Chic

The last complimentary restaurant we tried on the Quantum was Chic. Out of the four (Chic, The Grande, Silk, American Icon), Chic had the menu we were most excited about trying. (We were even more interested in Coastal Kitchen but weren't special enough to be allowed access to it.) Chic was billed as "contemporary" cuisine, which meant some more interesting combinations, but otherwise wasn't that revolutionary.

Our meal started with a bread basket filled with soft dinner rolls and some breadsticks. The rolls were fine but some of the breadsticks were a little soggy/stale.

Appetizers

We decided to get a bunch of different appetizers to split since we were having a hard time narrowing down the selections. They all sounded so good. The first one we tried was a pastrami-cured salmon with caper-egg remoulade and toasted bagel chips. This was so, so, so salty. The overwhelming flavor was just salt, which made it a little hard to eat. Sure, smoked salmon is often salty, but this was like another level of sodium. The bagel chips and mustard sauce didn't add much to it, as it really just tasted like salty smoked fish.

The next one we tried was the jumbo lump crab cake with herbed frisee lettuce and chipotle mayonnaise. This was really good, the best of the appetizer set we got, and we kind of wished we had each gotten one of these instead of some of the other stuff. The flavor of the crab cake itself was good, it wasn't entirely made up of filler, and the dressing for the crab cake had a nice flavor. It came with a little salad on the side which added some freshness. We were happy with this one, just wished we had more.

We also tried the grilled Catalan shrimp with soppressata, pickled peppers, and a cilantro emulsion. The grilled shrimp had good flavor. The soppressata was a bit salty (like it should be), which unfortunately overpowered the dish a little bit. The cilantro emulsion didn't have much flavor at all and the peppers were kind of just there. The shrimp here was good, but the rest of it, we didn't feel very strongly about.

The last appetizer was the fresh mozzarella and beet salad, with shaved beets, fennel, and burrata cheese. We didn't really like this one that much. The orange didn't seem to go very well with the other ingredients, the beet sauce was really sweet, and everything, while fine in quality, just seemed a little mismatched. Wish we had gotten a second crab cake instead of this.

Entrees

For the main course, M got the baked salmon strudel with sweet carrots, green asparagus, and a dilled hollandaise sauce. She had been picturing salmon baked inside of pastry coming out looking like an actual strudel, but what actually arrived was a baked salmon with pieces of strudel pastry coming out of it. Not only was that a little strange and unexpected, but the salmon itself was overcooked. The asparagus and carrots were fine, as was the sauce, but the fish itself was just okay. Experimentation with the strudel here didn't lead to a better fish, in her opinion.

Since it was a cruise, we ordered multiples of each course just because we could and because then we could try more. We decided to split the pan-roasted Australian barramundi with sautéed spinach, radish, pineapple and caper brown butter. Similar to the salmon, the fish here was a little overdone, but it was mostly okay. We thought the pineapple caper sauce was also just okay but we liked the spinach and radish on the side.

A chose well for his entree, getting the crispy crusted chicken with smoked bacon, caramelized onion, potatoes, and honey dijon mustard jus. This was really good and the chicken was nice and juicy. The accouterments added a nice sweetness and smokiness to the dish, and the moist chicken was really paired well. The potatoes gave the dish a little heartiness to complete everything.

Desserts

We ordered two desserts at Chic, but tried a third. The one we didn't order was this dark chocolate torte with pretzel crust, bittersweet ganache, and caramel drizzle that M's dad ordered. This was way too rich and heavy, so rich that it was hard to eat more than one bite of it. It was an explosion of chocolate but in the worst way possible. We were glad we hadn't ordered another one of these for ourselves.

A got the carrot cake trifle, spiced cake with cream cheese mousse, that came with some weird sorbet that tasted like bubble gum. We saw lots of carrot cakes arrive at other tables so we thought this would be good. It was kind of bland and the sorbet was just so odd.

When she saw the dessert menu, M immediately chose the plum crepe mille-feuille with lemon creme, vanilla, and apricot. This was a really good mille-feuille, nice flavors, with a texture like thin and fluffy pancakes. The lemon creme in the middle was also really light and didn't overpower it. The sweet sauce with plums and apricots had great fruit flavor. It was rare on the trip to find lighter fruit-based desserts but this one was quite good.

Overall our meal at Chic was pretty good. There were some misses, but also a few good dishes (or parts of dishes). Now that we had tried all four restaurants, we weren't sure which one we liked the best yet, but nothing had blown us away either. At least our time at Chic was pleasant and for the most part the food wasn't too bad.