Opaque: Dining in the Dark

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My supper club had dinner at Opaque, the restaurant in San Francisco where you dine in the dark. The first thing you do is make your choices from a set menu while you are in the light. Our waitress, Mocha was born legally blind. She led our party of three like a human train to our booth. Without the ability to see, I think my other senses heightened.

For the appetizer, I selected the ahi tartar with green onions and Asian pears in a sesame-soy vinaigrette with taro chips. It was supposed to come with a wasabi aioli, but I requested to leave that out because I hate wasabi. I loved this dish. The tuna with all its ingredients was delicious. Although I could not see it, I could tell that this tuna was deep red and it was a generous sized dish.

Mocha brought us a plate of three types of vegetables with three dipping sauces without telling us what they were. We had a great time figuring it out. We guessed the vegetables correctly. They were green beans, red pepper, and cucumbers. The sauces were a little more difficult to figure. One was a sun dried tomato and we guessed tomato, another was garbanzo and we guessed hummus, and the last was tahini and we were totally off by guessing some Asian sweet and sour.

My entree of choice was the grilled beef tenderloin with mashed red potatoes, spring garlic, sautéed green beans, in a bourbon-soy glaze. I ordered my meat medium rare. At times I used my knife and fork and at other times, I touched my food with my fingers. The potatoes were a mix of smooth and chunky and the beans were crisp and tasty. I couldn’t prove it, but I think my meat was more medium than medium rare. But it was okay because the sweet glaze on the meat was delicious. Again, I could tell I had a huge plate of food in front of me and I was not able to leave a clean plate behind. I left two small pieces of meat and some of the potatoes.

For dessert I had the bittersweet chocolate cake with minted strawberries and vanilla ice cream. The cake was a bit dry, so I only had a couple of bites of it. I was also so full and really just wanted the strawberries and ice cream which were great.

To sum things up, Opaque was such an interesting, unique, and fun dining experience. It is quite expensive, but I think it’s worth trying once.

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