Port Zante

After our lunch at Ballahoo, we strolled around Basseterre some more and made our way back to the ship. M's parents were calling it a day, so after we parted ways, we went off to see more of the village around the port since we hadn't investigated it much earlier in the day beyond buying a couple of postcards. The area was called Port Zante, and not only was it where the cruise ships docked, but there were restaurants, bars, and shops all around the terminal. After a bit, we decided to go for a snack at a place called Scoops (which seemed to support all New England sports teams, but we won't hold that against them). Scoops was a local ice cream shop that, from what we remember, advertised themselves as being completely homemade.

A loves ice cream and it was a pretty hot day, so some ice cream and sorbet sounded great. We tried a couple of flavors and then decided to get a cup with two different flavors. One was Cookie Monster, of which we got two scoops. This was basically cookies and cream with a fudge swirl in it. We also got a scoop of guava sorbet because M really wanted that, thinking that guava would be better in the Caribbean. It was nice since it was so late in the day that they just gave us the rest of the sorbet that was in the tub. The sorbet was more icy than some others because it clearly was made from real fruit. We weren't sure how well they would mesh together in one cup, but they were surprisingly good together.

We also got some ginger ale to drink which was actually made and bottled in St. Kitts. This was good with a really natural ginger flavor, not as strong as the Bruce's one that has real ginger in it. A was hoping there would be more ginger flavor to it but thought it was refreshing and not too sweet. It was very carbonated though, which limited how much of it M could drink.

As we headed back to the ship from Port Zante, some sadness set in as our vacation was ending. This was our last port and soon we would be back on the ship for a few sea days and then back home to cold, gray December. We had a nice time at the ports, even if we didn't get to do everything we would have wanted, and they were definitely one of the highlights of this Quantum trip.

Ballahoo

We didn't have a lot planned for our time in St. Kitts. We had an earlier dinner so we didn't want to travel too far from the ship, and we decided not to take a taxi to the beach, as much as we love beaches especially in winter, because we had gotten quite a bit of sun (and sunburn) the day before in Barbados. We spent most of our time just strolling around parts of Basseterre with M's parents and then stopped in at Ballahoo, a very centrally located spot, for lunch.

We didn't have much experience with Kittian cuisine so we weren't sure what to expect. Some sites on Google that we are looking at now tell us that it is Caribbean with Trinidadian and British influences, which makes sense to us now that we've tried it. (As a side note, unclear if it is Kittian or Kittitian, and if it's the second, this is not meant to be offensive, but Google isn't giving a definitive answer.) We just went with what sounded good.

M ordered the chicken roti which she really liked. The flavoring and sauce on the inside tasted a little like the chickpeas from Trini-Paki Boys, which was good because that's one of our favorite parts of the chicken over rice there. (We absolutely noticed similarities with Trinidadian cuisine, even if we didn't know about it then!) Inside the roti wrapper, there was shredded chicken with mashed up curried potatoes and carrots, and then the whole thing was very lightly griddled. The curry flavor here was so good. The fries were fine, nice and crispy, but especially good when dipped into the extra curry sauce on A's plate.

A got the lunch special which was chicken curry. The curry flavor in his dish didn't taste the same as M's roti, but was more of a yellow curry with coconut milk. The chicken was a leg and thigh, and the meat was so tender that it fell off the bone. On the side, there was a generous helping of green beans and carrots and some rice with green peas, both good, along with a salad of romaine, tomato, and cucumber with olive oil and vinegar that was nothing special but refreshing. It was a very hearty lunch plate with great flavor.

After eating, we couldn't decide which curry we liked better between the roti and chicken curry. Both were so good, but different. We were very pleased with our dishes at Ballahoo. M's parents got a barbecued chicken leg and a chicken avocado club sandwich, and seemed happy with those. We were pretty happy we went for the Caribbean dishes though.

Not only did we have good food at Ballahoo, but we had a nice view looking out into town and people watching, basking in the sunlight of a beautiful Caribbean winter day. We would recommend a visit here.

Buon Natale

Taking a day off from regular posts to say merry Christmas to those who celebrate and happy holidays to all!

