Alaska Cruise Pt. 2: Another Dinner at Sea

Another day, another dinner in the dining room. These early dinners were a little rough on Owen and I, as we are used to later dinners and later wake-up times (we're on vacation, right? I always seemed to get a call in the room around 8am with my mom bugging me about why I haven't gotten up yet...) Considering the later wake up time, we'd eat lunch around 1 or 2pm, and having dinner at 5:30pm, it was difficult to be totally excited about what to eat when you're still digesting the last meal...well, I guess it's the way of cruising, right?

One of the appetizers we had that night was the Spinach Turnover on a Light Cheese Sauce. This was pretty decent! I remember the outsides being very crispy and light and the insides being savory and good. I couldn't tell there was cheese in the sauce but it did add to the dish.

I love salmon, so it was a no brainer for me to order this: Norwegian Gravlax and Dill-Mustard Mayonnaise. This was AWESOME! I would slice off a bit of salmon, mash it with a roll - I kind of wish I had this plate in front of me right now.


In the interest of trying new things, I got the Chilled Blueberry soup- "velvety smooth, fruity and creamy", the menu proclaimed. It was actually alright. I was expecting worse, but it kind of tasted like a melted ice cream soup, but more watery. I usually hate that kind of texture but I think the fact that it was properly labeled as a "soup" made it okay, and the bits of real blueberry floating around made the taste very pleasant. I would almost liken this to a Chinese dessert soup, like the red bean tapioca soup I would get at the end of a Chinese dinner. This was a very desserty soup - wish they had this as an option for dessert instead of a soup.


Sea Scallops on a bed of Belgian Endive - Pan Roasted Coquilles with Carrots, Scallions and Rice Pilaf. Pretty good, the scallops were pretty big, and had a good texture to them, and the rice was really tasty. I think this is one of the few times on the cruise that I had rice.


Aged New York Steak- (this is one of those plates that are always available) - Owen got this because he didn't want anything else on the rotating menu. He said it was okay, but not salty enough (like every other meat eaten on this cruise). Oversteamed and overcooked carrots, asparagus and mushrooms, and mashed potatoes rounded out the rest of this plate.


My brother got the "Veal Cordon Bleu - Breaded thin slices of meat, stuffed with swiss cheese and ham, accompanied with zucchini and anna potatoes". I try not to eat veal very often, for the immoral-ness of eating baby cow, but I admit, the small taste I had was pretty good. Really, if you fry anything and stuff it with cheese and ham, how can it not be good?


I got the Yankee Style Pot Roast - Braised top loin of beef in a cabernet sauvingnon sauce presented with cream potatoes, glazed baby carrots and garden green peas. Alright. Nothing to write home about, but the gravy helped the meat, to not be so tasteless. The texture was good, but again, not salted very well. Overcooked peas and carrots for the old folks, and mashed potatoes.


Ah, dessert. I got strawberries cooked down in liquor with vanilla ice cream scoops. A decent dessert but strawberries weren't really in season so the slices I got were kind of tart, which they tried to mask with the liquor sauce. The one thing that DID disappoint consistently other than the unsalted meat was the ice cream - it always arrived to us half melted, whereas I prefer ice cream to be very frozen. I admit it's a preference thing.



This is my brother's poached pear - the sugar free choice of dessert for the evening. It was okay.

After a full evening of milling around, checking out the casino, and then playing video games on Owen's laptop till 3am, we would get a bit peckish and order some room service, which was operational 24 hours a day, and free. Owen really took advantage of this by ordering what was to become his favorite thing on the cruise...

Their clubhouse sandwich. Usually, it comes with turkey (from a REAL TURKEY, sliced turkey breast, this was the main draw of this sandwich), crispy bacon, and lettuce and tomato, on white bread with the crusts cut off. Later, Owen would order this with avocado too. It came with chips by default, but you could have fries or a salad instead, if you so chose.

Here's a shot with a few bites out of a half. Aside from the great turkey they used, the bacon was really tops - crispy crunchy and plentiful. Owen could down 2 plates of these on his own - that's how much he loved this. At 3am in the morning. Yep. We were living large...

More to come, for our Alaska cruise!