This is all about my recent experience in a restaurant. Many of us must have been to theme restaurant or has a fascination to go to theme restaurants.
In Chennai there is a restaurant in Express Avenue Mall called - Dialogue in the dark. As the name sounds it's indeed a dialogue in the dark.
So let me start narrating each and every footstep of my beautiful experience in this restaurant.
We came to the restaurant, the receptionist gave us a laminated piece of paper with some instructions written on it and told us to go through it..If we are okay..We can place the order.
We read it and placed the order as one Non-veg and one Veg meal as my friend is a vegetarian. Both the meal costs 499 INR + tax. A triangle token for non veg and a round token for veg was given to us.
We were asked to keep our mobiles , watches or any light emitting objects in the locker. You can carry your wallet. We were told to stand in a queue with each person should hold the next person's hand and we're given one stick which is used by blind people to walk.
As soon as we enter it was pitch black inside and trust me you can see literally nothing , here you enter into the life of our blind friends and just get the taste of how their entire life is all about in this experience of 2 hours.
As soon as we enter we were greeted by one lady- Selwin. All you can is her voice and instructions and use your stick to navigate. Sometimes she will help you by holding your hand.
We were asked to feel few sculpture and monument on the wall and tell what are those..There is a bridge which will shake a lot and you need to cross that in that pitch black environment ..But nothing to fear , Selwin was always with us. Then she will make you feel the touch of water and ask you to guess few spices by smelling it. After all these the best part was we played blind cricket. I am huge cricket lover and have seen blind cricket in TV, but this was too good. You really get to feel each and every moment of the life a blind person. After all these activities Selwin guided us to the dinning table ...And yes you will have your dinner in the pitch black environment. We were given hand sanitizer to wash our hands and then were served with a tiffin box which has 3 steel boxes. We had chicken 65 , chapatis, pulao and a chicken gravy and 2 gulab jamun as desserts. Water bottles were also given.
The food is sufficient enough for one person and is extremely delicious with a home made feel and dinning in dark was really a different experience.
After we were done with the dinner Selwin gave us one wet tissue and 2 dry tissue. After that Selvin guided us to the exit gate and we finally got to see Selwin with a million dollar smile on her face telling us "thank you sir , do visit us again " and what we saw was Selwin who was guiding us for the last 1.5 hours is a blind woman with a golden smile in her face.
Yes it's definitely tough to live if any of our 5 senses are not there, but this 2 hours just made my day .
I do recommend if you have similar theme based restaurant in your city , please do visit atleast once in your life.
Please note: If someone is really afraid or nervous of darkness please avoid as after entering if you freakout it will give lot of trouble to the restaurant and it might lose its beautiful message.
Just stay calm and feel the experience.
