This post is simply a collection of photos taken on the phone of some of the food and drink we managed to put away somehow during our cruise around South America on the Star Princess in 2016. This is by no means an exhaustive list; I tried to take photos of drinks when they were being tried for the first time (because I can never quite remember how they all taste, you understand) and after a few days you start to find your favourites for the duration so repeats occur. For the food there were a few times when the food was extra special and warranted a shot for some reason or another but the overwhelming majority of dishes were not captured photographically.
If we’re flying out then the holiday starts as soon as we’re through security at the airport so our first drink was at Heathrow. Nothing too fancy because they don’t really do fancy.
Once we were on the cruise ship and had taken a quick look around and some photos (see here: Exploring The Star Princess Cruise Ship) we checked our room to see if our luggage had arrived (it hadn’t) then hit Crooner’s Bar for our first drinks on board. I discovered Princess were doing a fabulous ale of their own (since discontinued).
Returning to our room and unpacking our luggage which had then arrived we were disturbed by a knock on the door. Because we’d booked a mini suite we were treated to a welcome aboard glass of champagne each from our steward. We’d completely forgotten this happened.
For the rest of the cruise, as mentioned, I tried to take photos whenever we had a new drink. What I didn’t do was note down what the drinks were. I should really start doing that. Looking back now at the photos I’m surprised there aren’t more shots of cocktails; I could have sworn I was a more adventurous drinker than that. Perhaps I had more of that ale than I remember.
I make it a point to always have a Vodka Martini on formal nights on a cruise ship. I don’t like the taste of the drink and I despise olives but it just feels like the right thing to do when I’m wearing a tuxedo. I figure at some point my taste buds will adapt to it. I’ve already worked out that the olives stay in the glass until half the glass is empty after which they are discarded; this imparts just the right amount of saltiness to the drink. It’s quite a harsh drink without it and like drinking brine at the bottom if the olives are left in too long.
The food shots mostly come from a night at the Crown Grill specialty restaurant on board the ship. We always try to make one visit to the restaurant when we cruise.
The only other food I took photos of was that we ate in Buenos Aires at the tango show. The steak was incredible. Beyond incredible. We were sat on a table of eight when the waiter came around to ask how everyone wanted their steak done; there were five “well done” responses and one brave person went for “medium/well done”. My wife: “rare”. Me: “rare”. We got a smile and nod from the waiter and nobody else did. When the food was brought out by a server he tapped the waiter on the back and pointed to the two steaks kept separate from the rest and my wife and I were duly pointed out. It might be our imagination but our steaks seemed to be placed down in front of us and everyone else’s was dropped. The meat was so tender, so tasty it didn’t need any extra seasoning. No other steak has come close to it and this was just a tango house in the Argentine capital. Dessert was the Argentine Dulce de Leche Crepe which was just fabulous too.