We celebrated Christmas Eve with a sushi feast of the seven fishes (like last year), enjoying a bunch of rolls that included tuna, salmon, yellowtail, crab, whitefish, scallops, eel, lobster, and shrimp, and then had a wonderful Cantonese Christmas dinner with chicken, fish, tofu, lots of vegetables, and a special lamb stew that we hadn't tried before that was amazing. Hoping that your holidays were filled with lots of good stuff too!

Late Windjammer Breakfast

Day 8 of our Quantum voyage brought us to another new country for us, St. Kitts and Nevis. We were in port beginning at 11 am, so we went for breakfast at the Windjammer instead of Devinly Decadence. We don't quite remember whether DD was closed that morning or whether we took advantage of our late start time (the last three ports were 8 or 9 am) to sleep in after our fun (and sunburned) day in Barbados.

St. Kitts looked beautiful from our window seats at the Windjammer, but the food wasn't all that different from past visits. I got pan-fried fish (which was a bit overdone and dry), scrambled eggs with shrimp and peppers (my notes state that the peppers were new and this was "not only in Asian section," whatever that means), corned beef hash (one of the few things I really like at breakfast that was not available in DD), hash browns, a link of pork sausage, some smoked salmon with onions (good and not as salty as the pastrami cured salmon from the other night), and some mushrooms and sautéed spinach.

We think that maybe A got some of the same stuff for his first plate but we don't quite remember and didn't take pictures, other than the first picture up top. I do know that this next picture is of his plate though, since I'm (clearly) not big into breakfast foods. On this visit, he tried a raisin pancake and plain waffle, neither of which he thought were very good and wouldn't get again, as well as some oatmeal. There was no brown sugar in the oatmeal because they ran out (this will be a running theme from here on, in case you haven't realized it) so it was kind of flavorless. To remedy that, he added some toasted coconut and cinnamon but it did very little. Disappointing.

Outside of the smoked salmon, corned beef hash, and vegetables, we didn't see many reasons why the Windjammer was better than DD for breakfast other than their late opening hours. This was my last real visit to the Windjammer for breakfast on this trip, but I had had enough of it that I certainly don't miss it!

156 Weeks

My third year of (unofficially) participating in the 52 week cooking challenge is done! It has really made our dinners at home more interesting and encouraged me to try a lot of new things over the years, and I'm thankful for that. I'm not really sure what my favorites are from this year's list, as there were so many good ones. If you missed any of them, here's the list for the year:

Week 1 - soup (wedding soup)
Week 2 - sous vide (stovetop sous vide salmon)
Week 3 - Greek (Greek turkey, rice and feta casserole)
Week 4 - brunch (savory French toast with corned beef hash)
Week 5 - chili (white chili)
Week 6 - finger foods (baked mozzarella sticks)
Week 7 - air (gougères)
Week 8 - Japanese (oyakodon, green bean shiraae, and chilled tofu)
Week 9 - from a can (crab cakes and cajun corn maque choux)
Week 10 - braised (Korean braised tofu)
Week 11 - Malaysian (mee goreng)
Week 12 - mac & cheese (garlic, beer, and bacon mac and cheese)
Week 13 - bread (Italian sausage and cheese bread)
Week 14 - food in disguise (meatloaf and mashed potato "layer cake" slices)
Week 15 - Brazilian (Brazilian fish stew)
Week 16 - root to stem (braised fennel and carrots)
Week 17 - medieval (honeyed chicken with white beans and bacon)
Week 18 - brown bag lunch (Asian chicken salad sandwiches)
Week 19 - mother sauces (chicken veloute)
Week 20 - outdoorsman (campfire chili)
Week 21 - cheap meals (soy chorizo tacos)
Week 22 - East Asian (soba with miso meat sauce)
Week 23 - deep frying (fried chicken with leek sauce)
Week 24 - from scratch (mushroom hummus)
Week 25 - Caribbean (Trinidad style curried meatballs)
Week 26 - gelatin (cottage pie meatloaf)
Week 27 - tacos (chicken fajita tacos)
Week 28 - local ingredients (tiger vegetable salad)
Week 29 - fat (spaghetti carbonara)
Week 30 - fermentation (kimchi potato salad)
Week 31 - drink pairings (kimchi grilled cheese and an IPA)
Week 32 - inspired by video games (Pokeball pepperoni pizza)
Week 33 - cajun (jambalaya)
Week 34 - fire (escalivada)
Week 35 - Nordic (lindström patties with sugar browned potatoes and vegetables)
Week 36 - famous dishes (cheddar bay biscuits)
Week 37 - mystery ingredients (grilled mushrooms with weisswurst vegetable saute)
Week 38 - acid (chickpea casserole with lemon, herbs, and shallots)
Week 39 - West African (African chicken peanut stew)
Week 40 - steakhouse (baked salmon with potatoes, green beans, and endives)
Week 41 - bottled sauces from scratch (bolognese sauce)
Week 42 - homemade pasta (orecchiette)
Week 43 - French (poulet basquaise)
Week 44 - dehydrating (apple chips)
Week 45 - Pacific Islands (Micronesian coconut chicken curry)
Week 46 - underused equipment (stuffing cake in a Bundt pan)
Week 47 - Czech (Czech garlic soup)
Week 48 - leftovers (stuffing cups with eggs)
Week 49 - Spanish tapas (patatas bravas, espinaca con garbanzos, bean and chorizo salad)
Week 50 - umami (tofu and mushrooms with fish sauce marinade, ginger miso glazed eggplant)
Week 51 - 30 minutes or less (chicken tenders with sautéed vegetables)
Week 52 - Israeli (Ottolenghi's turkey and zucchini burgers)

