On Board Crystal Serenity - Food and Celebration

 As this was the Crystal 35th Anniversary Cruise, of course there was some celebration, but because the cruise was short and consideration had to be given to two Nobu events, there was no Crystal Society Party. According to Andrew, this was the first time in the history of Crystal Society parties that there hasn't been one on a cruise... Instead, all of the celebrations were wrapped around the White Party that took place on the actual 35th anniversary date of Crystal Cruises, July 20.

The 'official' birthday cake outside Waterside

The birthday banner in the Crystal Plaza

Things kicked off with a balloon drop, with the countdown led by Gary Hunter,

and a little song and dance from Russ and the Crystal Ensemble

Then the birthday cake was passed around

and the party got started in earnest. We don't usually go to the White Party. We don't dance, so we like to leave the seats for those who do, and we'll go to the Avenue Saloon or to Palm Court. But this time we stayed to see what it would be like with Russ and Annette, the singer who replaces Karin Kovachova when she goes on vacation. Boy, was it an energetic party! When Annette took a short break, Russ stepped up centre stage and belted out 'Dancing Queen'....complete with his Mamma Mia boots!! He was a musical theatre actor in a previous life, so this is apparently not entirely out of character. He's been leading rollicking White Parties on Symphony and on Azamara Cruises before that for a number of years.

Now, on to the food!

We had just enough time to fit one of everything in on this cruise, including Beefbar, the new dining option that replaces Tastes up on Deck 12. Beefbar is an international group of restaurants dedicated to serving beef in all forms, and the Crystal ships are the only locations at sea.

We had dinner there on the first night of the cruise:

Bao Buns with Shredded Wagyu Beef filling

Ribeye Ham - Ribeye Prosciutto and panettone bread

Filet Mignon with Beefbar Sauce

Black Angus Steak-Frites and Pepper Sauce

Everything was delicious! The steaks were cooked perfectly and the fries, that other guests had raved about, also did not disappoint. If we had dessert, it was over at the Gelato Bar!

We also managed to try it out for lunch when we were in Oslo. We spent the first day there on the ship as we had seen much of the city in on our previous visit in 2023. There are specially designed Beefbar plates on the tables. I'm not sure if you can buy them on board, but the Beefbar website offers them for sale.

I tried the Quesadillas. They were small but packed with flavour, made with braised Wagyu beef (why would you braise Wagyu beef?? but it was delicious), two kinds of cheese and black truffle.

And Larry had the Steak-Frites Baguette with Beefbar sauce. Does he like Steak-Frites??? He actually had to take the frites out of the sandwich to be able to eat it, but he enjoyed every bite.

We're looking forward to trying some of the other dishes when we go back to Serenity in September.

We also had a brief look in at Osteria D'Ovidio. This was on the evening after our Gothenburg food tasting tour, so we weren't really hungry. We managed the Caprese Salad and a small plate of Gnocchi each. I don't have any evidence that we had any main course or dessert and truly, we can't remember!

The little 'amuse bouche' plate

Caprese Salad

Gnocchi

That was probably the last time we'd see these particular dishes, as Crystal has partnered with the Alajmo brothers to completely revamp the menu. One is a well-known 3-Michelin star chef and his brother runs their restaurants in Italy. This change should be effective August 1. I've just taken a look at Crystal's announcement of the new menu and a couple of my favourites will be on it.

And finally Umi Uma. We were there again a couple of evenings after the Omakase Dinner, and again didn't have a big meal. We had a sushi/sashimi platter and some tempura shrimp and vegetables, and that was about it.

One of the reasons for the truncated meal was that our reservation wasn't until 8:30 - Umi Uma is always very popular, but particularly so on this cruise. And the other was that it was the evening of the Anniversary Celebration and White Party, which started at 9:30. We didn't have a lot of time.

We'll be able to space our dinners out better on the next cruises, and in September we'll be meeting up with some friends, so I'm sure we'll be checking out the new menus together.

A Taste of Swedish Cuisine in Gothenburg

 As if we hadn't eaten enough already, our excursion in Gothenburg, Sweden was a food tour! And rather than being a walking tour, this one relied on a bus ride between stops, so we couldn't even build up a lot of steps to counteract the calories.

