Food: So Worth the Weight

I was truly impressed by the quality of the food throughout the ship. Having started our cruise with dinner in the Pinnacle I admit I was a tiny bit concerned we might find the main dining room less delicious by contrast. NOT a problem.

In the main dining room, the food was delicious and I really enjoyed the broad variety of dishes. There was nothing I did not like, and I would especially recommend:

• Pheasant with sweet potato mash. I don't know how, but they kept the bird succulent and super-tasty. I now have A Taste of Excellence, the cookbook, and am going to try to re-create this dish, but I think I may have to cruise again to get pheasant this good.
• Foie gras appetizer. Very fine torchon foie. I love this stuff. My father in law commented that it needed little slices of toast, but I thought it was great on the nicely crusty rolls. Fear not, the birds did not die in vain -- we both ate every little bit.
• Nasi goreng. Indonesian dish with satay, three types of meat, fried banana and rice. Very tasty, though not at all spicy unless you add chili sauce (sambal). I like to add lots.

FYI, these menus were specific to the Panama Canal transit, so I don't know which dishes one would find on another itinerary.

In the Lido, I really liked the casual dining dinners. This allowed guests who didn't want to dress up to have a nice dinner outside the dressier main dining room. Soft lighting, tablecloths, etc. It is semi-self-service: you pick up your salad/starter, and place an order for an entree. When it is prepared, the entree is brought to you.

I would especially recommend:

• Made-to-order waffles in the morning. Yum.
• Shrimp cocktail at dinner. How can you go wrong?
• Vegetarian Indian curry at lunchtime. I'm a meat eater, but the vegetarian dishes onboard were consistently excellent: full of flavor, fun to eat!

This ship had a Windstar Cafe rather than an Explorations Cafe, but I think that will change in the upcoming drydock. In any event, it was a Starbucks type experience with very reasonable prices. In terms of coffee know-how, they're more like a Starbucks at a regional airport (mediocre) rather than a Starbucks in Seattle (great). For example, if you want your single-shot late in a non-grande cup you should explicitly ask them for a small cup. That said, they had much nicer little sandwiches than any Starbucks I've seen.

There were also some nice "extra" dining events in the late afternoons. These included:

• Poolside salmon bake, with Caesar salad. Yum, yum, yum! I bet it would have gone well with Conundrum....
• Satay cooking pool-side. Looked good, but couldn't possibly eat
• High tea each sea day. Nicely done in the dining room so plenty of space for everyone. Dutch almond cookies are good, even after a salmon bake that followed a three-course lunch. Did I mention I gained weight?
• At least one late-night event, but we were either in bed or in the dance club

Room service is usually one of my great indulgences on a cruise, but this time I only managed to have delivery once, for breakfast. It was very nice: on-time, tasty, delicious and hot foods arrived hot (love the warming plates!). One small thing I've seen in select hotels that I'd love to see added would be a call a few minutes before delivery, which would, um, help ensure everyone is ready to have a steward enter the stateroom.

Unlike on some other cruises (and in most hotels), I NEVER saw used trays in the hallway waiting for pick-up.

Prior to this trip, my last cruise with Holland America Line was in early 2004. The food was good then, but it's GREAT now. I rarely gain weight on cruises or anywhere. I gained weight. And as my (skinny) mother used to say, "it was worth getting fat on."