Earth and Ocean at The Patio

Seabourn Odyssey has four main options for a la carte dinner. There is the Collonade which is the buffet.  There is The Grill which is a steak house.  The Restaurant is what I would called the main dining room. And then there is Earth and Ocean.  This is an area of table set up poolside for dining under the stars.  The menu changes every night. Last night was formal night where most of the guests were going to the main dining room where they had fois gras, lobster and steaks.  When we looked at the menu, the offerings at Earth and Ocean sounded so much better. So we were in our fanciest clothes dining under the stars!!

They start you with some amazing crusty bread and toppings such as sun dried tomatoes, olive tapinade and salted butter. 

Then what might be in this smokey box?

It was this delicious smoked chicken. 

Theas were the red and white wines they were featuring.  

Bith very good.  We started with the white since our first course was endive salad, prosciutto wrapped asparagus and a Mediterranean pasta. 

The endive salad had a slightly sweet dressing which helped with the bitter endive. It needed more of the dressing to really balance the bitter.  There were also some sharp red onions that didn't help and I wished weren't there. 

The pasta was small shells cooked al dente along with small meatballa, sun dried tomatoes, olives and cheese.   Some great Mediterranean flavors. 

The real star was the asparagus.  Cooked so it was still a little crisp and wrapped with salty prosciutto.  The imaginative part of the dish was the tahini mixed with a little yogurt.  There was a schmear and a few dollops of this sauce and it complimented the asparagus so well.  Creamy, salty, crunchy all in one bite.  

Mains were a bouliabase and bone-in ribeye. 

The rib eye was also served with some potato wedges, ribs of romaine and a dressing which was similar to ranch. 

The boilabase was okay.  It was less a soup that seafood served with a sauce.  There were shrimp and fish along with some lobster. The lobster from The Grill was far superior.  Not a terrible dish but a bit disappointing.  

The rib eye was the star of the night.  Unlike the preparation at The Grill, here the bone and most of the fat was left intact.  When grilled, that fat renders and provides such great flavor.  The meat was perfectly, and simply seasoned, with coarse salt and black pepper.  Perfect to let the beefy notes come through.  And a far superior steak to what was served at The Grill.  

For dessert they had a baked camembert.  You don't often see cheese as a dessert item so e couldn't pass that up. 

Served with some thin toasts, the gooey cheese was perfect!!   Salty and creamy!!

And they also had a salted caramel dessert.  

This was cleverly composed.  Bourbon vanilla ice cream on top of a pool of delicious salted caramel, toasted pecans and topped with some coarse salt.  The perfect bite was when you got a little bit of everything. 

Overall, the food was very good.  A small misstep with the boilabase which was soon forgotten once we tasted the terrific rib eye. This restaurant is definitely our speed. Casual outside dining with interesting dishes.  We will be watching the menu during this week and eating here again.  

QUICK BITE: Afternoon Tea on Seabourn Odyssey

What is afternoon tea like on Seabourn?  We tried it on embarkation day in Barbados.  

You choose from about ten different teas.  Some I had never heard of. 

They also include a timer so you can track how strong you tea will be. 

Then the tower arrives!!

Thw scones were moist and flavorful. One was traditional and the other was prune.  One scone changes each day.  I preferred the prune one since it had a bit more sweetness. There was also a great lemon macaron.  Delicate and chewy with a great lemony flavor. Some good savory bites as well including a ham and cheese and smoked salmon.  

The Grill By Thomas Keller on Seabourn Odyssey

The Grill is one of the options for dinner onboard the Seabourn Odyssey. It is the only restaurant that requires reservations. 

 It is styled as an old fashioned American steakhouse down to the decor and upbeat music.  The menu also is reminiscent of a Morton's or Ruth Chris with a few twists.  

They start you with crudites and cheese sticks served with a green goddess style dressing with a bit of lemon olive oil.  

Also ordered a cocktail  One of my favorites: The Peruvian classic Pisco Sour.

A balance of sweet and sour with froth from egg whites while it is shaken.  A good palate cleanser. 

One of the signature dishes is the Caesar salad prepared tableside.  

The dressing is made from garlic cloves which get rubbed into the wood and then removed.  Then mustardy anchovy paste, egg yolk, olive oil and fresh grated parmesan cheese are added and emulsified.  The completed dressing is then smoothed up onto the sides of the bowl before the bite size Romaine and parmesan croutons are lightly tossed.

