QUICK BITE: More Tapas at The Club

Tonight's small bites at The Club!! Bacon puffs artichoke puree, lobster cocktail, rice cracker with carrot and smoked salmon on a ginger macaron.

Some amazing tapas and no one else seems to know they have these every night.

Chef's Dinner at The Restaurant on Seabourn Odyssey

After four nights enjoying the menus at other venues, we finally made it to The Restaurant which is considered the high end dining venue on Seabourn Odyssey.  Tonight's menu was a six course menu where you had one choice: Sea Bass or Filet.

First course was a crabmeat salad. The crab was wrapped in a slightly bitter leafy green.  There were dollops of mustard and lemon for some balance to the creaminess.   

Next course was a delicious mushroom bisque. 

If you have followed this blog for awhile, you will remember that mushroom soup (and mushrooms in general) are one of my favorite dishes on a cruise.  And this soup didn't disappoint. Creamy and meaty!!   This could be a while meal with a larger portion and some crusty bread.  

Next course was a beautifully seared scallop. 

Such a well composed dish with a smooth buerre Blanc sauce along with some shredded carrot for a little crunch and additional sweetness.  

Next course was a peach champagne sorbet palate cleanser.  

Followed by the sea bass.

Well cooked fish with crispy skin served with seasoned brocolini.  

Desset was sort of a twist on tiramisu. 

A log of marscapone surrounded by a coffee jelly.  Then a cannel of dark chocolate and dollops of butterscotch and lemon cream.  

QUICK BITE: Tapas at The Club on Seabourn Odyssey

The Club is one of the lounges onboard Seabourn Odyssey. It has a small stage where bands play and also has a small (very small) casino off to one side.  While we enjoying a cocktail a few nights ago, the waiter brought us over some honey potato chips and then asked if we would like more snacks.  He brought out this.  

There were deviled eggs (he called them angel eggs).

So creamy and delicious.  

There was also a crispy rice cracker with dollops of avocado and mango puree.  

Another cracker with a type.of tapanade.  

The best bite was a savory macaron. 

This had a beautiful curry flavor.  To this point I'm my life I had only had sweet macarons I had been missing out. 

Last night we were also in the same lounge.  The bites were all different including another savory macaron with smoked salmon, a cauliflower puree and grilled Mediterranean shrimp.  Can't wait to check out what they have tonight.  

French Dinner at The Collonade

The Collonade is one of the five options for dinner on Seabourn Odyssey.  For breakfast and lunch, it is a buffet-style restaurant. At lunch they have a few things you can order a la carte such as a daily fish special, burgers, hot dogs and chicken.  At night, it becomes an a la carte restaurant and each night has a different theme. Last night was French cuisine.  

There is a bread service of a crunchy baguette along with whipped butter, olive oil and a salted cream cheese.  

Started with some French onion soup. 

The broth was really excellent.  Rich onion flavor.  It was topped with a crouton that had some cheese flavor.  If you are a fan of a cheesy french onion soup, this would not be your favorite.  

Next was the french classic of escargot. 

They were served with a piece of toasted garlic bread.   These weren't the best escargot I have ever had but they had a buttery, garlic flavor.  And with these, it is usually about using the bread to sop up that liquid.   

Next was fois gras. 

This was served with some buttery toast points, some leeks and dollops of mustard.  The fois gras still had some thicker pieces of fat which wasn't my favorite. It would have tasted better if this had been quickly seared on each side. A little disappointing. 

For mains, my wife and I both had the chateaubriand cooked medium rare. 

This was a very flavorful piece of beef.   Cooked perfectly and served with au jus with onions and mushrooms.  There were also snap peas, carrots and potato planks. What brought everything together was the super rich and creamy bearnaise sauce.  That went really great with the potatoes. 

While I thought the overall meal was underwhelming, the chateaubriand saved the meal. I have found the beef on this ship to be properly prepared and cooked to order.  

QUICK BITE: More great bites from Earth and Ocean

We had one more dinner at Earth and Ocean last night.  Had two amazing dishes. The first was roasted salmon with lentils. 

The salmon was cooked perfectly medium rare with some crispy skin.   And it was served on top of lentils that had been cooked with port wine.  The lentils has a bit of a peppery kick to them.  So flavorful and creamy.  

Also had the best dish (so far) on this sailing. This was roasted cauliflower. 

If you have followed this blog for awhile, you might remember a similar dish we had on Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady in October 2021. That dish was terribly executed. The cauliflower was raw and lacked seasoning. Virgin Voyages needs to take a look at how cauliflower should be cooked. 

The thick slice of cauliflower had first been put into a smoker.  Then seasoned and roasted.  Then it came topped with a pomegranate vinaigrette, capers and some other roasted vegetables including peppers.   Wow!!   What great flavor from the smoke balanced with the sweetness from pomegranate and saltiness of the capers.  This dish had everything.  

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.