Looking forward to starting the next challenge!

Week 52 - Israeli

I was really happy when the Week 52 challenge came up as Israeli. I immediately wrote down, "Something from Jerusalem," referring to the Ottolenghi cookbook on the shelf. I wasn't sure what I was going to make from the cookbook, but I knew it was going to be from there. Eventually after flipping through, I decided on the turkey and zucchini burgers with creamy sumac sauce. No idea how typically Israeli they are, but if it came from Ottolenghi's cookbook, that was good enough for me.

The ingredients for the burgers themselves were:

- 1 lb of ground turkey ($4.50)

- 1 large zucchini, grated ($1)

- 5 scallions, thinly sliced ($0.65)

- a few tbsp of chopped mint ($1)

- a few tbsp of chopped cilantro ($0.50)

- 3 garlic cloves, chopped ($0.12)

- 1 beaten egg ($0.20)

- 1 tsp of ground cumin ($0.05)

- salt and pepper ($0.05)

- a few dashes of cayenne pepper ($0.05)

- olive oil for cooking ($0.20)

The recipe also called for a creamy sumac sauce to go with the burgers, which we adapted a bit. The ingredients were:

- 1 cup plain whole milk Greek yogurt ($2)

- zest of 1 lemon ($0.20)

- juice of 1 lemon ($0.29)

- 2 garlic cloves, chopped ($0.08)

- 1.5 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)

- 1 tbsp sumac ($0.20)

- salt and pepper to taste ($0.05)

The cost of dinner was $8.32 for the burgers themselves, $3.02 for the sumac sauce, and $1.60 for the butter lettuce that we used (1 head of lettuce) to wrap up the burgers to eat. At a total of approximately $12.94, that wasn't super cheap but it was worth it.

The first thing to do was make the sauce since it had to chill. We left it in the fridge for at least an hour, however long it took to make the turkey burgers. Basically you just combine all of the sauce ingredients, adjust seasonings to taste if needed (wasn't necessary), and then chill the sauce until the burgers are done. A took care of doing this while I did prep work for the burgers because otherwise we might not have eaten until after midnight (started a bit late and was still giving turkey a cold water bath to thaw out later than planned).

For the turkey burgers, all of the work was pretty much in the prep. Once the zucchini was grated, and the cilantro, mint, garlic, and scallions were chopped, and the egg was beaten, everything (but the olive oil) just got mixed together and formed into burgers.

After heating the olive oil in a large skillet, I cooked the burgers in two batches until they were almost fully cooked through. Then it was time to bake them in a 425 degree oven for about 7 minutes. Other than the prep, making the burgers was really, really easy.

