Disney Cruisin’ – The Food – Part 2

In Part 1 I talked about, and showed pictures of, the meals we had the first three days aboard – this will cover the rest of the trip.

Lumiere’s

Our dining rotation had us eating dinner at Lumiere’s two nights in a row – Golden Mickeys the first night, and their “regular” menu – which Disney describes as “Continental cuisine with a French flair.”

Unfortunately, it was my least favorite of any of the menus we had all week.
None of the appetizers appealed to me (escargot??? Ewww!), so I had the tomato and basil soup from the soup and salad portion of the menu instead. That was really good, though.

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Lee had the Ratatouille with Piperade Vinaigrette, which sounded ok to me except that it was served cold. So it was almost more like a thick salsa.

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Three of our tablemates decided to try the escargot – it was served “Gratinated in Herb and Garlic Butter”. No one said that it tasted like chicken. 🙂

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Lee and I both had the Normandy Salad, which had lettuce, diced papaya, hearts of palm and red cabbage. The mixed garden salad came with goat cheese croutons and I asked to have those on the Normandy Salad – they were really good.

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None of the main courses appealed to me – a little too heavy on the scallops, mushrooms and/or sauces, so I ordered the Oven Roasted Chicken from the “Lighter” menu, which came with garden vegetables and baked potato. Not exciting at all, but it was just fine – I actually really enjoyed just the plain steamed vegetables and baked potato after all the richer foods I’d been eating.

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Lee had the Beef Tenderloin Provence, Burgundy Wine Sauce. He said it was a little bit tough. It came with something that looked like large thick-cut French fries, but actually turned out to be fried parsnips. They had a very different flavor, but I thought they were really good.

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Jan ordered the Coquelles St. Jacques which were scallops, though it looked like a potatoes au gratin dish.

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Dessert, though, was where Lumiere’s REALLY disappointed me. At a French restaurant I was expecting an outstanding chocolate dessert. And there was NOTHING chocolate on the dessert menu except a no sugar added chocolate cheesecake.

Lee had Creme Brulee – a classic French dessert, and he enjoyed that.

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Paula had the Montelimar Nougat and Pistachio Cream Sauce. (It had a chocolate shell on it, but that doesn’t really count as a chocolate dessert.)

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Our server brought out a plate of the Crepes Suzette for all of us to try – too much
orange/Grand Marnier for me, though.

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Animator’s Palate – Pirates IN the Caribbean Dinner

This was another menu that was served ship-wide that night – we happened to be in Animator’s Palate for this one.

We really rushed this dinner – our seating didn’t start until 8:30 and the on-deck Pirates in the Caribbean Party started at 9:45. And our servers had a pirate show of their own to do in the dining room at 9:45, so they were really hopping to try to keep up with everything. I don’t think it’s fair to the people with the last dinner seating to start the deck party that early – it makes it really difficult for us to participate.

Dinner was pretty good, though I skipped a course thinking maybe I’d get out of dinner earlier – but it didn’t work that way.

As an appetizer I had the Pirate’s Golden Pasta Envelopes – filled with cheese and I think they were deep fried. Ravioli by any other name, but they were tasty.

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Lee had Black Beard’s Jumbo Crab Cake. Several people had our table ordered the same and said it was excellent – lots of crab.

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I think Paula had the Buccaneer’s Sun Ripened Pineapple – Fresh island pineapple with a Coconut covered banana and orange glaze. This was very pretty!

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My entree was Captain Hook’s Macadamia Dusted Mahi Mahi – with crushed onion potatoes, sweet carrots, roasted broccoli on mild red curry sauce. I enjoyed this very much – I think it was the best fish dish I had all week.

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Lee went for The Black Pearl’s Oven-Roasted Beef Tenderloin – with sour sream chive smashed potatoes, sugar-baked carrots with a deep red wine glaze. It was good but not outstanding.

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For dessert I’d really been looking forward to the Walk the Triple Layered Chocolate Gangplank Cake. It sounded a lot better than it was, unfortunately. Nothing wrong with it, it just didn’t measure up to the other really good chocolate desserts I’d had.

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After the fireworks we checked out the desserts on the dessert buffet – those were ok, but nothing that was outstanding.

Parrot Cay – The Captain’s Gala

We were back in Parrot Cay for semi-formal night – The Captain’s Gala. Our tablemates were all eating dinner at Palo that night, so it was just Lee and me at a table for 8. 🙂

And we both ordered the same first two courses. The appetizer was Garlic and Herb Sauteed Shrimp – on saffron rice drizzled with pink grapefruit vinaigrette. This was good – I could have eaten a lot more of it.

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The salad wasn’t quite as inventive as most of them were – it was just a garden salad with balsamic dressing, though it had some sun-dried tomato chips to brighten it up.

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The most popular item on the Main Course menu that night was the lobster, but neither of us cares for lobster. So I had the Fettuccine with Parmesan Crusted Chicken. Compared to the other main courses I’d had during the week this was huge – mainly because there was so much pasta. There’s no way I could eat it all – and I would have liked some additional vegetables with it.

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Lee had the Veal Roasted with Shallots, Fennel and Vin Santo – on chive mashed potatoes, sauteed spinach and pine nuts. He said that was pretty good.

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But the winner of the evening was the Grilled Venison Medallions in Stilton and Red Currant Jus – with Roasted-turned Potatoes and Sauteed Baby Cabbage. When Lee said he was torn between the veal and the venison, our server said the venison was really excellent, and he’d bring it out so we could both try it. So we received three entrees instead of two – TJ put the plate of venison between us so we could easily share it. It really was very good.

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And then we come to dessert…ahhhh. This was my favorite of the whole week. (Even better than the chocolate souffle at Palo.) They served Warm Chocolate Lava Cake – with ice cream and a double chocolate sauce. TJ very carefully put the scoop of ice cream on top after he’d served the cake, just so we could watch the melting ice cream flow down the sides like melting snow. It was really, really good. Plenty of warm liquid chocolate on the inside. Timing is everything with a good chocolate lava cake and I wasn’t sure they could do a dessert like that on such a large scale, with hundreds of people ordering it pretty much at the same time, but they did an amazing job. Lee had it too, and so did Kathy, one of our tablemates – she and Joe came by after their dinner at Palo. She’d already had the chocolate souffle, but she topped it off with the lava cake. 🙂

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Our final night dinner was at Palo, and I covered that one pretty well in my blog entry, which you can read here:

Castaway Cay and Dinner at Palo

So that brings to the end of a week of fine dining.

Over the course of the week I thought the food was very good – there were a lot more hits than misses. It was really only the one night at Lumiere’s that disappointed me. There were several things I wish I’d taken the opportunity to try (but NOT the escargot!!!). I think dinner on our second night, at Parrot Cay, was my favorite menu, though if I were choosing best appetizer, soup/salad, main course, and dessert of the week they would be from all over the menus! 🙂

I can’t wait to see what they come up with for dinners on the Mediterranean cruise next year!

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Laura Gilbreath is a native of San Diego, CA. She has been making the trek up Interstate 5 to Disneyland since she was a small child and terrified of talking tikis and hitchhiking ghosts. She and her husband Lee enjoy trips to Disneyland and Walt Disney World, as well as sailings on the Disney Cruise Line.

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