Chow Time

So, you may be wondering, what did we eat on the cruise? Well, much to Aaron's chagrin, I took pictures of almost everything we ate, so if you're curious about our food consumption, you're in luck!

Our cruise was a "freestyle" cruise, so we didn't have an assigned table with strangers and we didn't have to eat at an assigned time. That was kind of nice. The ship had a couple different buffet restaurants, a variety of free restaurants (the best thing about cruises is that your meals are included) and - this is new to me - restaurants that have a "cover charge". We didn't eat at any of the restaurants that had a cover charge. (The cover charge ranged from $10, $15 and up to $20. This covered your whole meal, but not drinks. Drinks were extra across the board.)

There were two restaurants (their names were the Summer Palace and Indigo) that offered four-course meals. You sat down at a table with a white tablecloth and ordered off of a menu. Very fancy pants.

There were also a couple specialty restaurants - Italian (La Cucina), Tex Mex (Mambo's) and "Comfort Food" (I can't remember the name of it).

Lastly, there were three buffet restaurants - The Garden Cafe, The Grill and The Great Outdoors. The one that was open the most was the Garden Cafe. The Great Outdoors was neat because it was outside (how fitting) and it was on the back of the ship, so it wasn't too windy.

Also important, and not to be forgotten: Room service. Awww, yeah! We ordered room service A LOT! It's also free, but has a more limited menu. I forgot to take photos of it, because by the time the room service food came, we just wolfed it down. Room service offered things like muffins, coffee, tea, fruit plates, cold cereal, sandwiches, cookies and other small a la carte items.
Sooo, without further ado, here are some of the types of meals we had (these are all pictures from the sit down restaurants and not the buffets - mmmm'k?)...

In the four-course menu restaurants, they always started you with bread:

and butter (good Danish butter):

Next were your first and second courses. That was usually soup or some type of salad or fruit.

Egg drop soup:

Chicken Skewer with tzatziki on a bed of romaine:

Some type of spring rolls (I didn't like these - I thought I was ordering egg rolls.)

Next, was the main course, of course.

An egg and cheese tortilla (it had a fancier name. Aaron said it wasn't spicy enough, though.)

Cod with asparagus and potatoes:

Gnocchi in a pumpkin sauce (Aaron ordered this, but didn't like it. I'm not a fan of gnocchi.)

Tilapia with jasmine rice in a coconut sauce (this was awesome! I loved it.):

Risotto with parmesan (this was excellent, too):


Last, but certainly not least, they served us decadent desserts!

Flourless chocolate cake:

Mocha mousse:


Thumbs up for lemon pie:

Orange chocolate cake (this was soooo good! It tasted like those chocolate oranges you get at Christmas):

Tuesday night of our cruise was Moxy P'Toxy's beau's birthday! Get the double entendre? We told our server and he brought out a birthday cake and they sang! Just like at Red Robin!

Chocolate mousse (Aaron had at least one serving of mousse every day on the cruise!):

As you can see, we ate a lot! I'm still detoxing. I'm mostly eating carrots and lettuce right now and drinking lots of water. I felt like a water buffalo by the last day of the cruise. The food was great, but there was so much of it! It's fun to induldge, though! And indulge, we did. Can you pass me the Alka Seltzer?