Gala Night on Emerald Princess

There have been three formal nights on this sailing but the menus in the main dining room for the first two didn't really wow me.   For the last formal night, Princess pulled out all the stops.  Escargot!!  Wedge salad!  Lobster!!  Roasted pork tenderloin!!   Beef Wellington!  Oh my!!  

Started with escargot.  They were served in the traditional manner.  

Here shows you the delicate morsel.

Typically, the escargot are served in a buttery blend that is heavy on garlic. These has an interesting twist in that the broth was closed to a decadent french onion soup.  Such a great idea to pair these flavors.  

Next was the wedge salad.  

I have had a few Caesar salads on this cruise and they have been okay.  The have had anchovies which is a plus.  However the Princess Caesar dressing lacks any punch. I like a Caesar where you get a good amount of the umami from the anchovies. 

Where the Caesar dressing is lacking, the blue cheese dressing almost makes up for it.  Rich, creamy and full of nice pieces of blue cheese.  And this salad was ice cold which is also a plus for any salad.  Even the plate was cold.   Not many things worse than using a warm or room temperature plate for something that is best cold.  The lettuce was crisp. There was a bit of chive for additional flavor.  And there was smokey bacon. And they also had some minced red onion. This was a smart idea since large chunks of onion would have overwhelmed the salad.  

Next was the lobster. It was served broiled over a bed of risotto. 

Often times cruise ships will serve Caribbean lobster on lobster night and not cold water lobster.  While these ocean creatures share a name, they couldn't me more different in taste and texture. Caribbean lobsters, also known as spiny lobsters, have no claws  It would be like comparing crawfish and shrimp. Both could be tasty in the right preparation but there are not substitutes for each other.  

Here it was cold water lobster that had been broiled.  Unfortunately, it wouldn't have mattered whether we were served Caribbean lobster or one from cold water.  Somehow the lobster had an extreme salty flavor.  I am thinking it could have been brined for packing which could have given it the rubbery texture that made it tough to chew.  Certainly my least favorite item of the night.

Next was a the pork tenderloin. 

This came with a small amount of savory stuffing.  And the outside had been crusted with a small amount of seasoned bread crumbs. Lots of flavor all around.  My experience with pork on cruise ships is the chefs cook it until it is nearly bone dry without any moisture.  Pork only needs to be cooked to a temperature of 150° to be safe to eat.   It is not like chicken where you want to cook until 165°.  The chefs here had followed that and produced a very juicy pork.  So flavorful. And the crisp bread crumb coating added a welcome texture.  

And the final entree was beef Wellington.   

I usually don't order a lot of red meat on a cruise since it is very hard to get it cooked to order.  I usually order rare to make sure I get at least a medium.  The period night I had order beef tenderloin to medium rare and to my great surprise it came out to order. So I was going to order the Wellington to the temperature I wanted which was medium rare. And it came out exactly how I wanted it!!  

The beef was so tender!!   Barely needed a fork. And simply seasoned.  The mushroom duxelle had minced mushrooms and garlic surrounding the meat.  You could take just a little of it with each bite.  If there was one flaw, it was the pastry.  This should have been crispier.  It was a little doughy and the pan sauce, while super flavorful,  just soaked into the pastry. Not a bad taste. Just not the texture I wanted.  But minor flaw and in no way detracted from how delicious this was.   

For dessert, I chose a chocolate pistachio dome.  

The outside was very much like J-E-L-L-O!!  Jello pudding that is. In both taste and texture. Not necessarily a bad thing, I was hoping for something lighter and more like a mousse.  It was on top of a pistachio cookie.  Inside was my favorite part. It had a center of pistachio creme which had the best flavors from a great pistachio ice cream.  

They also served some petit-fours.  

Clockwise the bottom was a key lime tart, chocolate walnut fudge, chocolate almond bite and finally what I could only call a chocolate chip cake. The chocolate almond but was my favorite. It was like those Hershey nuggets with almonds.  I was really hopeful for the key like tart but it had no citrus flavor at all.  I only tasted vanilla along with the crispy graham cracker crust. 

Overall an outstanding final formal night meal in the main dining room. I don't think a specialty dinner at the Crown Grill steakhouse could have topped this. It bodes well for my next cruise on this same class of ship in February.