Discovery Princess: Sabatini's Italian

Sabatini's is one of the speciality restaurants on Discovery Princess.  The cover charge is $25/person and there are five courses.  You get to pick one from each category. 

They start off with a bread course. This was a small rustic loaf served with a red pepper sauce. 

There was also a freshly baked garlic cheese roll. 

First course was the burrata. This is a creamy mozzarella with a thin shell made with cows milk. It had a delicious flavor It was served on top of sliced tomatoes that needed to be riper.  As they were, they had no taste. A little bit of kosher salt would have helped.  The dots of balsamic helped but it needed more.  

Also ordered the fried zucchini and  summer squash.  

This was much more successful. Perfectly fried fingers of zucchini and squash with some grated cheese and olive oil. The crostini was just as good.  Super flavorful cheese and sauteed onions.  

Next was the cheese soup.  

The grana padano cheese is similar to parmesan reggiano.  This cheese had so much flavor. And the addition of the mushrooms and hazelnuts have it some much needed earthiness and crunch.  

Next was the pasta course.  First the baked pasta trio. 

From left to right was a mini lasagna, three cheese baked ziti and chicken parmesan.  The ziti definitely my favorite.  A buttery and rich cheese sauce that perfectly coated the ziti.  Not thick or gummy. The chicken parm had small pieces of fried chicken in a mild pasta sauce. The lasagna was really just three raviolis stacked together.  Not terrible but also not lasagna.  Of course, I knew a mini lasagna would never be like a regular pan lasagna.  

Also ordered the beef cheek ragout.  

This has super tender beef in a savory sauces e over al.dente noodles.  Some great flavors however the ragout had been slightly overreduced so it was a bit salty.  

For mains, we started the sole picatta.

Two lightly breaded and perfectly cooked filets served with a bit of parmesan over creamy  rosemary polenta.  Certainly the best dish of the night. 

Somewhat less successful was the veal marsala. 

This suffered with the same issue as the ragout. A great tasting flavorful sauce.  Some savory, earthy flavors from.the mushrooms.  But the sauce had been overreduced so it was salty.  I think it could have been a much better dish is it was served with some buttery mashed potatoes which would have given some contrast to the saltiness.  

Dessert was mini versions of all their desserts.  

Left to right was the zabaglione, vanilla panna cotta, tiramisu and the rocher.  The rocher was my favorite with some deep chocolate and caramel notes.  The tiramisu was also a standout.  The Panna Cotta has some food flavor but needs a bit more of the lemon curd. 

Overall a really delicious meal and the best value of any of the speciality restaurants on board the Discovery Princess.