Fantastic Flight

I don’t often read the Sun newspaper, but I picked up a copy while grabbing some sinful and embarrassing snacks from the dollar store the other day. I do sometimes follow the articles about local government and events (for example the ongoing NCSWA trash debacle). And, this paper has the most outlandish and plentiful police reports I have ever seen. Anyway, deep in the classified section, I saw a small ad announcing an “experimental pop up eatery near Espanola.” It only had a phone number and was pretty vague and cryptic. I love a good mystery and was intrigued, though also on guard to it being a scam. I called the number and was answered by an even more cryptic outgoing message, asking me to leave my contact so, warily, I left my number.  I was called back on the same day by a pleasant and young sounding man who asked me some questions, mostly pertaining to my interest and experience with food and unusual places that I’ve dined at. He then invited me and one guest to the Espanola Airport on Saturday at 5pm (wait, Espanola has an airport?). He gave me a code word and told me to recite it to the staff that would meet us and, presumably, other people who saw the ad and were deemed worthy of this clandestine invite.
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Hoping we had nothing to lose by showing up, we drove to the airport the next Saturday with excitement and trepidation. There was a huge white circus-like tent, the biggest I’d ever seen, out in an open field near the runway. It looked brand new and we couldn't see what was inside from the parking area, as it was completely walled to the ground with only a small opening visible from our distance. Weirdly, there were a few horses and, I think, a llama, kind of blocking the entrance.  I’m thinking, ok, a catered feast at the airport with maybe a cowboy theme?  Strange, not super exciting, but we were game. We were met by a large shuttle, asked for the code word by the driver, then taken to the tent. I counted 30 people, so I assumed at least 15 had responded to the ad.

​We were told to walk into the small doorway, single file. It was very dark inside. Once through a short, near blackout, tunnel-like hallway, we entered a larger space. There was a dim glowing blue light and it was barely light enough to see my wife’s or anyone else’s face. Once my eyes adjusted somewhat, I saw a surprisingly small oval room, probably about 40 feet long and 25 feet wide. There were 15 very nicely set and plated tables, each with only two chairs and all on the outermost edges of the room against the wall. In the middle, on large round tables, were colorful, pyramid shaped stacks of food, maybe fruit and cakes and an array of silver pans with sterno flames? Too many to name and too dim to really understand what I was looking at. But, it was all very inviting and comfortable and strange.

​We were each guided to a table with our respective partners and asked if we preferred red or white. This could only mean wine, so we opted for red. It turned out to be a 2013 Malbec from St. Helena, one of my favorite towns in the wine region of California, and a very good year! When the wine arrived we were asked to hand over our phones and told that we would be given them back at the end of the evening. Ok then…

Pleasant, taciturn and efficient waiters brought several small plates to our table filled with very eclectic and very delicious tapas. There were succulent bbq ribs, bacon wrapped dates and small spicy deep fried jalapeños filled with a rich, creamy cheese and some sort of nut, pecans, I think. We were eating up all this mystery, wondering what the catch was and how much was this going to cost when the room started to vibrate and hum, but quietly and smoothly. Then it felt like we were thrust up, crazy fast, but again very smoothly, and the room was filled with blue, sunny light. Each table had a curved window twice as large as the table and floor to ceiling in height. It was brain twisting to try to make sense of what we were seeing. It looked like the sky, the sky at 30,000 feet, like high up in a jet, but we weren’t moving, we were, uh, hovering. What is happening here!!? We all looked at each other in disbelief. The floor started to pulsate with warm, inviting light, and then gradually louder music filled the room with a rhythmic beat. The calm waiters kept bringing out food, now on bigger plates filled with sophisticated concoctions seemingly from all parts of the world. There was Baingan Bharta, one of my favorite eggplant dishes from India and a Chicken Cacciatore, rivaling any I’ve tried in central Italy. All this amazing food and the never ending flights of wine and music and now, dancing, took me to another place. A dreamlike place where we all happily embraced the intoxication with relaxed joy. Were we drugged? During a hypnotic spin on the dance floor, my wife looked at me with the same awe and wonder we shared way back when we were falling in love for the first time. It was a beautiful moment and I can still feel like it just only happened a moment ago. Then the music softened and the floor lights started to fade, and we all seemed to come back to reality and I noticed that the windows were now dark. The waiters had cleared all of the tables, our wine glasses had disappeared and that same dim, blue light was back. Abruptly, the small door opened in the “tent” and we were all gently herded towards it, handed back our phones in the now dark, open night and put back on the shuttle.

The entire evening is blurry and distant now, like maybe the whole thing was a dream. But the memories of it my wife and I share to the tee. I’ve driven back out to that exact location where the tent was. There is no sign of it ever being there and it seems impossible that it ever could be. But I’m thankful I was able to snatch these few photos before they took our phones away. It was a truly mind blowing dining experience I doubt I’ll ever top. And, we never did get a bill…
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