Leah O'Donovan

Well, I have managed to pull myself away from my precious iPhone for a few minutes to tell you about our experience of eating as though we were blind on Friday night. As I mentioned in the iPhone post, it is easily summed up with one word: un-nerving.

Needless to say, not being able to see the glass in front of you nor the bottle of wine or water from which you are pouring creates a bit of a conundrum. How do you tell when it is full? My answer was to stick my finger in the glass. I warned my neighbour Belinda that I was going to do this, which she was fine with…thankfully. I think she realised this was the only way to go about pouring any kind of liquid without spilling it all over oneself or one’s neighbour.

Next you have the obvious problem of not being able to see the food. Initially you’re alright because there is enough on your plate to be able to poke around and get a fork-full or at least half-full. It’s when the food is dwindling that you have a problem. Have you finished? Is there more and where is it on the plate? The only way to handle this was, again, the use of a hand or finger. I kept my fork in my right hand and used my left hand to feel the food on the plate. With the main course containing noodles and rice this was the only way to go about getting any substantive amounts of these items.

Dessert was probably the easiest of the three courses with two small bowls and a cake on the side. The first bowl was immediately identified as chocolate mousse. This, I have to say was also the most enjoyable of the three courses for several reasons: it was easily identifiable, it was rather easy to eat and it was the tastiest. I must admit that I managed to wrongly identify the meat in both the starter and main. What I thought was chicken was in fact beef and what I thought was beef was in fact chicken. So much for my prowess as a meat-eater. I also failed to identify shredded duck in the starter. I think there was also some pork with the main? They told us what we’d eaten at the very end and showed us pictures.

Overall, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the experience. I certainly have some new-found respect for blind people but it’s not as though I didn’t respect them in the first place! All of the wait-staff were blind so we had to rely on them to get us into and out of the dining room for toilet breaks. This was very annoying but obviously unavoidable. I could say that I wish the food were tastier but the phrase ‘eat with our eyes’ springs to mind. I do wonder how much taste the food might have had if I’d been able to see it. You would think that not being able to see it, only smell and taste, would enhance the flavours but considering how relatively bland a few of the dishes were I wonder if the opposite is actually true. Then again, it could have just been lack of spice. I don’t know. What I shall sum up with is that, while I wouldn’t recommend it, I wouldn’t tell someone not to go. It is certainly something to experience if you have the chance but it’s not something you should go out of your way for. At least I can say I’ve been there. Now, back to my iPhone.