The burgers were so good. Just so much flavor. They were good on their own and even better with the sumac yogurt sauce. We loaded up our lettuce leaves with spoonfuls of the yogurt sauce and burgers, and it was such a good dinner. Great challenge to end the year.

Final Time at Silk

Our day in Barbados came just over halfway through our Quantum cruise on day 7. Our dinner that night was at Silk, and after our experience there on the first night, none of us were really looking forward to it. The horrible service and issues with food allergies and mediocre food were still pretty fresh in our memories, but we tried to keep an open mind since maybe they were just first night jitters. Also, this was before Quantum started swapping the menus halfway through, so the options were going to be exactly the same as last time. That was one of the big drawbacks of the (now defunct) Dynamic Dining plan if you're the type who tries a lot of things in one sitting (like we usually did).

Appetizers

The off-menu starter was papadums with sweet chili sauce. We had to request these unlike the wonton chips we got the first day, and the wonton chips were better. It probably didn't help that this arrived after our appetizers, so it wasn't there to snack on while we waited.

The other appetizers we got were:

Crab rangoon with spicy mango preserves: These were pretty good, very crispy, and filled with actual crab. We got two plates of these for the table and were pleased with the choice. Maybe our mistake the first time was not getting as many fried appetizers, since the fried food seemed to be okay there.

We also got the shrimp shumai but those were the same as last time, so not much more to say about that. At least they were good.

Chicken egg drop soup with scallions (M): M's mom ordered this last time. M tried it and generally liked it, but did not like the crispy (soggy) noodles that were on top, so she ordered it this time without them. So much better. The soup was very light and clean, exactly what she was looking for, and she was happy with her choice.

Hot ramen noodle with chicken, bok choy, mushrooms, and spicy ginger broth (A): Since soup is hard to share, we both ordered different soups and just tried a little bit of each other's. This spicy ramen had a nice broth with a good hit of spice. The noodles were chewy, not too firm, but not mushy. There were also sliced mushrooms and bok choy, which contributed to this soup tasting very clean and healthy. Overall this ramen tasted clean, but it didn't have the richness that we normally expect from ramen broth. That's not a bad thing, just different.

Green papaya salad with pea shoots, coriander, peanuts: We ordered this one last time and it was M's favorite appetizer that night, despite the fact that it was orange papaya and not green and that it was one of the most bizarre "papaya salads" we'd eaten. This time it was still orange papaya, but the grape tomatoes had been replaced with sliced up regular tomatoes and there was shredded lettuce instead of arugula. The salad itself was bigger, but it was still strange. We didn't realize it at the time we were eating our appetizers but this was the first sign that the kitchen was starting to run out of ingredients.

Entrees

We don't really remember what M's dad got for an entree, but her mom got the same salmon as last time. Unfortunately this time, it was drier, and for some odd reason came with broccoli instead of bok choy. It seemed like maybe the kitchen had run out of bok choy for the salmon dish and was saving it for the soup (in smaller amounts). Everyone's seemed to come out with broccoli, so M was glad she hadn't ordered the salmon. Looking back and comparing to the first night, the shiitake mushrooms also seemed to be missing. 

M ordered the chicken tikka masala with coconut jasmine rice and mango chutney as her entree, because the one A had gotten the first night was really good. Sadly, this was not as good as the first night. The chicken part was saltier, and the coconut rice just didn't have as much flavor. It was unfortunate that one of the few hits from the first night fell short this time. The kitchen was pretty inconsistent.

To share, we ordered the Thai beef salad with "marinated sirloin, tomato, onion, cucumber, lime-cilantro dressing." No idea who wrote the menus for Royal Caribbean, but it should have said "marinated sirloin, snow peas, celery, basil, red onions, carrots, and cucumbers." Our initial bite of this salad was good, but it got very monotonous just eating lightly seasoned raw vegetables. The beef itself wasn't that great, so it didn't make the salad much better. It just felt like a chore eating this even though based on the ingredients, we should have liked it. There was just a complete lack of flavor/seasoning.

