Cruise fare

We were with a group of friends on an Azamara "small boat" cruise on the Adriatic for 7 nights this past fall - small boat being often equated with excellent food and service.  We ate at least two meals a day on the boat, breakfast and dinner with lunch usually on land.  So what was the food like?

I would say the food was tasty, well-prepared and well-presented and the service excellent.  There were lots of variety with a regular menu and a changing daily menu.   I was impressed by the diversity in the food choices - from basic steak to more exotic middle eastern fare and lots of seafood - all nicely dressed-up.  The only drawback that I could see, looking back on those 7 days on the boat, was that it was like eating out at the same restaurant seven nights in a row.

Even though we were trying different dishes every night, the cooking, the style, the presentation, all ended up being very similar.  The elements of surprise and discovery were diminished after the first two meals and these were often a large part of the food experience after the "basic needs" were met.  Going through my food photos, I find it hard to select from the many that were taken in the course of the week but I have tried to capture the tone in the selection below.  It would have been nice if there were more local regional dishes on the menu but I suspect they may not suit the nouvelle cuisine style Azamara seemed to be aiming for.

Still, the meals were very enjoyable - we had a great time because of the great company we were with and the food obviously added much to the dinner table conversation, especially when all eleven of us were seated at one table.  There was much food sharing and the waiters were very obliging in providing extra dishes of most things for sharing - it was like having a banquet every day!  Ultimately, it was the "abundance of riches" that detracted from what was actually a superior dining experience and we were glad that we lunched on land where we were relieved to be served "real" food, mainly local fish that actually looked like a fish...;-)

Soft-shell crab - can't complain about this one - it actually looked like a crab!

Shrimp appetizer

Fresh-tasting Seafood pasta

Delicious grilled red snapper

Grilled arctic char - tasty!

Perfectly done lamb - and I love the grilled egg plant!

Bouillabaisse - delicious but obviously not quite the real thing

Scallops and fish

Lobster, scallops and squid - this was at the specialty restaurant Aqualina - we had to pay a cover charge to eat here as we were not in the right class cabin

Great desserts!

And a perfect Gran Marnier souffle!

Delicious Meals in Italy 2013

Arufa and M vacationed in Italy in October.  They drove west from Florence to Santa Margherita and Portofino, zigzag across the country to Venice and finally Rome.  Besides sightseeing and shopping, they indulged in the traditional Italian food – a lot of pasta, seafood and funghi.  

Some of the dishes they enjoyed in Florence included a salad of burrata and crispy zucchini and tagliatelle with cherry tomato and basil.

On their way to Portofino, they stopped at Lucca for fritto misto, ravioli, and pasta with squid.

 

To celebrate the porcini season, they ate pasta with porcini in Santa Margherita.

In Venice, they feasted on gamberi (large shrimps), scampi, and spaghetti with clams.

Arufa and M visited Eatery Roma, the humongous branch of the giant international high-end supermarket chain (it has locations in Tokyo and NYC).  They had dinners at various restaurants there.  The pan of fried calamari, shrimps and anchovies was wonderful, 

but not as much as the tartufo bianco dishes, such as the eggs with a generous amount of shaved white truffle, 

or a “menu tartufo” consisted of three items on a plate – tajarin (a Piedmonte egg pasta), egg and polenta, and a fondue of Raschera cheese, milk, butter and egg, all of which were topped with white truffle.  The latter two were served in aperitif glasses.

Arufa and M’s meals in Italy were rustic and simple but deliziosa!

Simple Albanian Lunch

When our cruise ship stopped for the day in Durres, we hired a local Albanian guide to take us around to Kruje and Tirana, the capital.  He took us to a family-run restaurant near downtown Tirana so we were treated to a home-cooked meal.  It was a simple Albanian lunch, well, lunch is the main Albanian meal so there is really nothing simple about it if you have to cook it.

What we had:

Simple salad of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and onions

Simple bread - but memorable because it was dense and crispy with great texture

Simple appetizer dip of tomatoes, eggplant and cheese but it's rather complex in taste and texture - I  love it, especially with the bread.  They gave us five bowls of these for eleven of us  - if we'd finished this, we probably wouldn't need anything else for lunch.

