NCL Encore: Ocean Blue

NCL has a concept of freestyle dining meaning that you can eat when and where you want.  There are four included sit down restaurants onboard plus a standard buffet.  The NCL Encore has multiple speciality restaurants onboard where you pay a surcharge or ala carte prices when you eat there.  Tonight I got to try Ocean Blue which is a restaurant that focuses primarily on seafood and is ala carte pricing.  There are dining packages you can purchase or receive as a promo as part of your booking that cover the surcharge.

I started with scallops on pork belly.

The scallops we as well cooked as the ones at the Haven restaurant from dinner a couple of nights ago.  One of the pieces of pork belly were well cooked but two of them were not rendered properly and were too fatty.  Pork belly is a lot like a smoked pork shoulder.  You really need to take the time to render the fat to have it cooked properly.  This pork while flavorful, needed some more time in the roasting pan.

Next up was a wedge salad.  Unlike the caesar salad from an earlier dinner, this didn't have enough dressing.  I realize I sound like Goldilocks!!  If you want to sell a wedge with blue cheese, it really needs to bring the blue cheese for my taste.  I asked for some dressing on the side and it was perfect.  Crisp, cold romaine with thin sliced onions and tomatoes.

I was able to try the roasted beet salad my wife ordered.  This was a fantastic dish featuring three kinds of beets and schmears of balsamic dressing.  Each beet was served on a small amount of a feta-like cheese.  They respected the beets which doesn't always happen with a beet salad.

My main was grilled halibut with a mango chutney.  I am a little bit spoiled when it comes to Halibut since the best halibut  I ever had was in Seward Alaska.  If you have not eaten halibuts cheeks put them on your food bucket list.  What is on your food bucket list?  Enter a comment to let me know,

My fish was a bit dry but was seasoned properly.  They also had a butter sauce which in retrospect is what I wished I had ordered to moisten up the fish.

Much like a steakhouse, you could get side items with your mains.  I went with brussels sprouts and lobster mac and cheese. Neither side was outstanding.  The mac and cheese while creamy with a crispy topping was missing any real lobster flavor.  The brussels were braised and then dressed in a sweet balsamic glaze.  All the brussels weren't cooked to the same level of doneness which detracted from the dish.   

The desserts were really good here!   I ordered the apple tart.  Flaky, crispy pastry with lots of sliced apples in cinnamon sugar.  Topped with vanilla gelato and a meringue stick.  Every flavor you would want and expect in a great apple dessert.

I was able to try the key lime pie my wife ordered.  It was creamy and full of lime flavor and topped with bruleed meringue.

Finally a chocolate dessert!!

That wrapped up a great meal at Ocean Blue.  We had only planned on one dinner here but all of use agreed we would need to come back one more time.  Just for science.  ;-)

Thanks for reading!!  We dined at one other speciality restaurant which will be in an upcoming blog.