First Glory Dinner

For many people, their first meal on a cruise is the opening day "lunch" buffet. Many cruise lines open the buffet when boarding starts and leave it open until shortly before sail away. (In our case, the Glory buffet was open until about 4 pm.) However, A and I had both indulged in the awesome Katchkie turkey sandwich for lunch, so we weren't really hungry. The family had also chosen the early dinner seating which meant dinner at 6. Unlike the majority of the ship (or so it would seem, looking at people with 5 buffet plates piled high at 3:30 pm), we chose to forego the buffet (just eating a little bit of fruit) so that we wouldn't be too full for dinner.

If you've never been on a cruise before, you can order as many appetizers, entrees and desserts as you want. I remember the old days when we would order one per course, maybe two. After our last indulgent cruise, we just order whatever we like. No wonder the fitness group says the average weight gain on a cruise is 2 lbs per day (sickening).

For appetizer, A and I decided to be good (still weren't that hungry) and we each ordered 1 appetizer and split a second. The one we split was the marinated fruit with mango coulis:


It sounded like it would be a nice light appetizer and it was. The dish consisted of watermelon balls, pieces of kiwi, a strawberry, some blueberries, a slice of canteloupe, and oddly, a few celery spears. There was also the promised mango coulis. Generally, we liked the fruit plate, but it wasn't really very marinated (other than the celery). On a 5 scale, A would give it a 2.5 and I would give it a 3. (I don't generally do numerical scales, but since all these dishes are made from the same kitchen, might as well do a comparison.)

The appetizer which we both ordered was the escargots bourguignonne ("burgundy snails in garlic butter with an infusion of chablis and pernod"):


The snails also came with a piece of garlic bread. I'm not sure I've ever had bad escargots. It's always so buttery and garlicky that it's good. On a 5 scale, A and I would both give this a 4. (On a side note, Carnival has this section of the appetizers called "didja (as in did you ever...)" for food you wanted to try but didn't dare try. This ended up there, even though escargots seems (to us) to be fairly common on cruises.)

For entrees, I got the pan seared fillet of tilapia:


It came with a green pea fondue, vichy carrots and mac n' cheese, according to the menu. It was also topped with onions (never a bad thing) and some watercress. Many at our table wondered how well mac and cheese would go with tilapia, as it seemed to be an odd combination. It was ok. The mac and cheese was less cheesy, and more creamy. It came in a little dish on the side and seemed a little disjointed. The fish itself was good - light, soft and flaky - and a good mix with the vegetables. On a 5 scale, I would give this a 3.5 (without the mac and cheese) and drop it to a 2.5 or 3 if you included the mac and cheese (as it seemed unnecessary).

A got the lasagna bolognese:


The menu described the lasagna as "baked casserole with layers of pasta, lean ground beef, tomatoes, spinach and mozzarella cheese, served on a lake of pomodoro sauce." The lasagna was very rich and flavorful, and we both enjoyed it. On a 5 scale, A would give it a 4. Even though it wasn't my dish, I really liked the bites that I had, and would agree with A's rating. It was yummy, but being lasagna and bolognese, how can you go wrong?

For dessert, I got the "tropical fruit plate":


This, for some reason, really annoyed me. When I hear "tropical fruit," I think pineapples, papayas, mangoes, guavas, star fruit, etc. Maybe I've been brainwashed by the Dole tropical fruit jars, but that's what I think of (and I'm not alone). The "tropical fruit plate" (I have to put it in quotes) arrived and I was so confused. It was just a regular fruit plate with canteloupe, honeydew, watermelon, pineapples (ok, that's tropical), strawberries, grapes and a piece of kiwi (that one piece could be tropical too). The fruit was fine, but didn't quite meet my expectations. I would give it a 2 for that reason. I also got the pineapple sherbet, forgetting that I don't really like sherbet and prefer sorbet, which was creamy but didn't have much flavor, so I give that a 1.5.

A got the black forest gateau, which was a chocolate cake filled with bing cherries, heavy cream and Kirschwasser:


It was creamy, chocolatey and overall ok. I liked it better than my misnamed dessert. A would give it a 3.

After dinner, we ventured out onto the "Kaleidoscope Boulevard" (the main thoroughfare on deck 5) to check out the sushi bar to find out if the sushi was free (it was). There were sushi and sashimi options and the sushi chef offered us a sampler plate:


It was one piece of spicy tuna roll, one piece of a veggie sushi roll topped with a piece of salmon sashimi, and some shrimp thing on top of a block of rice in scallion mayo. It was very disappointing and we never returned to the sushi bar. I am not even going to bother rating it, as I think that says a lot about our group's satisfaction with the sampler plate.

In general, the food from the first dinner was ok. We didn't have high expectations for the food on Carnival, and were expecting good food (but nothing special). Our last cruise was on Holland America and the food was fantastic, so it's a completely different world. Our favorite dishes were probably the lasagna and the escargots, with my fish (without the mac and cheese) as runner-up. I guess A picked well that night!