A ordered the hibachi steak which was teriyaki steak and wasabi mashed potatoes with stir-fried vegetables. The sliced steak was cooked medium rare which A thought was perfect. The wasabi mashed potatoes had a good hit of wasabi but it wasn't overpowering. The flavoring of the dish was basically just like pepper steak. As for the stir-fried vegetables, they were red peppers, onions, snow peas, and carrots. This ended up being a good dish. Everything was actually seasoned well and cooked properly.

Desserts

We didn't really like either dessert that we tried on our first visit, so we got two new ones this time.

M chose the cardamom pot au creme with chai spiced palmiers. The cream here was very rich, but we thought it would make for a good ice cream flavor. Sadly the cookies didn't have much flavor. We had been looking forward to the chai spices, but they were barely there. Like most of the dishes from Silk this night, it lacked flavor.

A picked the chocolate lychee tart with fortune cookie crust. This was very rich, but nowhere near as rich as the chocolate dessert from the night before at Chic. The fortune cookie crust didn't taste like fortune cookie. The lychee was salted which was really disappointing. A was hoping for, at the barest minimum, a sweet lychee to eat.

Overall, our second (and last) meal at Silk was okay. The handling of food allergies was still a bit of a mess, but it was better than the previous visit where no one had a clue. The service was a little more attentive, but that was mostly due to our server constantly dropping by and asking us to tell his supervisor that he was doing a good job. The food itself was hit or miss again as far as flavor which was disappointing. On top of all that, we saw some dishes on other tables that looked good, like spring rolls, but hadn't seen those on the menu. On our way out, we learned that all the stuff that looked better was on the kids menu. If only we had known that in advance, we might have had better meals there. We were pretty glad that we wouldn't be returning to Silk based on what we did eat, but if we had another one scheduled there, we would have definitely been investigating the kids menu.

Now With Apricots

Every fall we look forward to the seasonal turkey sausage at Trader Joe's which just tastes like it belongs in a Thanksgiving meal. This year, the sausage seemed to arrive on the shelves a little later, and instead of cranberries and apples, it substituted apricots for the apples. We were curious to see if it would make a difference.

The ingredient list for this sausage was a little different from the previous version, combining turkey, dried cranberries, and dried apricots with honey, salt, parsley, vinegar, brown sugar, black pepper, onion powder, ginger, cinnamon, and allspice. The flavor profile was a little bit on the sweeter side, and we found it sweeter than the previous version. It was still good, it was still full of autumn flavors, and it still went well with stuffing, but it was just a little different. Not sure which one we prefer between the two, maybe the previous one since it was a bit less sweet and the apple was more subtle.

Buy again? Sure. We usually pick up one or two packs of this sausage every year and it's good for the fall/winter.

Harbour Lights

After eating our flying fish sandwich at Cuz's, we got back in the cab and tried to go to the Boatyard, a beach club that was supposed to have good specials and a prime location. They were completely full, probably with other ship passengers and definitely with a lot of the crew, so we walked further down the beach until we found Harbour Lights. It was a little quieter down at that end, and they still had a special where you could get chairs, an umbrella, and a couple of drinks for a pretty decent price.

As we relaxed on the beach under some intense (and amazing) sunlight, we ordered some Mount Gay rum punch. The guy serving our section said it was really good because he made it extra special, by which he really just meant he made it with a double shot of rum plus some juice. When we first heard we were going to Barbados, we had considered visiting Mount Gay Rum itself, but since we were there on Sunday, they of course had no tours and were closed. The rum punch was excellent though, and very refreshing.

We spent most of the afternoon just relaxing and soaking up the sun, knowing that we wouldn't see sun like this for months once we returned back to wintry NYC. We got hungry at some point and ordered a flying fish sandwich. The flying fish this time was fried and came with a side of fries and a little bit of salad (greens and tomato). They also gave us a few sauces on the side, ketchup, mustard, and a yellow hot sauce that packed quite a bit of heat (we guessed maybe from scotch bonnets). We liked the fish sandwich, but liked the one from Cuz's a little better.

You might remember seeing this sandwich or hearing about Barbados before, and that's because it made it on to my 2014 favorite food memories list. We just had such a glorious afternoon there, the perfect beach day we had been wanting all year. Carlisle Bay Beach is beautiful, and we would absolutely return.

