So, I just had my first experience on dining in the dark yesterday night, apparently something not entirely unique in some countries (Bangkok has one such restaurant and Japan has 6 -7) but definitely something “revolutionary” for us Malaysians since we are as usual, slow to catch up on the scene.
Food was good; simple and enjoyable but nothing to swoon over. However, it is worth the price paid and frankly, dining here in the dark is all about the EXPERIENCE. It’s a plus point that in the capable hands of the Werner’s group (think El Cerdo, El Cerdito, The Beer Bar, The Whisky Bar) food was delicious as always.
No pictures were possible as no cameras, no phones or watches are allowed entry. Yes you read correctly. No phones. No watches. No cameras or anything reflective.
You dine in pitch darkness.
Since everyone’s in the dark (pardon the pun) about Dining in the Dark, let me shed some light on the topic. 😛
| No. | Questions | Answers |
| 1 | How dark was dark? | ABSOLUTELY pitch darkness. COMPLETELY black out. |
| 2 | How much is the food? | Food is a multi course menu. A set dinner consist of an appetizer, main and dessert. Complimentary after dinner coffee & tea included as well.Price is RM88++. |
| 3 | How’s the menu like? | There are no options available. Only one menu is offered at any one time. You do not know what each dish is until you TASTE it. Then again, you might not guess what you had correctly either. A lovely mystery isn’t it? 🙂 |
| 4 | Can I specify my preference? |
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| 5 | Is it true that I’m served by the blind? | Yes. And admirably sweet, capable blind people too! 🙂 Note: The manager, run staff as well as the waiters are ALL blind. |
| 6 | Must I make a reservation? | Yes, please do. Dining in the dark KL is open everyday except Mondays. |
| 7 | Where is the restaurant? | On Changkat Bukit Bintang, upstairs of Werner’s/Ten on Changkat |
| 8 | How does this whole dining in the dark work? |
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| 9 | Only 1 menu? | Yes and it changes every few weeks. |
| 10 | Can the staff talk? | Yes dear. Duhhhh, they are blind, not dumb. In fact they speak very good English! |
| 11 | Is it halal? | Dining in the dark serves wine and beers. It is pork free. |
Any other burning questions? Do leave a comment and I’ll add it in the table above! I hope you will find the list of FAQs useful. 🙂
Before I go into the description of the food; which really isn’t the focus here, I would like to share some advice/basic etiquette of dining in the dark.
Everyone is here to savour the fun moment. No one can see anybody. Thus we rely on our other senses (the five sense organs of the human body being vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch) to “operate” normally while dining in the dark.
So please do not ruin for others by:
1. Being VERY LOUD.
It’s amazing how some people think that being cloaked by darkness gives them some sort of license to act like XXXXXX (please insert whatever description you deem fitting after reading the below).
Really, just because you are “blind” doesn’t mean you have to make it up by being heard. No one wants to hear every single word of your conversation and enjoy having you screeching like a hyena throughout the night. Yes, we are all thrilled/excited to be here and when you dine with friends it’s natural to chatter animatedly since this is such a novel experience. But do bear in mind that the tables are close to each other and when it’s in the dark, our hearing may have “sharpen” slightly so we could be more sensitive to sounds.
And it’s no fun for others (such was the case for our table) to NOT be able to hear even our dining partner’s voice! It was THAT BAD! During the introduction of our session, none, and I mean NONE of us could hear what the waiter was saying.
Also the experience of dining in the dark was about savouring the moment; listening to the wonderful soothing music, relaxing and letting our senses took over as well as being more aware of your surroundings via your other senses’ organs. There were no distractions; no phones, no Twitter/FB/Instagram, no sense of time nor urgency. It fact, it could even be therapeutic, depending on how you “see” it. Unfortunately half our dinner was ruined as the group at the other table totally had a ball and was inconsiderately loud.
It was really difficult for us to relax as we were really irritated. There were 5 of us, with one being a staff from Werner’s itself (identified as T for the sake of anonymity) agreed though T couldn’t really do anything. T was seated right beside me and had to strain to hear me as we conversed about the food.
In some cases we had to be louder than our neighbours to be heard, which really ruins it further for others. Imagine if every single table and diner has to achieve higher decibel to be heard, the whole restaurant would be a damn auction market!
