Around Silver Moon and the Culinary Experience

 We finally had a couple of sea days to do a post about the ship and the food, but the internet was somewhat unstable so I had to wait until port day in Bridgetown, Barbados to get everything together.

WARNING: You may put on a few pounds by the end of this post!

The food onboard has been, for the most part, beautifully presented and very good. The exception seems to be with cooking a steak. That's a hit-and-miss prospect, unless we are at Hot Rocks and can cook our own, as we did in Buenos Aires and a couple of times since.

First, a few photos around the ship. Silver Moon and her sister ships are designed so that the guest suites are mostly to the forward end of the ship and the public rooms are to the aft, unlike the standard layout of public rooms being all the way across a couple of the lower decks and guest suites all the way across the decks above. It did take a little getting used to for us, but the ship has terraces behind the restaurants and lounges at the back of the ship on multiple decks so there's lots of space to have a meal outside. The only drawback to this design is that there are no forward-looking spaces. The only exception to this is the very small Observation Library, which is located above the Bridge.

The Pool Deck

The back of Deck 10 has its own hot tub and lounges

Behind the Panorama Lounge on Deck 9 - we often
meet Mary Ellen and Ed out here after breakfast

The Panorama Lounge

Now, on to the food! There are multiple dining options available, from the casual Spaccanapoli for fresh made pizza up to La Dame for fine dining French cuisine. We have now tried them all at least once, and have been impressed by the food at each one. The only problem we have is that reservations have to be made at almost all of them, and that, in conjunction with the dress code - formal, informal and casual - can make it difficult to pin down an option you want on any given night. Mary Ellen has gone so far as to make up a flowchart she can use to determine if Ed will need to wear a jacket to go to a certain restaurant on a formal or informal night! And so far we've had far more informal and formal nights than casual ones, so Larry is getting tired of hauling out the jackets, too.

We'll start off with the special event of each cruise: The Chocolate Delight at Dolce Vita. At 10 p.m. on one sea day evening, the main lounge and bar is converted into a Chocolate Buffet, which looks absolutely amazing! It's probably also delicious, but we haven't actually tried anything yet.

S.A.L.T. Lab, I've shown one of the other dishes we made in a previous post, but here are the photos from my first venture into this interactive cooking experience. S.A.L.T. stands for Sea and Land Taste, and the lab allows us to learn about and prepare some dishes from the local area. In this case, it was Gaucho Grilling in Uruguay, where we made a steak (pan fried), a salsa-type sauce, and some delicious partially melted provolone cheese called Provoleta.

S.A.L.T. Kitchen is right beside the lab, and its changeable menu reflects the area we are in as well. It is one of the no reservation required options for dinner, and we've eaten there three times, each time in a different region, so we've had a wide variety of choices.

A Seafood Soup with Mussels

Gaucho version of Shepherd's Pie

Bolo de Rolo, a south Brazilian dessert of
sponge cake with apple puree

Coconut squares with ice cream

Kaiseki - the Asian style restaurant on board. It is a very small dining room, but the food is excellent. The first time we were there, we had the Chef's Menu, the Omakaze. Since then we have tried various other dishes, and all of them were delicious.

The Rainbow Caviar appetizer

Tuna Tartar

Chocolate dessert with ice cream

On another occasion we tried something different

Beef tataki

King Crab Tempura Rolls

Surf and Turf - Wagyu Beef and Lobster

We had dinner with Mary Ellen and Ed that night...

La Terrazza is the buffet restaurant where we normally have breakfast, and quite often also lunch, as it has the best salad bar for a slightly lighter meal. At night it becomes a sit-down Italian restaurant.

Gnocchi

Beef carpaccio

Veal Saltimbocca

Beef Short Rib

Tiramisu

Hot Rocks at The Grill - we've already covered this, as we were there for Valentine's Day in Buenos Aires. It is probably our favourite dining spot on the ship. We've been there 3 times already, with another 2 visits planned in the final segment of the cruise.

Grilled vegetable appetizer

The New York Salad

Lamb chops on the grill

And a steak - the best one Larry's had yet!

An apple tart with ice cream for dessert

Spaccanapoli is the name of the Italian Pizza restaurant up on Deck 11, overlooking the pool. And yes, the walking/jogging track goes right past the front! The menu has at least a dozen fresh made, thin crust pizzas, but I'm sure you can get something customized if you ask. Oh, yes, the onboard Gelato Bar is right beside Spaccanapoli, and has some really, really good ice cream!

Pizzas are a good size for two to share

And this is the Calzone, a whole pizza folded over!

The French Restaurant La Dame has decoration by Lalique, and is the most upscale dining room on the ship. Jackets are always required for the gentlemen. We ate there with Mary Ellen and Ed, and we have made one more reservation for this last segment.

The Escargot appetizer in Puff Pastry

Lemon Sorbet palate cleanser

The Dover Sole

Tenderloin Steak

Lobster (courtesy of Ed)

And a Chocolate Mousse on a croquant base for dessert

One place that is open almost all day for very light snacks, small sandwiches, salads, cakes and specialty coffees, is the Arts Cafe. It is a comfortable casual room where you can go if you are 'fooded out' on any given day, but need to have something.

And, finally, on this voyage, as we did cross the Equator on March 1, we had to invite King Neptune and his entourage for the Equator Crossing Ceremony, where the Pollywogs who had never done that on a ship before, became Shellbacks. We had over 100 Pollywogs on board, and the party was a hoot!

In order to become a Shellback, every Pollywog
had to 'Kiss the Fish'. Yes, it was a real fish,
dead, of course, and rather ugly.

King Neptune and his Queen

We have 10 more days to enjoy all of the above dining venues, and at the same time we are using the pool and the jogging track to try to keep the extra weight down!