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juushikaSo then. More about the cruise. Something deeper than towel animals, in three parts.
First, let us talk of food. Or rather, of a lack. Not that there's ever a lack of food on a cruise ship, but this one had no idea what it was doing about vegetarian options. On the last cruise ship, which was on the Royal Caribbean line, all vegetarian dishes were marked vegetarian and there was a fair variety of them. On this one...
The general cafeteria, the Lido, had a tolerable selection but didn't mark foods one way or the other so every meal was a guessing game. The quality there was mediocre, with unripe ingredients and general inconstancy, but I could usually find something to eat (although it was often bread and cheese). The main restaurant, the Rembrandt, had one vegetarian dinner menu with about four or five selections for each course—and the menu didn't change during the entire week. The quality was hit and miss (the sushi appetizer was decent; the tempura entré was greasy, burned, and had gone mushy), sometimes from night to night (the celery and Stilton soup was delicious and rich on Friday and disgusting and watery on Saturday). To make matters worse, you had to order your vegetarian options the day before, and orders were taken right before the dessert course—precisely when you were no longer hungry. There were a few incidental vegetation options off the main menu, but hidden meat was everywhere and each dish had to be verified vegetarian at the kitchen. The ship also had two specialty restaurants: Tamarind was Asian fusion, it had no vegetarian options for anything but the entré (which was had only one flavor: salt, and lots of it); the other courses had to be prepared on the fly, and included a tasteless broccoli soup which was lacking both Asian influence and, I swear, any ingredient but broccoli (I think they just put one in a blender and heated it up). Canaletto was Italian, with exactly one vegetarian entré—which was actually pretty good, to be fair, but the antipasto was destroyed by low-quality ingredients. As was to be expected, desserts were universally mediocre, dragged down by syrupy fruits, a heavy hand with the sugar, and low quality chocolate, although there was one flourless lava cake which was pretty tasty.
The wait staff was incredible, and whenever I asked to verify if a dish was vegetarian they were happy to oblige—and they were caught entirely unawares by the request. When you push vegetarian dishes off to a second menu, you treat it as this strange rare thing—something that no one actually wants, something that doesn't need to meet the standards of the rest of the menu, something not really worrying about until someone goes "um" and you have to scramble to throw together a meal for that weird picky eater.
And this, while there were five vegetarians in our group. The others I think were either less strict or more trusting—it was cute, actually, when I was seated with the kids (12 and, er ... under ten, I'm shit at estimating ages) and helping them find something to eat, because they had never thought that soups might contain meat stocks (all those not on the vegetarian menus did), that salad dressing might have anchovies (most do, but it's the specific trademark of Caesar dressing), or all the other ways that meat is hidden in or sprinkled on food. But my point is that while it is a minority choice, being a vegetarian isn't all that weird. For that matter, omnivores can eat vegetarian dishes—and maybe they'd like to try the Stilton soup (on its good days, anyhow).
When you treat vegetarians as a strange, rare minority that doesn't really need to be worried over until they're sitting there in front of you, a bizarre exception to the rule of how "normal" people eat, you more or less guarantee that they will eat second-class food.
And I did, for a week. So there's that on that.
Dev and I went out to Thai food at a weird place called The Woodsman yesterday, and it was surprisingly delicious and surprisingly spicy (spice is another thing you're hard-pressed to find on a cruise ship—that dish burned going down, let me tell you, I was so out of practice); we are already making inroads on our journey back to good food. Today I hope to get my hands on a shortbread cookie, because cruise ships have universally blah desserts. If nothing else, this has reminded us how much we do enjoy food which is actually worth eating.
First, let us talk of food. Or rather, of a lack. Not that there's ever a lack of food on a cruise ship, but this one had no idea what it was doing about vegetarian options. On the last cruise ship, which was on the Royal Caribbean line, all vegetarian dishes were marked vegetarian and there was a fair variety of them. On this one...
The general cafeteria, the Lido, had a tolerable selection but didn't mark foods one way or the other so every meal was a guessing game. The quality there was mediocre, with unripe ingredients and general inconstancy, but I could usually find something to eat (although it was often bread and cheese). The main restaurant, the Rembrandt, had one vegetarian dinner menu with about four or five selections for each course—and the menu didn't change during the entire week. The quality was hit and miss (the sushi appetizer was decent; the tempura entré was greasy, burned, and had gone mushy), sometimes from night to night (the celery and Stilton soup was delicious and rich on Friday and disgusting and watery on Saturday). To make matters worse, you had to order your vegetarian options the day before, and orders were taken right before the dessert course—precisely when you were no longer hungry. There were a few incidental vegetation options off the main menu, but hidden meat was everywhere and each dish had to be verified vegetarian at the kitchen. The ship also had two specialty restaurants: Tamarind was Asian fusion, it had no vegetarian options for anything but the entré (which was had only one flavor: salt, and lots of it); the other courses had to be prepared on the fly, and included a tasteless broccoli soup which was lacking both Asian influence and, I swear, any ingredient but broccoli (I think they just put one in a blender and heated it up). Canaletto was Italian, with exactly one vegetarian entré—which was actually pretty good, to be fair, but the antipasto was destroyed by low-quality ingredients. As was to be expected, desserts were universally mediocre, dragged down by syrupy fruits, a heavy hand with the sugar, and low quality chocolate, although there was one flourless lava cake which was pretty tasty.
The wait staff was incredible, and whenever I asked to verify if a dish was vegetarian they were happy to oblige—and they were caught entirely unawares by the request. When you push vegetarian dishes off to a second menu, you treat it as this strange rare thing—something that no one actually wants, something that doesn't need to meet the standards of the rest of the menu, something not really worrying about until someone goes "um" and you have to scramble to throw together a meal for that weird picky eater.
And this, while there were five vegetarians in our group. The others I think were either less strict or more trusting—it was cute, actually, when I was seated with the kids (12 and, er ... under ten, I'm shit at estimating ages) and helping them find something to eat, because they had never thought that soups might contain meat stocks (all those not on the vegetarian menus did), that salad dressing might have anchovies (most do, but it's the specific trademark of Caesar dressing), or all the other ways that meat is hidden in or sprinkled on food. But my point is that while it is a minority choice, being a vegetarian isn't all that weird. For that matter, omnivores can eat vegetarian dishes—and maybe they'd like to try the Stilton soup (on its good days, anyhow).
When you treat vegetarians as a strange, rare minority that doesn't really need to be worried over until they're sitting there in front of you, a bizarre exception to the rule of how "normal" people eat, you more or less guarantee that they will eat second-class food.
And I did, for a week. So there's that on that.
Dev and I went out to Thai food at a weird place called The Woodsman yesterday, and it was surprisingly delicious and surprisingly spicy (spice is another thing you're hard-pressed to find on a cruise ship—that dish burned going down, let me tell you, I was so out of practice); we are already making inroads on our journey back to good food. Today I hope to get my hands on a shortbread cookie, because cruise ships have universally blah desserts. If nothing else, this has reminded us how much we do enjoy food which is actually worth eating.
