Dear readers, Thank you for reading my blog: The Blind Taste Test! This week, I was preparing to be interviewed by the founder of a great website called
Vision Aware
Her name is Maureen, and besides running the VisionAWARE website, she also edits an excellent academic journal of which I am a particular fan. (I was not aware of this before our lunch this week.) For your information, she is one of the associate editors of the Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness: “the premier international, interdisciplinary journal of record on blindness and visual impairment that publishes scholarship and information and serves as a forum for the exchange of ideas, airing of controversies, and discussion of issues”. I have not only read this journal in the past but I also have referred to it for several papers in college and graduate school. To learn more, please click here

Introduction:

I attempted to locate a restaurant where we could meet; it needed to be somewhat quiet, centrally located, and of course, it needed to make great food. She suggested an interesting new restaurant called Stellina; however, after looking up its menu on
Menupages
I felt doubtful about it due to its limited selection especially considering my picky nature. I ended up suggesting Primehouse. This should come as no surprise to my regular readers; if it sounds familiar then you can look at my:

top 10 hamburger list

She agreed with my idea so we set up a day and time to meet for lunch and an interview.

The Restaurant Experience:

From the moment I entered Primehouse, I could already tell what type of experience awaited me: all of the staff were very nice, (they seemed to remember me which is strange because I don’t eat there very often), and they were accommodating (which can be a great thing especially if you are a person living with a disability). In addition, I began recognizing positive elements of the atmosphere: the music was low but just high enough to be heard, the tables were spread out which was very helpful, and despite the conversations around us, the room felt hushed and laid back.
This was my first time meeting Maureen and my first time being interviewed so I was feeling a little nervous. However, our conversation felt remarkably easy and the time just flew by. I had no problem opening up to her about my life, which as some of you might know, has had many twists and turns. She is a great person to talk to and it seemed like more of a chat then an interview, although I’m sure she will have enough information from me to write it up. I was shocked when we stood up to leave: I checked the time on my talking cell phone and realized that we had been talking for almost three hours!
And then there’s the food: both of our meals were excellent and we had no complaints. I started with the Primehouse hamburger: topped with melted Swiss cheese and cooked medium well (I can already hear the negative comments but it was so delicious). As usual, the seasoning and crisp char of the hamburger were outstanding and I was extremely satisfied. In addition, this burger was served with some of the best thickly cut steak fries which definitely increased my enjoyment of this meal: they were very crisp on the outside but soft and full of real potatoes on the inside. If there was an award for “best French fries served with a hamburger”, then Primehouse would be the easy winner by far. Maureen ordered the lobster roll and she was impressed by not only the quality of the ingredients but also by the massive quantity (apparently it is quite a creation with the roll itself being stuffed with lobster almost until it is beyond capacity). Specifically, she described to me that the roll was filled with expertly prepared lobster salad, cucumber, avocado, tomato, and bacon, and was served with great potato chips.
Our meal was great, but my experience extended beyond the food and it was a true pleasure to have lunch with Maureen at Primehouse. I would encourage all of you to read
her version of our lunch meeting

Her website, VisionAWARE, contains a great deal of excellent information about a range of topics regarding “Information For Adults Experiencing Low Vision, Vision Loss, and Blindness”:
www.visionaware.org
Once again, I highly recommend Primehouse, and I thank you for your time.
Dan