Cuz's Fish Shack

From our research on Barbados before our Quantum trip, we knew there were two things we had to do while there - go to the beach and get a flying fish sandwich (also called a cutter) from Cuz's Fish Shack. Everything we read about this sandwich made it sound like a must-do. We had to take a cab to get out to Cuz's, but luckily there were plenty at the cruise terminal and that also put us right near the beach we wanted to go to.

We ordered one sandwich to split. The fish was cooked on a griddle after being dipped into a spiced batter. The coating wasn't too "bready" but it had great flavor. It was the perfect mix of saltiness and the right amount of heat. The sandwich came with lettuce and was sandwiched between a soft, pillowy bun. Each sandwich came with two pieces of the flying fish.

The fish itself was firmer than either of us was expecting, but it wasn't as firm as, say, swordfish. The flavor from the spices provided all of the flavor the sandwich needed even though there was a small assortment of hot sauces at the truck.

The fish sandwich was delicious and well worth the trip. It just tasted so fresh, which wasn't surprising since we were on an island in the Caribbean, and it was a great start to our day in Barbados.

Fiesta in the Solarium

Another Quantum morning, another breakfast at Devinly Decadence in the Solarium.

Another breakfast full of chicken, turkey, egg whites, sweet potatoes, and delicious Southwestern flavors.

But this time I also got something new, a fiesta shrimp omelette. In addition to the buffet options, they usually had a made-to-order dish if you got to breakfast early enough. That seemed to change every day (from what we remember), and this time it was an egg white omelette. Tasty and healthy.

Also different this time was the view from the Solarium. Every other port we had been to, we had been missing this view of bright sun, puffy white clouds, and turquoise water. Finally, finally, in Barbados, we got the perfect weather we were looking for.

It wasn't a humid evening like in Puerto Rico. It wasn't raining like in St. Maarten. It wasn't cloudy like in Martinique. We were pretty excited as we looked at the hot and sunny weather since we had a beach day planned, and after our tasty breakfast, we couldn't wait to get going!

Week 51 - 30 Minutes or Less

Making dinner in 30 minutes or less sounds great to me, but it doesn't happen very often with challenge meals because I am really slow in the kitchen, especially when trying a new recipe. I think I laughed out loud when I saw the Week 51 challenge was 30 minutes or less. Could I really make a full dinner in 30 minutes? Including prep time and thorough washing of vegetables? Was that really possible?

I decided not to try something new, but instead to do a variation on something I've made on a semi-regular basis, and also to use a few "shortcut" products. I figured in 30 minutes I could cook some panko breaded chicken tenders in the oven (pre-breaded from Costco) and then make a vegetable saute from scratch (but using frozen pre-roasted corn). Those shortcuts would certainly shave minutes and make it more likely that I wouldn't go over in time.

I started preheating the oven early, and didn't count that in the 30 minutes because technically I could have left the oven preheating all day and it wasn't really part of making dinner. After the oven was ready, I started the timer, laid foil on a baking pan, and then got the chicken in the oven. (It would take 25 minutes.) Then it was time for the vegetables. Wash and chop zucchini. Get it started in the pan with some olive oil (covered with a splatter guard to keep some of the heat in). Once the zucchini has softened some, add frozen roasted corn. In the meantime, wash and chop scallions. Add scallions after the corn. Season with salt, pepper, chili powder, garlic powder. After pulling out the chicken, add feta cheese to vegetables, and cook vegetables and cheese together until time runs out. I was happy with the vegetable mixture with about a minute to spare, and just let it keep going for the final minute since I had the time. I was pretty proud that I didn't go over in time, and also that I managed to do it while watching Scorpion too.

This is the type of everyday meal that we'll have for dinner sometimes when I'm not trying out new recipes or cooking a challenge meal. It's nice interspersing simpler meals like this that are still healthy and tasty with some of the more complicated ones, unlike a recent week when I was catching up on challenges and did four in one week with another new recipe for day 5. It helped that I've made these vegetables before, just without the zucchini, so I already had some idea of how it would go and mostly had to just keep one eye on the time. It also helped that there was minimal washing to be done as that always seems to be a time drainer. At least now I know that it's possible to make something in 30 minutes if planned right!

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.