Dans Le Noir, a blind restaurant experience...

The other day I went to a restaurant in NYC called Dans Le Noir. Its a place in where there aren't any lights at all. So, you make your reservation online a couple days ahead. Then, you go to the
place and once you arrive they show you the menu and give you a key for a locker in which you have to put everything that's may produce light (watch, cell phones, etc). Becky and I chose our plates, then we sit next to a curtain waiting for our waiter. A few minutes later a blind woman came out stretching out her arm asking "Where are my next costumers?", Becky said " Here we are". Maria, the waiter, told us "You don't have to be weary... welcome to my world".

We enter to a small tunnel and the light gets dimmer and immer with each step until it disappears completely. I enter and my other 4 senses activate. I started to hear the voices of people from other tables, the sound of cubists and people laughing. Also, I felt the temperature much more, colder. We
Sat in a row with other couples entering the restaurant. Somehow Maria remembered the name of each of us and she led each one in the right and correct seating place.

Well, Becky and I were seating in front of each other, at the end of the table with other couples and
we started to talk about the environment. In a second, Maria was very close to our table asking for beverages. A few minutes later she came with a cart serving beverages to each of us. I knew it was a cart because I touch it. I didn't know how to drink, and I didn't even know if it was the beverage I ordered because my mind used to see the color and the recognize the beverage.

We spoke with the guys next to us and the only way you can identify them is by their voice. You don't know their appearance and in this city the guy could sound as a woman, but its a man...you know.
In this case he wasn't.

The dinner continued, the conversation with my girlfriend was very good and deep. When the first plate came I just didn't have any idea how to start to eat. Sincerely, the knife wasn't useful, only the fork and the left hand I used. I didn't have idea what I was eating; I tried to identify the flavors. The experience inside the place was simply amazing. Maria moved from one side to the other side of the table in a second, she was there for you. It was the first restaurant I went to where they called me by my name and the first one I was truly having dinner with Becky without thinking in my phone and emails. I was really with her eating and hearing her voice. You don't even know what time is it, but you don't have to care about the time because you are with the person you want to be with. That dinner was a discovery path.

When we were done with the food we decided to stay and have some wine at the bar just outside the dark room. Its just that your not in love with someone because of the way she looks, you use the other senses. Then, we went out of the dark room with Marias help and we talked with other waiters. One of them named Collin. He told us a little bit about his life, how he lost his sight, and what he was working on before working in the restaurant. Collin told us that sometimes as a pedestrian before crossing a street he stands next to the traffic light listening waiting for the beep that tells him to cross. Well, a person comes to help him cross and the person helps him, whether he needs the help or not because its the same path he does everyday he lets other people help him so they can feel that they did a good thing. Collin also likes the fact people go to the restaurant and a that a blind person helps them, so we feel what he lives everyday. Instead of him "needing" our help, its us that need his inside Dans le Noir. Collin is very happy in his life and has developed other skills that someone else might not have.

For me its admirable to see people like Maria and Collin continuing and having fun with their lives. If you step in NYC and you are with someone speacial for you, you mother, father, a close friend, your girlfriend, or a friend you haven't seen for a while I'd recommend you to go to Dans le Noir 
Restaurant.