Dear Travel Partners,

We at Focus Asia are delighted to be able to share with you some of the best and more unusual dining and evening entertainment experiences in Ho Chi Minh City.  Any of the below options can be included within one of our itineraries, just contact your Sales Manager in charge for more information!

Noir. - Dining in the Dark  

Background

Of the five senses, sight dominates. Take away sight, and our other senses emerge to interpret the world from another perspective.

Smell becomes more subtle. Taste becomes more acute. Hearing becomes more sensitive. Touch becomes more delicate.

You are invited to experience a culinary journey through taste, smell, touch and sound. This is not simply dining, but rather a uniquely mind-altering experience...

Where smell, taste, touch and hearing unite to bring you a completely new journey of the senses...

The Menu

The Chef and his team have designed the meal around different cooking techniques and ingredients from Vietnam and Asia with surprising textures, flavours, tastes. This is not simply dining, but rather a uniquely mind-altering experience where smell, taste, touch and hearing unite to bring you a completely new journey of the senses.

There are three menu options: Menu from the East, Menu from the West and a Vegetarian Menu. Any allergies can also be catered for, just inform the team in advance.

The Experience for the Diner - From my perspective

The experience begins in the waiting area, where you are given eye masks that escort you into temporary darkness and basic board games to give you a taste of what it's going to be like in the dining room and so that you can adjust to what it's like having to do things without your sight. The board games are very simple and intended for young children, but are surprisingly extremely difficult when you can't see anything!

You are then greeted by your waiter/waitress and are told a little about their life and their background. They then ask you to hold onto their shoulder while they escort you into the pitch black dining room... From then on, you are completely at their mercy and 100% reliant on them for everything!

You would expect that perhaps you can see vague outlines of people, from just a little light sneaking in somewhere under the crack of a door maybe... but no, it truly is pitch black; total darkness. It takes a while to adjust, you feel a little nervous at first as all your other senses heighten in response to losing your vision; everything seems a little louder and sharper.

Once you have gotten over the initial shock of the darkness, it's quite a funny experience listening to people fumble as they try to find their glasses and cutlery, then also as they miss their mouths when trying to get food from their plate to their lips!

The statement that "people tend to experience food with their eyes rather than their palates" is so true. It's amazing how, whilst delicious, it is extraordinarily difficult to determine exactly what you're eating. I was certain the meat I was eating was beef, but I later found out at the end of the meal that it has been pork! It's also surprising how difficult it is to recognize foods you eat every day, like carrots.  

The food was absolutely delicious and I was so surprised to find out afterwards not only how wrong I had been about many of the items I had eaten, but how much effort still goes into the presentation of the food (as you can see from the photos), despite the fact that it's pitch black in the dining room!   

Noir's states that "Dining in the Dark is more than just a meal. It is a sensory journey that will make you re-evaluate your perception of taste and smell" and I could not agree more! I highly recommend this one-of-a-kind for anyone looking for something a little different and unique when visiting Saigon, Vietnam.

Charitable Work

It is estimated that there are around 4,000 visually impaired people in Ho Chi Minh City; current surveys revealed that only 6.3% of visually impaired or blind people are employed, and of those employed, the majority are only ever able to take unskilled labour positions with a very low monthly income and little to no opportunities of building a career for the future.

All the staff hired by Noir are either totally blind or visually impaired. Not only does this make Noir a very charitable organization, offering training and opportunities for these struggling local people, but for the diner it truly gives them an appreciation of how difficult it is to do basic things that we take for granted every day, such as finding our seat, picking up our drink, using our knives and forks and even getting food into our mouths! For the diner in the pitch blackness, you become completely reliant on your waiter/waitress; you need to trust them 100% to take you to your seat, pour your drinks, show you where your cutlery is, etc. It is so impressive and gives you total respect to see how competent these people are and what they can achieve if only given the chance.

Noir also donates a percentage of its profits to charities that work with blind and visually impaired local people, including organizations which provide operations to restore sight to visually impaired children. Partners include: Ho Chi Minh Blind Association, Nhat Hong Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired and Nguyen DinhChieu School for Blind Children.

This article was written by Ms. Jo Billington, Director of Sales UK & Ireland of Focus Asia, who personally visited Noir. - Dining in the Dark this year and has written from her own experiences. If you have any questions at all or would like more information about this experience, please do not hesitate to contact her via joanne@focus.asia.

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