On European cruise, Southeast Asian dishes gave a break from the otherwise bland food
- The views were incredible, the food less so on a cruise around Norway and Iceland – except for the occasional Southeast Asian surprise
I can now cross off a two-week cruise around Norway and Iceland from my bucket list. My recent summer holiday had everything the brochure promised, including spectacular landscapes and fantastic fiords.
Less fulfilling, though, were its gastronomic pledges. With 3,000 other passengers on board, my gourmet food expectations were kept to a bare minimum.
The thing is, after 14 consecutive days of visiting the same Lido Deck buffet for breakfast, numerous lunches and even a few dinners, I began to grow fond of the ship’s massive mess hall. Maybe this was just Stockholm syndrome.
Cruise ship cuisine isn’t limited to buffets. There are other outlets, including pricey fine-dining venues, that aren’t part of the inclusive package, but few passengers waste extra money on these venues.
Our liner included three restaurants with service that required booking, at least for dinners. They resembled hotel lobby cafes, delivering old-school ideas of posh nosh: think shrimp cocktail, duck à l’orange and Crêpes Suzette (sans flambé).
On themed evenings, they might create specials like beef Wellington, rack of lamb and, for exotic flavours, Mongolian seafood noodles; for the latter, the silver-haired patrons loved what was essentially a black pepper chow mein, never mind that Mongolia is a landlocked country.
But most of the passengers’ meals were at the buffet, which started at 6am for breakfast and often continued past 10pm as partygoers wandered in for a late-night snack or ice cream fix.
To be honest, none of the outlets delivered great food, but it was reasonable fare given the scale of the ship’s operation and the variety of diners it needed to cater for. They had folks from across the globe and they needed to appeal to every palate, no matter how milquetoast.
That meant cooking all meat and fish to well done, to minimise health risks and appease overcautious consumers. There was absolutely no rareness or hint of pink in the steaks and salmon.
What was plentiful was pizza, French fries, fried rice, chicken breast and creamy pastas. For my taste, it was hard to tell the white sauces apart between Alfredo, carbonara, pesto cream, and the mac and cheese’s roux.
The big surprise for me was the occasional “ethnic” offerings. I never imagined I would enjoy jerk chicken and korma curry while sailing through a fiord.
The best of the lot were the Filipino dishes. The buffet’s pork adobo was excellent. I also lapped up the beef tapa (marinated beef) and bicol express (pork in coconut milk and chilli, although they toned it down). A bit jarring but tasty was the neon pink sauce of the pork tocino (sweet cured pork).
With a lot of the cooking done by Filipino chefs, this made sense. The industry relies on labour willing to take less than First World wages. I bet my jerk chicken was done by a cook from the Caribbean.
As the days went by, I started to look forward to the novel Southeast Asian entrées snuck in between the buffet’s penne alfredo and sweet and sour chicken.
Cruise ships might be appalling examples of mass gluttony, wasteful consumption and mediocre food, but being stuck on one for two weeks, I developed a grudging respect for the kitchen’s impressive military precision and their yeoman’s effort, especially in quietly tolerating some very self-entitled guests.
Now back on dry land, I really crave some Chinese roast duck and char siu. But a tiny part of me does miss that (not so) bad buffet.
