Food glorious food! Cruiseship style

On a cruise ship a lot of it is about the food.  And boy was there plenty of it!!

Here's some food porn from my phone (Nexus 5).  I used the Lens Blur function for most of it... and as you can see I didn't necessarily check it was good before closing my phone off.

My phone only syncs when it's on Wifi so it did a lot of syncing when we got back home!

In the captions below where MDR is used it stands for "Main Dining Room" which is the included food with the cruise.  We tended to let the waiters (we had Michael and Feliciano look after us in the Main Dining Room) recommend us something... found that was very reliable in finding something amazing to eat.

MDR Prime Rib

MDR Sliders (mini burgers)

MDR Dessert (some gateaux)

MDR Fish (sorry can't remember!)

MDR Cheesecake

MDR Soufflé (was definitely not the best I have had) 

MDR Escargot (my mother very disappointed with this)

MDR Lamb (yum!)

MDR Chocolate cake ?  :)

MDR Chocolate something!  

We rarely ate at Windjammers the buffet for lunch and never for dinner just because we liked the MDR... but it was our place to go for brekkie.  Here are a couple of photos at a lunch:

Salad bar at Windjammers

Condiments galore!

Cheese anyone?

Sweets and Desserts

These always looked great.

The guys were constantly topping them up!

Different station!

Premade Salads

 We ended up splurging and eating at a couple of the speciality restaurants.  Chops Grille and Giovannis.  There was a Japanese place on board too but we stuck to Italian and Steak :)

Chops Grille - Fillet Mignon - very yum!  (this one has a surcharge)

Chops Grille - Mississippi Mud Pie - very rich between a mousse cake and mud cake... 

Chops Grille - Huckleberry Cheesecake

This wasn't on the ship but at Giapo in Auckland.  It's Gelato as you have never seen before!  Amazing experience!

Photo of both mine and Will's Giapo options.  We chose two flavours each -- all were good.  The option we didn't choose which tasted fab was Lamington.  Maybe next time we're in Auckland :)

Giapo looks pretty unassuming!

MDR Baby shrimp cocktail / salad

MDR Fried cheese

MDR Dessert :)  (food fatigue!  at least in remembering what we had!)

MDR Dessert Pecan Pie perhaps?

MDR Roast beef (their beef was almost always fab!)

MDR Roast Chicken.

We went out at Tauranga to go Railcrusing and then were desperate for something a bit Asian/Chinese.  Like noodle soup.  We ended up at a Yum Cha joint :)

BBQ Pork Rice Noodle

Har Gow

Stuffed Tofu

Giovannis: Osso Bucco

Giovannis Dessert Cart

MDR Fried Chicken

MDR: Seafood medley

MDR Coconut dessert

Wellington: Sushi place for some Sashimi on rice.  Yum!

MDR: Potato soup with Bacon (no guesses as to whose starter this belongs to!)

MDR: Polenta

MDR: Prawns

MDR: Pad Thai (wasn't that tasty but we did ask for some chilli sauce which made a huge difference!)

MDR: Boston Mud Pie?

MDR: Fish/Seafood Pot Pie

MDR: Salmon Fillet

MDR: Mousse

MDR: Apple Crumble

Surprisingly (in a good way!) the desserts were never very sweet.  I think the sweetest one I had was the one above as a crumble.  I asked for the Almond Butter ice cream which they had as a special ice cream instead of the standard vanilla (they will give you multiple desserts if you want to so I just substituted it). I liked the ice cream so much I asked for it especially the following night as just ice cream and avoided the other desserts.  (their pistachio ice cream wasn't very nice though so not all their special ones are good!)

Johnny Rockets

Johnny Rockets appetizers

Johnny Rockets - we shared a Sundae

Johnny Rockets - my Chicken Salad

Johnny Rockets is considered a Speciality Restaurant with a ~$5.90 surcharge)

MDR: More prawns

MDR: Lasagne (finally!)  Apparently tasted better than it looked.

Chops Grille - Mushroom Soup (yum!)

Chops Grille - Black pepper bacon (yum!)

Chops Grille - Scallops (yum!)

Chops Grille - Some sides

Chops Grille - Seared Tuna (was good but if I went again (?!) I'd have the steak.

Chops Grille - Chocolate cake with liquid centre (yum!)

Chops Grille - Red Velvet cake

I took photos of food I had, Will had, my Mum had and Uncle Archon.  Not all food was photographed just the ones that looked impressive in most cases (other than the Lasagne) or had something special about it.

I would recommend trying some of the speciality restaurants to others although the main dining room always had good food.   Chops Grille was our favourite and we went there twice.  Johnny Rockets was good too.  Would have liked to have tried a milkshake but just no space and time to try it.