I'd been dreading going to Opaque ever since I'd made the reservation. For a week, the mere thought of the place would make my palms sweat and long-dormant childhood fears come boiling up like angry ghosts. "I can't believe I'm doing this," my brain would say to itself. "Who's idea was this, anyway? Oh right, mine. Dammit."
To give you some context: Opaque is the famous LA restaurant where you dine in complete darkness. That's right -- a completely blacked out room, with multi-course gourmet meals served by a team of blind waiters. The idea is that, once your sight is taken away, all your other senses -- particularly taste -- go through the roof. It's the grandaddy of all LA gimmick restaurants.
It's also, I presumed, a nightmarish deathtrap for anyone who has claustrophobia or fears of the dark. Of which I have both. I could see myself being guided into the airless black depths of the restaurant, where my panic reflex would kick in and I would flee the room in a flurry of screams and overturned tables. The only thing that kept me from backing out was Bobby, one of the friends in my dinner party, an ex-quarterback alpha-male whom I didn't want to wimp out in front of. (Bobby looks like me, except one foot taller, musclebound, sandy-haired, clean shaven and handsome. It's like we were separated at birth.)
Jump ahead a few days and the night is upon you. You walk into the restaurant's 80's-style lounge, where you pick your entrees from a prix fixe menu. You pour a martini down your throat and think of the time your older sister trapped you inside a storage box when you were five and you peed your pants. Your waiter, a loveable cat who resembles Charles S. Dutton, rolls up and instructs everyone in your party to link hands to shoulders, forming a train. You follow him through a cloaked doorway, then through another, light diminishing with every step you take, until you round a corner and it's like Homeland Security has dropped a sackcloth over your head. Holy shit! They were not fucking around with this "complete darkness" business! Shutting your eyes is suddenly the same as keeping them open. The air turns thick. Your heart jackhammers. Fight-or-flight instincts rear up. Panic overtakes you...
...and then, just like that, everything settles. You sit down, you hear other people around the room talking and laughing, you echo-visualize the space around you, and relief suddenly washes over you in a great wave. Your pupils are so jacked that you can make out bits of static electricity flying off napkins like green fireflies. What was oppressive starts to feel cozy. Fear becomes giddiness. You're filled with the rare sensation of being absolutely, 100%, present.
Below is a list of things that were said while dining at Opaque (from the moment we sat down and over the course of the dinner.)
--"Where's Bobby?"
--"Uh, Bobby... left."
--"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
--"Wow, this place really makes you empathetic toward the blind."
--"How, exactly, did they put out a job ad looking for blind waiters?"
--"Hey guys, Bobby's back! Nice of you to show up, pussy."
--"That sign by the entrance that said 'Dress Code Strictly Enforced'... that's a joke, right?"
--"Waitaminute -- you haven't been eating with your hands the entire time?
--"Why the hell did they give us mashed potatoes? Don't they know I'm eating with my hands??"
--"Wouldn't it be hilarious if the waiter's just pretending to be blind, and he's laughing his ass off at us right now?"
--"For real, this might be the best filet mignon I've ever had in my life."
--"It must be awesome to be a chef here. You don't have to care at all about presentation."
--"This would either be the world's easiest or hardest place to dine-and-dash."
--"I have literally been picking my nose and flipping you off this entire time."
You get the idea.
Strange as it to say, there was something oddly therapeutic waiting for me in the darkness that night.
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• WHAT: Dining in complete darkness at Opaque
• WHERE: 2020 Wilshire Boulevard, Santa Monica, CA (310) 546-7619
• WHEN: Thurs-Saturday, starting at 7 PM. Reservation required.
• $$$: Not cheap -- the prix fixe menu is $100 per person
Haynes Holiday 
Last year, your intrepidLA writers decided they'd had enough of the "daily grind" that goes along with running a website (i.e. drinking rotgut wine to dull the pain, dodging phone calls from concerned loved ones, not being able to afford bedsheets) and came up with an escape plan: we were going to make a brilliant short film that would swiftly catapult us into careers as directors and producers, and leave behind this blogging bullshit for the birds. Hollywood was calling us, by our correct names (unlike what happens to us during sex) and who were we to ignore the call? We immediately launched a Kickstarter campaign and dove into making our future happen.
