Without difficulty, the Tibetan restaurant Tsampa qualifies as the darkest restaurant I’ve ever eaten in. The only way it could have been darker would have been if the tiny white votive candles at each table were blown out. Andie, Katie and I took turns raising the one at our table to review our menus. Our waiter may have noticed our predicament because he later brought over another candle, which brightened things but not much. If, as a child, I’d been caught by my mom reading in this level of light, I’d have been chastised to turn on a light lest I go blind.

I drank a beer although I sort of wanted to try the traditional barley drink, described by our server as having the thickness of a milkshake and the sweetness of a dessert. Tiny tofu cubes and hot pepper topped my eggplant sauté and overall the dish was so un-spicy that I dumped a bunch of hot sauce on it to amp it up.

Afterward, we walked over to East 4th Street for drinks at KGB Bar and continued the low-light-level theme of the evening with goofy snapshots.

Tsampa

• 212 E. 9th St.
• (212) 614-3226
• Meal 34 of 52: a bottle of Singha beer ($5) and eggplant sauté ($9.95).