Couldn't be any fresher.   The dressing was more mustardy than I prefer. I would have liked more of a focus on the anchovy. But it was a delicious salad.  

Also ordered the clam chowder.  They bring you a bowl with two pieces of pork belly and some diced potatoes. 

Then pour in the chowder. 

The soup was so creamy and smooth.  I am guessing they use a food mill to grind down any small bites and then further emulsify with a hand blender.  The soup was tasty, but was missing a real deep flavor.  Had this been a blind tasting, I would have guessed this was a potato leek soup. Very flavorful but not as good as the clam chowder at The Wake on Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady.  

Next up was the rib eye cooked medium rare.  Here they butcher the rib eye to remove the fatty portions, leaving just a medallion.  

I think that was a mistake since one of the best parts of a rib eye is all the flavor the marbled and rendered fat adds. The steak was cooked a perfect medium rare. And it had some decent flavor but I thought about how much better it could have been.  

We also tried the Lobster Thermidor. 

This dish is an example of one of the "twists" that The Grill puts on standard dishes.  All Lobster Thermidor I have had or seen is where the lobster is removed from the shell, combined with some breading, tarragon and other spices and then put back into the shell for a quick broil in the oven. 

Here, the lobster was perfectly butter poached. Tender and meaty lobster meat.  Super flavorful and tasting like the sea.  It was served with a tarragon butter sauce which was also flavorful. Of they had stopped there this would have been a better dish.  Underneath the sauce was a parmesan cracker as big as the plate.  It added nothing to the dish.  Had it been a little salty or had more cheese flavor, it might have worked.   So a decent dish that took a wrong turn.  Kind of a waste of some very good lobster.  

As with most steak houses, there are side dishes served family style.  We tried the whipped potatoes, glazed carrot (not pictured), sauteed mushrooms and creamed spinach.  

The carrots were certainly the highlight.  Cooked perfectly so they still had a little bite to them.  And in a delicious butter sauce.  The potatoes were also great!!   Whipped so smooth without being gummy.   If you have ever made mashed potatoes, you will know what I mean.  Overwhipping or overmixing can produce somthing closer to wallpaper paste.  Not her. These were velvety and rich, further accented by the slight bite of the creme fraiche. The mushrooms were very good.  What is not to like about mushroom sauteed in butter?

I have never had creamed spinach that wasn't succulent and delicious.  I guess I have been lucky. That was the least successful of the sides.   My wife and I each took a bite and agree we would go no further.  They tasted grassy to me. Without any other flavors or creaminess.  

Desserts were decadent chocolate layer cake and a lemon meringue tart. They also brought out two mega chocolate chip cookies.  

The cake was my favorite. Rich, moist, dark chocolate cake with a milk chocolate mousse.  Everything you would want in a great chocolate cake. It was served a la.mode.  The vanilla ice cream flavor was overtaken by some sea salt which didn't belong there.  

The lemon tart had some promise but had been served on a pool of raspberry foam.  The crispy shell soon became soggy.  We did manage to rescue the shell from it's watery grave in time. Some good, tart lemon flavor that didn't need the addition of the raspberry foam.  Maybe they should consider serving that on the side so you can decide to add it. 

This was a tasty meal and one I would have enjoyed on land at any average steak house.  But because this was a Thomas Keller restaurant, the chef from the famed French Laundry, I expected more.  More twists.  More attention to detail. More interesting flavors. I think all these dishes could be found at Morton's or Ruth Chris. Does that make them bad?  No.  But I expected more.  

QUICK BITE: French Toast Burger at The Galley on Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady

Who's ready for some breakfast?  It was my favorite bite from The Galley on the MerMaiden voyage.  And same this voyage.  

French Toast Burger!!   Simular to the flavor of a McGriddle.  Thick slices of pillowy, cinnamon french toast surrounding a smashed burger, scrambled eggs and bacon.

QUICK BITE: Afternoon Tea at The Sip on Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady

Afternoon Tea is available on sea days at The Sip which is the champagne bar onboard Scarlet Lady.  There are two options.  For $19 USD you can just have tea and the tower of savory and sweet snacks.  Or for $35 you can get the above plus a glass of More Chandon champagne.  We elected for the latter.  Went not do it right?