E (again for anonymity) one of the BLIND staff actually admitted (only when we bought up the subject) that E and E’s colleagues were having “slight” problems maneuvering around our tables as they couldn’t HEAR each other because of the ruckus, thus bumping into each other a few times that night. Thankfully, being thoroughly professionally and capable (kudos to the team!) they managed the whole night without any unforeseen incidents. Frankly, blind or otherwise, if I had a full plate of hot, oily food poured onto me that night, I doubt I’ll be very nice about it.
So PLEASE, please do be considerate of your fellow diners as well as the nice blind staff as they are doing their best to ensure you have a lovely experience. It’s really thoughtless of you to distract the blind with loud noise.
2. Trying anything funny.
There’s infra-red CCTV all over the place for the safety of the diners so no stealing, no molesting, etc. Ermm ..as for stripping naked (I know some of you are already thinking of it), well, it’s not encouraged though honestly, there is no way anyone could spot you at all.
Ok, now that I have gotten that out of the way, I’ll move on to the food.
It was a very good training ground for me that night. As a discerning gourmet & food writer, I pride myself on being able to detect flavours accurately and being quite knowledgeable about food in general. But I had to admit, I rely on my sight the most, then smell before moving on to taste.
So even I was a little uncertain myself that evening. While I avoided using hands entirely, I took great care to try to eat each dish slowly, chewing and allowing the flavours to sit in my mouth longer as my mind worked to identify the ingredients.
It helped that the menu shown to us prior to dinner did state that we will be served a trio of appetisers, followed by a trio of mains and lastly 5 different types of desserts. Also the plates used are sectioned in the same number of the dishes; for example our appetisers and mains are served on long rectangular plates which has 3 partitions separately by a slight bump, so by pushing my fork across the plate, I can know determine which appetiser or main and thus I could eat them one by one instead of getting them all mixed up.
The menu this time round was straightforward enough. Cold shrimp cocktails, a salad with cheese and watermelon and another salad with fried potato cutlet with bits of chicken. Mains were linguine with smoked duck, chicken thigh roulade on a bed of spinach as well as another chicken dish which I fail to remember now what exactly it was!
See the importance of sight? If I had a visual now I would have remembered it.
Desserts were chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, luscious tiramisu, pannacotta and stewed fruits. All in all, it was an experience that EVERYONE should try once! :DD
To book yourself a seat/table, give them a holler at:
Dining in the Dark Kuala Lumpur (on top of Werners’ or now it is Ten on Changkat)
44A & 46A Changkat Bukit Bintang
Tel: +603 2110 0431
Reservation: +6012 251 5797
Email: [email protected]
Opening hours: 6.30pm – 10.30pm (Tuesday – Sunday)
So, any thoughts? Leave a comment here! 🙂
Very interesting! Didn’t know got such place, but I guess good, it creates job for the blind 🙂
Hahah you can see it that way! 🙂
But it’s a novelty really, more for the experience and such a plus point that the food was good!
Wow!!! Interesting!
Very! :)) Go try go try go try!! haahha
interesting. do you eat with your fingers? since you can’t see. is it ok if i just silent or off the phone in the bag?
You can eat with your fingers if you want! 🙂
Oh, phones and anything reflective – watches etc are not allowed. Even if in the bag cos you will be tempted to take it out & sneak a peek! Any form of light will ruin the experience!
Hi Rebecca,
Thank you so much for taking your time to come over last night. We are glad that you enjoyed yourself.
We will take note of your comments and feedback and will work on it to improve our guests’ dining experience.
And thank you so much for your great write up, we truly appreciate it very much.
No worries! 🙂
I had a great time other than the distrupted first half of dinner!
Amazing. KL is really catching up on the food scene!
KL is! :DD Still a long way from sg/BKK, just naming two of the nearest countries..
A great write-up! I like how it compact it is, especially the table part. Got all my questions answered 🙂
Thanks for the detailed post! It’s great to know that vegetarian option is available for my other half. 😀 Ye
Super Duper Interesting. Never had this kind of experience with dining in the dark and such romantic place.
Wow Nice Restaurant To Dine with friend . I Want I Want To Eat At here ^_^
Super Cool! Id like to celebrate my boyfie birthday there!
