in the dark. I took a sneaky photo of the restaurant before they confiscated our phones

I quite enjoyed the experience because I could lick the bowl, pick my nose, open the pants button and nobody knew the wiser. My partner was as blind as a bat over there most likely fixing her bra strap. Table manners in Dans Le Noir go out the window. Some of you might be wondering what the presentation of the food looked like seeing that the vast majority of the staff were visually impaired. Well it does not matter what it looks like because we couldn't see you wallys!! Here's another photo.

Anyway at the end there was a little quiz as the menu is revealed to tell us what we had actually eaten which was nice. I was amazed at how little I had got right. It was a great experience overall and I highly recommend it if you are a foodie. Worth a visit. So I went on a real blind date and it was great!