Dining in the dark

I was reading the other day about a restaurant in Montreal called O.Noir where the wait staff are all legally blind. When you enter the restaurant there are no lights, and you order and eat in the dark (the name of the restaurant is a verbal play on the French words au noir, which mean in the dark).

The mission of the restaurant is to promote an understanding of what it is to live life as a blind person as well as provide employment for the blind. The side effect is that without the sense of sight, your senses of smell and taste are heightened.*

The idea of dining in the dark got me to thinking and I eventually found myself looking for cutlery that lights up. I found a number of sites--Who knew there was such a need?--including We Glow Ware at the Virginia Toy Company. The We Glow Ware is actually fork, knife and spoon tops that fit onto glow sticks, so the glow is temporary, but you can change it up for each party you throw. Like red and green for Christmas, or blue and white for Chanukah.

I also found flashing beer mugs, but I'll bet that's more interesting to a college kid who has had just enough beer that the flashing is amusing instead of intensely irritating.

*If you're a C.S.I. (Las Vegas) fan, you will have seen a recent episode all about the dining in the dark trend. (For any fanatics out there, it was Episode 2, Season 8 and was called "A La Cart.")