Can you tell that I like to write about food?  Well, here I go again.  There is quite a variety of food related options aboard ship.  That makes us happy!

The main dining rooms are very good.  The menu changes each night, and generally includes an appetizer, a soup or salad course, a main course, and dessert.  If you really want you can have more than one of any course (we try to avoid doing that, most of the time).  A typical appetizer might be a pate or small seafood item (tonight we both had a seafood pate).  Soups usually include a hot soup, like mushroom, and a cold soup (tonight they had peach and mango cold soup with dried apricots.)  Mains usually include at least one seafood, one red meat, and one foul (tonight they had lobster and prawns, pheasant, and beef Wellington).

One thing that is hard to get is very much green vegetables.  We have been known to swing by the buffet just to see if there is any broccoli out.  An extra plate of asparagus tonight was a real treat.

A funny thing is that sodas count as bar items, which means you are charged separately for them.  I could order two plates of lobster if I wanted, without charge, but I would be charged extra if I had a diet coke with them.

In the main dining rooms you have the option of signing up for a regular seating, with a regular assigned table I believe, or you can sign up for “anytime dining”, which means you can show up anytime you want, but you’ll have to wait if the tables are full.  We prefer to be able to go to dinner when we want rather than be on a schedule.  I’m not sure if you can have a small assigned table, but with anytime dining you have the option of sharing a table or asking not to share.  I guess we’re just anti-social, but we really dislike sitting where we have to make conversation with strangers, so we also ask for a two person table.  The people at the entrance have learned by now that we don’t want to share and barely ask anymore.

There are actually three different main dining rooms.  One is strictly assigned seating, one allows open seating for limited hours, and the third allows open seating the whole time.  Occasionally if there is not an open two seater in our regular dining room, they take us up to one of the others.

Up top there are the buffets on the lido deck (where the pools are).  The food is still good, but less fancy.  There is a bit more tendency to serve more ethnic dishes up there.  There might be a night emphasizing Mexican, another night Asian, etc.  One night I had a bit of braised goat!  We have learned that going up there once in a while for dinner can be a nice break from the main dining rooms.  That is also where the people go who either want a more casual atmosphere or want to pig out (stories of people going crazy on cruise ship food are legendary).  At least this older crowd seems to be much less into the gorging.  Out on the open deck by the pools are also a pizza stand, a burger stand, and a soft ice cream stand.

Then there are the upcharge restaurants, where you pay a specific additional charge to eat.  One is a steak house and the other is Italian.  The Italian restaurant ($20) is definitely a step up.  It is a little harder to see how the steak house ($25) is an improvement, except that presumably they do a really good steak.  We have noticed that the steaks in the main dining rooms tend to be a bit thin and overcooked.  While the specialty restaurant menus do not change, they are a lot less busy, so can be the place to go if you want to avoid a crowd.

There are several other little food nooks around the ship.  One is a wine bar with tapas, and another is a little café where you can get pastries, sandwiches, and gelato.  One bar sometimes serves a pub lunch (had a scotch egg there one day!).

-M