The low tables are laid out with a standard dining set — placemat, napkin, wet cloth, chopsticks. Rather normal, bar one addition: a black eye mask.

This is the setup for Kurayami Gohan, or Dinner in the Dark, a three-hour dining experience in which blindfolded participants try different dishes while attempting to communicate with one another without visual aids.

Kakuho Aoe, the MBA-holding head priest of Asakusa's Ryokusenji temple, originally started the supperclub over a decade ago as, primarily, a "mindfulness through food" experience — simply becoming more aware of what you're eating by dining with a blindfold.