Simple vegetable soup with lots of veggies

Spinach and cheese phyllo - I know, it's Greek, it's Turkish, but it's also Albanian - it's a very common dish for this area of the world but hardly simple

  

And finally the meat dish - simply grilled.  I love the lamb but everybody else voted for the very tender chicken breast

The name of the restaurant, in case you are ever in Tirana...

Seafood in Croatia

We tried squid in three different Croatian towns, Hvar, Split and Dubrovnik - Hvar came out on top with the sweetest tasting.  We did not have an actual meal in Hvar, it was more like an afternoon snack, so it could have some bearing on our tastebuds.  The squid was grilled with very little oil and the tentacles were very crispy.  

Squid and risotto in Hvar

The lunch in Split was very interesting.  We were browsing menus along the waterfront tourist strip when we were approached by the waiter at one of the restaurants.  He proposed a custom menu for us and negotiated a price for the two fishes and squid that the four of us would like to try.  The emphasis was on "fresh" fish versus "frozen" - they were both on the menu and differently priced.  I have to give bonus points to the Croatian restauranteurs for their honesty.   Obviously we went for the "fresh" although these days with the expert fresh freeze techniques on fishing boats, could one really tell the difference?  It was also difficult to tell whether we got a good deal or not but we rather liked the waiter's personality, we were tired and hungry, so we sat down.   The fish and squid both turned out to be excellent.  

"Fresh" fish and squid in Split

In Dubrovnik, we were even more tired and hungry and practically sat down at the first place that we could - a narrow alley in the tourist strip.  Dubrovnik is so crowded with tourists these days that I'm sure anyone with a hole in the wall could make some money cooking fish for hungry tourists.  This particular hole seemed to be a family-run business but it didn't charge any less than the hotel-run restaurant in Split.  The food had a little more grease but still fresh and quite tasty.  I guess the proximity to the sea really helped.  While the food on board our cruise ship Azamara was excellent, you could count on anything we had to be frozen, well, "fresh" frozen.  We most certainly didn't have fish like this.

A week later in a Tuscany street market, the fishmonger identified for us the difference between the squid, calamari and octopus.  From that lesson, I would say that we had squid at all three Croatian towns.  We also had small fried fish in Dubrovnik - when we got to Cinque Terre in Tuscany, we found that they were anchovies - clearly quite different and tasted much better than the anchovies I tasted here in Canada, usually of the soggy variety and usually on pizza!  

Namu Gaji, an Encore

The number of full service restaurants in our area is mind-boggling.  We can eat out every day for a few years without going to the same restaurant twice, but we choose to go back to some places time and again because of their food and hospitality.  Namu Gaji is one such place.

A few months ago, we had an excellent okamase dinner there (see my 1/28/13 post “A Special Dinner at Namu Gaji“).  On our latest visit, we sat at one end of the communal table with two friends and ordered from the regular menu.  

The amuse-bouche, a piece of squid on a melon cube, was followed by Namu’s popular chicken and beef Korean “tacos”.  “Tacos” of course is a figure of speech.  They were chopped meat of chicken or beef short rib placed with kimchee salsa and remoulade over seasoned rice on toasted nori sheets instead of tortilla.  The flavor was Korean rather than Mexican.

Korean tacos

David, one of the owners, kindly sent us a salad of sugar snap and English peas, dragon tongue beans, avocado, and a cured yolk.  The raw vegetables cleansed our palate and prepared us for the rest of our dinner.

Salad of peas, beans, avocado and egg yolk

We ordered a trio of meat dishes: chicken wings seasoned with Sichuan pepper, pickled dragon tongue beans, lime and a blue cheese sauce; bone-in suckling pig belly with roasted corn, Thai chili and perilla; Korean fried chicken tossed in a sweet and tangy sauce and sides of spicy slaw, pickled daikon, and a dashi gravy.

Chicken wings

Suckling pig belly

KFC (Korean Fried Chicken)

Our carb of the evening was supplied by okonomiyaki, shiitake dumplings, and gamja fries.  The Namu Gaji version of okonomiyaki, a Japanese-style savory “pancake” cooked on a grill, was topped with kimchee, oyster, yamaimo, cabbage, bonito flakes, and kewpie mayo (a Japanese brand mayo with egg yolk, vinegar, dashi powder, mustard and, yes, MSG as ingredients).  The potato fries (gamja means potato in Korean) with short ribs were doused with kewpie mayo, teriyaki sauce, gochujang (red chili paste), and kimchee relish.

