One evening in mid-August, a dozen people gathered at Ryokusenji temple in Tokyo's Asakusa district for a meal. But this was to be no regular feast, as the diners sitting shoulder to shoulder with strangers would all be blindfolded and served a series of dishes the organizers would not disclose beforehand.
No wonder tension was already in the air when I arrived to share in this so-called Kurayami Gohan (Dark Dinner).
These monthly events are fully booked within a few days of the schedule being posted on the Web by Higanji, a group of young nondenominational Buddhists undertaking this and other experimental projects in Tokyo. That's according to Kakuho Aoe, at age 32 the 14th-generation heir to 400-year-old Ryokusenji, who also heads Higanji.