Alaska Cruise Pt. 7 - Breakfast! and Lunch! And Dinner!

Finally, we got up early enough to have breakfast in the dining room, as Derek was leaving the cruise early. We wanted to have one last meal alltogether, so we obliged by cutting our much needed sleep short.

This breakfast was kind of awkward, because our waitstaff was pretty lame - check this - when the waitress going around, asking if we wanted coffee...we said, "No", right? But then when the lady taking our orders went around taking our orders, and we asked for juice, the waitress got all huffy and angry, and said, "The other waitress was taking your drink order, why didn't you go through her?" Totally confusing, and unnecessary. How were we supposed to know that we were supposed to ask for our drinks when someone asks if we want coffee?

Anyhow.

Another round of salmon, anyone?

Derek and I shared this lox plate, as we wanted to try their regular breakfast items as well. Delicious and generous portion, as usual.

This is what I ordered as my main breakfast, the poached eggs plate. This was a serious awesome plate of breakfast. Check out those bacon slices! That's like, a whole side of pig! The eggs were delicious and perfectly formed - how do they do that? I liked how they were sitting on perfectly toasted toast. The only thing that was disappointing was the hash brown patty, which was not crispy and way too dense.

Owen ordered a combination of blueberry pancakes and a "rasher"of bacon. Owen's bacon was really good, I like crispier bacon, so he ended up switching a few of my pieces for his. He really liked his pancakes but the waitstaff was really slow in locating the syrup, Owen was done with one of his pancakes by the time they found some for him.

This was the special of the day, a scramble of smoked salmon on top of eggs, with the disappointing hash brown patty. This was disappointing for Derek, as the eggs were kinda gross and not the way he liked them (I avoided scrambled eggs on this cruise completely - I knew I'd be disappointed, I like my eggs a bit more runny and less...overcooked.)

Later that day, after going on our excursion (zip lining! totally awesome! I would suggest anyone to try it, so fun!) we were walking around Ketchikan, and saw a small greasy spoon diner called the Pioneer Cafe. Well, I haven't met a diner that I didn't want to go into, so Owen and I sat down and ordered a few things. The older lady who waited on us was very nice and had that awesome attitude that comes with being in a diner most of your life - like how she throws in "hon" into her speech. But what we ordered was kind of awesome!

I got a reindeer hot dog, with fries. This was superb! I was totally not expecting it to taste this good, but it was seriously good, a good amount of spice and kick, grilled perfectly, on a hoagie Columbo style bun, and good fries. Also, what was great was their yellow mustard - a bunch of that, and a bite of the hot dog, and I was totally happy.

Owen got a chicken club sandwich. When it arrived, I admit, I was skeptical, and figured Owen would be completely disgusted and not eat it. But he tried it, and was thouroghly surprised! It was really tasty! Even the american yellow cheese was really good, as it melted onto the crispy chicken, which was super moist on the inside and crunchy on the outside.

This came with Owen's sandwich - a side salad, diner style, with iceberg lettuce, shredded cheddar cheese, tomatoes and mushrooms. Blue cheese dressing came on the side.

Here's a closeup of the reindeer hot dog. Check those grill marks! And if you squint closely enough, you can see parts of Dasher or Dancer...kidding, kidding. This was some good reindeer hot dog though. Reindeer are very tasty.

Then back on the ship again, and dinner in the dining room. First the appetizers...

I started off with"Smoked wild sockeye salmon with condiments and brown bread" - I can't get enough of salmon on this cruise. Delicious as always, and maybe it's just me, but smoked sockeye salmon tasted EVEN BETTER than the other smoked salmons I had on this cruise, but maybe it's just because they called it that? I don't know, all I know is that I love smoked salmon. There was a nice little touch of already cream cheesed brown bread slices.


Next up, "Cook Indlet crab cakes and green asparagus spears, with whole grain mustard and puff pastry crown" - this was disgusting. Inedible, I only took one small bite. Even the puff pastry looks like a pac man mouth that has spit out this untasty crab cake. The crab cake was heavy, like a hockey puck, and hardly tasted of crab and way too much filler. I ate one spear of the asparagus, which was limp and dying. Complete failure.


"Pioneer Lentil soup with caribou sausage, cheese croutons" - this is the soup my brother got. The caribou sausage sounded kinda good, as did the cheese croutons, but the taste that I had just tasted of heavy lentils. Thick and overly filling.


The soup that I got was the "Diced root vegetables in clear oxtail broth" - this had a good beefy oxtail flavor and was still light. I liked it a lot, actually.


Now to the main course..."Supreme of Chicken a la Kiev - Breaded and pan fried breast filet with garlic herb butter, julienne of red beets, pea pods and parsley potatoes". This was good! Owen got this and I wish I had gotten it instead of what I got. Emma, our waitress, called it "High end KFC". That was a pretty good assessment of this dish. The chicken breast was moist and tender, the sugar snap peas were pretty overcooked and dried out. A decent dish overall.


This was one of the more anticipated main courses of the cruise, but totally disappointed me...the "Alaskan King Crab Legs with Melted butter - Split and steamed, served with New Red potatoes and sugar snap peas" - this was pretty bad, actually. The meat was tasteless, no flavor anywhere, even the butter didn't mask the mushy unappealing crabmeat. More of those overcooked snap peas and steamed red potatoes, which were the best thing of this plate. At least I didn't eat too much that night.


Bananas Foster was the dessert they were making tableside, so I got that. The bananas were too overdrowned in the sauce, and didn't crisp up, which is what they're supposed to do, right? Definitely mediocre, and more of that melted soup they're trying to pass off as vanilla ice cream.

Chocolate cake slice for Owen. He liked it, but what is not to like about chocolate cake?

This was the second best sorbet on the cruise, which was BLUEBERRY flavored. The combination of the icy texture with real blueberries thrown into the mix was perfect. I really liked this and wish I could have more.

Melted ice cream soup. What the heck.

This was also disappointing, the crepes. Leah ordered this, and said it tasted like egg and cheese omelet. They didn't sweeten this dessert enough.

Almost there! I promise! Only sea days are left at this point, so we're winding down...