Okonomiyaki

Gamja fries

 We ended our dinner with black sesame pudding, fresh strawberries, and whipped cream.  It was another memorable meal at Namu Gaji. 

Vegetarian dim sum

Vegetarian food has become so ubiquitous that vegetarian dim sum seems almost the logical evolutionary step.  A new place opened up in Markham recently - Wutai Vegetarian Restaurant (Chinese name Wu Tai Shan 五台山 the home of many Buddhist monasteries and temples in Shanxi, China).   I was surprised at both how little different the vegetarian dim sum seemed from regular dim sum and how different Wutai was from the old style vegetarian restaurants.  The latter usually offers faux chicken, faux duck, even faux bbq pork - all made from gluten and with the respective fake flavours.  The irony of course is that all these offerings of fake meat implies a lingering yearning for meat, a questionable commitment on the part of the vegetarian.  Wutai Vegetarian seems to serve vegetarian the authentic way - with lots of mushrooms, vegetables and soy (all my favourites).  It shouldn't be difficult with the abundance of these produce in the city.  

Of course, when you think about it,  dim sum has also evolved quite a bit from the old standards of bbq pork buns and shrimp dumplings.  In fact, many items on the contemporary dim sum menu are already vegetarian, especially in finer restaurants.  So it's really a small leap to do a strictly vegetarian menu. There is clearly motivation behind the extra effort - the restaurant is owned by the Cham Shan Buddhist Temple on Bayview.  What a great way to spread the word and make some money for the organization - tasty vegetarian food!  Decor is bright and airy with an abundance of chandeliers and golden lotus.

Below is a selection we tried from the 49 items on the dim sum menu (no doubt there is some symbolism in the number 49).  I found most of them tasty.  The bitter melon tempura was a tat oversalted and greasy but most of the items were well made and thoughtfully presented.

Cheese tarts served in neat wooden boxes

Bitter melon tempura

My favourite - crispy fried taro cakes with taro thinly shredded for a more intense flavour

Layered soy sheets - not too exciting

King mushrooms wrapped in bamboo fungus

Your standard turnip pudding cake without the dried sausages

Looking good are the fried sticky rice dumplings with peanuts inside.  This is available in regular restaurants and people who like these dumplings think that these are very good.  Personally, I don't like fried sticky rice - the rice soaks up all the grease when fried.

This too is available in regular restaurants - enoki mushrooms and cucumber in steamed rice rolls

Osmanthus flower cake - made with gelatin

Vegetarian lunch is well and good - but will I have a vegetarian dinner at this restaurant?  That remains to be seen.  I had a peak at its dinner menu - lots of mushrooms and vegetables, clearly healthy for you...

Still Delicious!

We paid a visit to what used to be Delicious Restaurant on Hwy 7 tonight and was pleasantly surprised to find that after a month of renovations and a total revamp, including a new name, White Orchid is still delicious!  But it really shouldn't come as a surprise as the chef is still the same Patrick Chuang and if anyone can cook, he can cook anything.  In this case, even though the menu has changed, the same expertise and care is applied to the new dishes.  It is a double bonus that the "old" favourites like HaiNan chicken are still there and still the best in town.  So it is now not just a Chinese restaurant, but a Malaysian Singaporean restaurant, making the menu all the more diverse.

We made a point of trying something new on the menu - roti and curry chicken.  The roti are the best ever - I've never tasted them so crisp and light.  The curry chicken is tender and just the right amount of curry flavour.

The Pad Thai, another new dish here, is perfectly al dente and the flavour just right.  I hate the sugary sweet ketchupy red sauce often used by some Asian fusion chains on noodles that are usually too soft. I made a point of using the pad thai dish as the test piece with which to rate an Asian fusion restaurant and very few passed.

And to my utter relief, the Hai Nan chicken is still the best in town.  You wouldn't find a more tender yet firm and tasty white-cut chicken anywhere else in the GTA.   What made this now "Asian fusion" restaurant different from all those other ones out there is that they still serve good old Chinese greens, tossed in ginger and wine.  That little dash of wine made all the difference to the greens. You wouldn't find anything other than "salads" at other Asian fusions.

Dinner finished with a lovely dessert - coconut tapioca with fruit.  The perfect end to a perfect meal.

Chef Patrick Chuang said he is still game to do "private room dinners" for customers.  So this renovation is certainly a bonus.