Belle in a Bubble - Dinner in the Spacebuster

A lot of people think New Yorkers live in their own little bubble.

Well, you know, sometimes it's a big bubble.

A friend called Saturday morning to ask if we knew about the pop-up restaurant opening in Brooklyn -- "you know, in the giant, see-through bubble." We sat straight up in bed, ran to our laptop to see the link he sent us and gasped.

It was called the "Spacebuster," and we challenge you to find the child of the '80s who could resist such a thing. A team of German architects-slash-artists have been hosting events in the billowing plastic beast -- its goal is to create spontaneous communities in urban landscapes -- since 2006, and this is her virgin trip to the U.S. (local Slashfoodies can meet her at a formal reception on Tuesday).

The Eighteenth, a roaming underground monthly dinner club, was in charge of a menu that included endive, a bone-broth soup, polenta and an ile flotante. We brushed off the $27 fixed-price menu without a second thought. What is money in a bubble? We pictured a night free of the elements New Yorkers continually battle -- pollution, traffic, stench -- short of major natural disaster, nothing could touch us in a bubble! Upon realizing the evening would be staged in the quiet courtyard of a Gothic can factory, we were sold.

Continued with a photo gallery after the jump.

After winding through a labyrinthine corridor, we came upon the gargantuan orb, and it was resonant of every episode of any movie set in space we'd ever seen. We climbed through a truck to enter the belly of the thing and perched at long, slender tables to munch bitter canapés of mustard green-parsley pesto on toast and endive boats stuffed with catfish and raw egg. The food was not quite to our taste, but the sun was setting, the '60s DJ had started and the bubble itself was starting to whirl and eddy from the wind produced by a nearby tunnel. Organizers had smartly trained a pretty trio of lights on the bubble itself, and it began to glow.

Strangers uncorked and shared BYO wine while we tucked into a potent concoction of coconut water spiked with vodka and jalapenos. It wasn't to our liking, but our new friends -- a sweet brother-and-sister duo from Seattle -- produced a tiny bottle of Jack Daniels because, as she noted, "Keep a fifth of Jack on you and you'll never want for friends." Wise words.

The sun disappeared behind the brick façade and the DJ shifted into high gear. Men wearing outrageous hats materialized by his side. A woman wearing bright red lipstick began to shimmy. A video projector kicked into gear, scrolling ethereal snapshots up the plastic canvas like dreamscapes.

The gimmickiness of the thing -- truly, this is absurd, eating in a bubble -- momentarily got on our nerves, so we stepped outside: "It's just a tent with sides and round top," we thought, "no biggie." We watched it shimmer and observed a trio of late-arriving women round the bend and shriek at the sight: A giant snowglobe full of people, brimming with candlelight, spilling Marvin Gaye into the night. All they wanted was to be inside that bubble immediately, and suddenly we did, too.

We arrived back in time for the cook's triumph, a meringue disc floating in a caramel moat. Sweetened palates tipped the balance: A couple formed one table over. A gentleman smiled at a strange lady preparing to leave and asked her not to go.

We rather wish we'd never left.