Cruise Food...

On our cruise i thought about documenting our food dining experiences...and though it would've been fun...i failed to do so.

Let me make some comments here though. Overall one of the biggest disappointments about our cruise was the food. I had heard a lot about Princess Cruises food and so perhaps there was some hype there but oh well. My main gripe was that the buffet food was consistently luke warm if not cold. One day I can understand...but it was consistently cold. Not being a big fan of buffet food in the first place this made my dining experiences that much more disappointing. I will say that all the buffet food that was supposed to be cold was very tasty including: lox, shrimp cocktail, lobster claws, crab, and cold cut sandwiches. The food that was warm was good including the various breakfast potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, eggs over medium. It was also nice to have the green tobasco sauce readily available to spicen up your food. Fortunately we did not hit up the buffet as much.

The food in the dining room was hot and pretty good. Every night you could have a 3 course meal.

The burgers and pizza were stupendous. Burgers were not cooked to order -- all were cooked well done and still were delicious. The pizza was thin crust new york style and there was a specialty pizza every day. Can't get any better than that when you are stranded on a boat in the middle of the ocean.

My favorite meal on the cruise was the jalapeno olives in the extra dirty gin martinis that somehow became my drink of choice on vacation...okay that was a joke maybe. ;)



In all honesty the last day of the cruise I noted that everything was served steaming warm including the buffet food and on that last day I encountered my favorite meal which was probably the lentil and potato samosas. I had a pheasant vennison terrine that was pretty tasty and a filet that was good too.

All in all -- there's something to be said about a hot lunch or hot supper and I was excited to resume my normal dining food temperature upon return to land.

Where am I and do I have to go back to Ohio...aka the Ft. Lauderdale Bar Crawl

Betty and I flew down to Ft. Lauderdale the night before our cruise and man oh man was I impressed. My main memories of Florida were going to Orlando, Orlando, and then some more Orlando as a kid. I found Ft. Lauderdale to be very clean, upscale, and quiet. I was prepared for college kids on spring break and while there was some of that -- there was a strange calm in the warm night breeze that was seductive. I suppose the fact that it was 80 something degrees with clear skies in March and that I was surrounded by the ocean and the woman I loved helped as well. Betty and I hit up the strip and decided to jumpstart the first day of our vacation by doing a bar crawl.


First stop was Sangria's cafe. We decided we'd start of with a gigantic margarita...everybody else was doing it.


Margarita was nothing to write home about but at the same time it didn't really matter cause everything else was so perfect. So perfect that we didn't bother finishing either of ours. :) We did split a chicken quesadilla that was simple and delicious. One thing I noted about Ft. Lauderdale was that you started to forget about how good the drinks or food were and just really took in the ocean view and relaxing vibe of the city.

Not properly buzzed from our first drink we decided to check out the House of 100 Tequilas.


We took a seat at the bar and engaged the bartender in a conversation on tequilas and Ft. Lauderdale culture. We tried 2 tequilas that I had never heard of and they were tasty.




Later on that evening we ended the evening at our Hotel Restaurant and Bar at the Hilton called Ilios. We sat on the patio where we had a dramatic view of the ocean and skyline. We had some martini's and tried a number of their tapas that were delicious and pricey including:



a crab and corn chowder; bread with 3 dipping oils/butters; and shrimp and mango ceviche



along with a jerk chicken with carmelized sweet potatoes and asparagus.

It was a whirlwind night before our cruise. The mood of the Ft. Lauderdale strip made it difficult for even the grumpiest of critics to mind the expensive drinks and cuisine. There was definitely a magical and intoxicating vibe (okay...maybe that's being too literal) in the air that stole Betty and mine's heart and money. Let's see how I feel when my credit card bill for this month comes.

Casablanca Cafe Crab Cakes are tight.

(Note: Okay so this post really should follow the next post about the Ft. Lauderdale Bar crawl. We saw this place the first night we were there and it looked very inviting and had a tremendous view of the ocean. We decided to check it out the next day for lunch before leaving Ft. Lauderdale.)

Betty and I flew down to Ft. Lauderdale before our East Caribbean cruise. The strip was small but clean and chill. We saw this place called Casablanca cafe that overlooked the beach and decided to check it out before we headed off to our Cruise Port. We ordered Crab Cakes and Tuna Sashimi.




Yes. The meal tasted as good as it looked. The crab and tuna tasted oh so fresh. The crab cake was one of the best I'd tried and was pretty massive and adorned with a watercress sprout salad and very yummy avocado and passion fruit creme fraiche . The tuna was tasty as well. My only disappointment was that the 2 appetizers did not complement each other as they had pretty dissimilar tastes -- but I'll take the blame for that as I saw seared tuna -- overlooking the sashmi part.

If you happen to be in Ft. Lauderdale definitely check out this restaurant for the food, vibe, and great view of the ocean:

http://www.casablancacafeonline.com/