You have your choice of tea.  I went with a green oolong.  My wife got mint tea.  They had several to chose from.   Then the tower arrives.  

Three tiers.  The bottom was all savory including a slightly sweet open faced cucumber sandwich. A "bar" with a thin layer of lover mousse topped with pickled watermelon.  And a watercress sandwich.  The cucumber was my favorite, suprising with the sweetened cream cheese.  

The middle tier was all sweets. 

The rainbow cake was a super moist and flavorful chocolate cake.  The one shaped like a shell was also chocolate with a hint of hazelnut.  There read also a cream puff with some fluffy sweetened whipped cream.  My least favorite was the macaron. I expected some kind of fruit flavor but instead it was just sweet.  

The top layer was scones. One savory with onions and scallions and the other traditional.  Served with more like a whipped unsalted  butter (instead of colored cream) and strawberry jam. 

Both scones are drier than I prefer.  And the savory one needed a boost of flavor. Neither terrible, especially with the jam and butter.  

QUICK BITE: Virgin Voyages Room Service

Most aspects of the Virgin Voyages cruise experience is very different than the mass market lines.  And that goes for how they deliver room service.  Ordering is about the same. You order via their app.  And you get an approximate timeframe.  Then what shows up is not on a tray.  Instead a crew member shows up with this. 

And inside is a few other things. A sealed containers with any food your ordered.  the small one is some muesli.   Canisters with any beverages (in this case coffee).

And a caddy that holds the canisters. 

And what was inside the red sealed container? Some lonely piece of banana bread. 

And when you are done, you package it back up and set outside your room. No big trays to clutter your room.  Much easier for the crew to transport as well. 

The Wake on Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady

The Wake is the steak and seafood restaurant on the Scarlet Lady.  Of all of the restaurants onboard, this might be considered the "fanciest" - although there is still a resort casual dress code.  Men can wear dress shorts and sandals. I think the big "no no" would be a bathing suit or anything that shows armpit hair. Always best to avoid that in any restaurant.  

The menu does have a selection of seafood and steak that is included plus some shellfish and oysters that have an extra charge.  

They start out with a bread service.  

I thought it was strange to serve with a spoon, but it is actually the perfect method to get a portion of bread.  The bread was pillowy and soft, topped with coarse salt. The butter was a whipped version with hints of Bourbon cheese.  

First course was the Hamachi Crudo.

Thin slices of raw fish with some pickled rhubarb and basil.  There was also a sauce, similar to a mignonettte which had more of the rhubarb flavor.  Our server said it also had some rose water which made me a little nervous since that can sometimes be overdone and become perfumey.  Yes - that is a word.  But in this casez the sauce added a mild sweetness with balance of the sour rhubarb. 

Next was the roasted bone marrow. 

This had pickled onions and parsley.  Well roasted and tasty!!  I thought there might be more marrow based on the size of the bone. The brioche bread was perfectly toasted.  An unusual combination where each crunchy bite melted into your mouth.   The bread would have also been great in a grilled cheese.  

Mains were the pan roasted salmon and a salt crusted dorade.

Our server asked how the salmon should be cooked and the first option was medium rare. How wonderful since that is how salmon should be cooked. And it came out just that way.  Most and flavorful. 

I had never heard of dorade before.  Looking it up on the interwebs, it is a type of bream.  It came incased on a salted pastry crust.  Tableside, through a series of maneuvers, our server unveiled what was inside.  

A perfect filet, already deboned and without skin.  I am not sure of the cooking technique but I was most impressed. I have had salt crusted fish where the fish is encased in a saltpaste and then baked.  That is also served tableside and filleted. Here is what the fillet looked like on my plate.  

Perfectly seasoned and not salty as you might expect. The fish was served with  clarified melted butter that has some shallots and capers. That really took the fish over the top. 

Sides were butter mushrooms, twice baked potato and grilled asparagus. 

The mushrooms were terrific.  Savory and meaty.  The potato was more like an au gratin potato.   Very creamy and delicious but not what I was expecting as something called "twice baked". 

The asparagus was my favorite.  Cooked perfectly al dente and served with a mustardy hollandaise!!  Some of the best I have ever had!!

No room for dessert and we also had to get to one of the evening shows.