Dining in the Dark - Abigails, Highland Park Sept 19

Abigails is hosting a blind dinner to benefit the Foundation for Retinal Research. Test your palate with a four course meal paired with wine - all while blindfolded.


I love this restaurant, so I will be attending...

Let me know if you plan on attending. It would be nice to (not) see LTHers there.


Call the restaurant for reservations. The cost is $75/person ++ tax/tip


Abigail's American Bistro
493 Roger Williams Ave
Highland Park, Il 60035
(847) 780 4682
http://www.abigails493.com


From their email:
FRR's mission is committed to finding treatments and cures for Retinal Degenerative Diseases (RDD) and supporting the lives of affected families.


-Matt

Hi,

Did you attend? What was it like?

I somehow missed this announcement. I remember when they were serving food in the dark in Paris. I later learned the waitstaff was blind, too.

Regards,

This was a lot of fun and was a challenging exercise.

We had a four course meal. Each course contained two distinct foods that were placed at nine and three as if the plate were a clock. Each course came with two wines served in rocks glasses. We ate each course with our blindfolds on and then we took them off when chef Paulsen spoke about the dish.

It took about ten minutes to get used to being in a blindfold. Conversation was a bit slow/awkward until the food came out. We really rely upon non-verbal cues.

Once the first course came, we embraced the challenge of identifying the foods and wines we were eating.

I was able to identify the lobster in the first course, but got hung up on the bay scallops. I wasn't confident, but thought it was some sort of gelee or a grape without the skin. The task of the wine pairing was to contrast two sparkling wines prepared with different fermentation processes.

I was unable to guess both components of the second course too. The duck breast was easy for me, but I've probably cooked duck more in my life than beef. The room was surprised when the it was revealed that duck was the protein; these people must not eat duck. The second component tripped me up. It was a sweet soup. My wife guessed squash with cinnamon, but I had no idea. It was a roasted pear soup with cinnamon and it was very good. They gave us a red wine and a white wine served at room temperature. We were to identify which was which. This was not hard.

I nailed the final savory course. It was mustard crusted lamb chops with a parmesan arancini and kale. My wife thought the greens were collards, but I was certain it was kale. The wine exercise was to distinguish between high alcohol and lower alcohol reds. I tried to guess the varietals, but wasn't even close.

The final course was cheese. Here is a picture of it:






The food, of course, was excellent. I encouraged chef to have more special events as this was definitely worthwhile and it was cool to see him serve some items that typically aren't on his menu. Until then, I will continue to go to Abigail's every couple of weeks. It is one of my favorite suburban destinations.

HI,

Thanks for the report. It certainly sounded interesting.

I once was served a fruit tarte at dusk. I caught a hint of color of the fruit, which was enough for me to leap to the assumption it was kumquat. I learned later it was golden raspberry. While dusk offers more light than what you experienced, it did prove to me how I relied on visual cues, too.

Again, thanks for offering your experience.

Regards,