This is an interesting restaurant that I wish to try. It can be a great time and experience and also is a good time to go for a celebration with my GF before our wedding on January.
Sounds interesting.
Looks like overally you enjoyed the moment there albeit a little distruption
At least blind workers get to earn for a living seeing that KL has higher cost of living.
Thanks to the team for the chance to blinds.
Hopefully another restaurants get good inspiration from this fantastic concept 🙂
I’m interested, but on the other hand, kinda scared bcos I don’t know what I’ll be eating & I have phobia being in dark places. Really tempted to try though 🙂
A good experience for people who would like to understand the world of blind people…
Wow this amazing how they utilize everyone capabilities to create something unique for us in msia! Dining wit no rush of urgency is when u can fully enjoy ur meal!
Please let me dine in the dark as I have never have this experience before! I have done sharing the pictures on FB hopefully I will be the lucky ones!
Wow! should go and try it… ^.^ Thanks for sharing….
It’s finally in Malaysia! Besides the difficult other diners, I bet it was such a great experience rite? Can’t wait to try it myself!
Done participated your dinner giveaway contest 🙂
this place is really awesome and im so excited and wishing to gain a such experience like this.
I wonder how could we go toilet? holding the staff’s hand also?
I’ve participating the contest u hosted on ur facebook fanpage, hope i could be the lucky one 😀
What an interesting place. I had done the sharing to participating in “Dining in the Dark”.
Cool concept! Saw this in the Star yesterday, and now the FB contest that you’d hosted. Hope we are lucky enough to experience this! 🙂
Should be an interesting and unique experience for me 🙂
Christmas date with my GF, please 🙂
Truly amazing! It really gives a great opportunity for us whom are blessed with the ability of sight to realize and understand the disabilities of the visually impaired. Truly remarkable.
Thanks for the detailed write-up, rare to see Rebecca’s post with such few picture.
Hope to win some free passes, but will sure wanto try it.
Wanna To Dine At here With My friend . hope I am the lucky To win pass from Rebecca saw.
Waiting chances to see if I’m able to explore the food in darkness with food surprised. Please enlighten me with the dining voucher then shall keep you inform on my experiences. Good detailed post Rebecca. Support!!
Hope to win and experience this!
I’ve heard of this long time ago, finally it’s in M’sia! Hope I can try this~
I wan to try!!! interesting experience..haha
Wish can had a romantic dining in the dark with my dear Hoe Yau Tuck
It is absolutely intriguing in relying on pure sense of the human anatomy. Would love to share it with beloved to indulge in this special dining experience.
Hope to win and experience this with my dearest…
Hope to win and experience this my lovely…
Dining in the Dark should be doing really well. It’s noble way to provide respectable employment for the visually impaired. I come from the old world values where you eat only at the dining table. Meal times are when we catch up with family and friends without the distraction of TV (and smartphones of today). I think this is a good concept to de-stress. Disconnect with world briefly and utilize your senses to the max in a place that is lack of light to challenge your seeing ability, entice your taste buds, soothe your hearing sense, enjoy the aroma of the food & simply appreciate a different experience. Or else, just to mamak with friends where you whatsapp, tweet, update FB & not talk to your dining partner hahahahahahaha
Rebecca Saw I Want To Dine At Here. Really Want. Pick Pick me. ^_^
This restaurant is amazing ! I like the dark surrounding and the shining light jewelry! Never try this restaurant before , hope can dinner with my cousin to celebrate her birthday at the quiet,lightly,delight,and neat place!
Dining in The Dark KL Is the Refined Experience. Want To Have Dinner At Here With My Friends .^_^
Nowadays people not only want to dine in a restaurant with good food, soothing ambient, friendly service and those standard things. We want special theme restaurant which we can have fun and share the joy around friends. I would like to go with my friend. Rebecca – please put me on your list!
I had done the sharing to participating in “Dining in the Dark”.
Dining In The Dark Kl Is A very Good Place To dine With my Best Friend Steven Sua. He Like To Eat At Nice Restaurant. Rebecca Saw . Hope I can Win this Pass . From : ur Fan . 😀
Amazing write-up. Really wish to experience this dine-in dark restaurant. Once in a life + total blind time. Thank you Rebecca!!
I have tried this before. I having difficulties to make an order because the place so dim. But I still go there because I think is so romantic