It was a lunchtime/afternoon tour, which was good in one way, because the description did say the portions were larger than just small tastings, but it was also not so good, because the description said the portions were larger than small tastings....we had a dinner reservation at Osteria D'Ovidio in the evening.

Once we got on our way, I remembered our last visit to Gothenburg in 2023 on Seabourn Ovation, and the huge construction projection not far from the port. It is still ongoing. I'm sure there has been progress made, but don't ask me what.

Our first stop was at the Feskekörka, or Fish Church. This is a fish market/food hall/restaurant complex that is built in the shape of a church. The architect was so taken with the shape of Norwegian churches that he created a similar design for this one.

The market has been here for many years, but the building had been deteriorating, so, according to our guide, it was closed for a number of years and completely rebuilt. I think it only reopened a couple of years ago.

We were a fairly large group for a food tour, 37 people, so we were split up in order to all get seats for our first tasting of Swedish food, a cold fish and seafood plate. We had a selection of really tasty foods. I was already familiar with much of it, as this kind of thing was always standard fare at home, but I can imagine some of our group members looked askance at having to pull apart and peel their shrimp! The plate consisted of: boiled whole shrimp, herring, smoked salmon, shrimp in mayo on baguette, and Swedish Vasa flatbread with cheese. Larry and I finished everything and found it all delicious!

Our next stop was at a large food hall. It was so hot outside - approaching 30°C - that rather than having our tasting inside, we went out to the edge of the parking area under some trees. Too bad; it would have been nice to be able to check out some of the vendors inside.

We had tastings from two of the vendors. The first was a cheese shop that sold all varieties of cheeses, some from Sweden, and others from the more famous cheese sources like Denmark, Holland and France. We tasted about 7 different kinds, from all of these countries.

Our second vendor told us the very interesting history of his company. It was established to bring local meat producers' products directly to the public because the large grocery chains that were more interested in volume than quality and small producers didn't have the resources to do this themselves. So this company receives and sells through their shop all sorts of artisanal local foods, and some will sell out very quickly each week. They have not been around for very long, and already have increased their sales volume by huge amounts year over year. Swedish people seem to be very happy supporting local producers with high quality offerings. 

The plates that were offered had quite the variety:  dry cured ham, similar to prosciutto, with local pure honey, Swedish meatballs, a small wiener and locally made mustard, roasted beef and smoked pork,

After that course, we hopped back into the bus and were driven to the Haga neighbourhood, which is one of the oldest in the city, filled with wooden houses. Now there are also lots of cafés, restaurants and specialty shops as well.

Our stop here was at one of the bakery/cafés, where we had traditional cinnamon buns. Fortunately these were not like the huge North American version, but thinner and covered with pearl sugar instead of sticky icing. It was also delicious with a cup of coffee.

After this progressive meal, we were all pretty full and happy to get back on the bus to return to the ship. Now the question was, would we be hungry enough for our Italian dinner at 7:30??? The food post is coming up next, so you can find out.

Omakase Dinner by Nobu Matsuhisa

 We had booked the cruise so close to sailing that we really didn't think we had any chance of getting into any of the Nobu dinners, but we were on the waitlist so all we could do was cross our fingers. It must have worked, because on Thursday we received the invitation to the early seating.

We were a little concerned though when Morne, one of the headwaiters who was helping with the guest list at the door, couldn't find us on the list. But then Sigi, who is in charge of Umi Uma, came to the rescue and showed us to our table...and we wondered if we weren't a late addition after all. We were at the last table in the larger section of the restaurant where all the guests were seated.

Our first course was Salmon Nashi Pears. Who would ever have thought to combine sushi salmon and pears? But this is why Nobu has had such a long career as one of the world's top chefs.

It was amazing!!! The citrus in the sauce from the Yuzu cut down some of the fat in the fish and the whole package was light and lovely to eat. I can still taste it as I write!

Next up was Lobster and Kohlrabi.....what??? Yes, another odd combination that worked really well together. 

The lobster was poached, and the kohlrabi had been shredded, marinated in miso and served with flakes of dry miso. If you aren't a fan of kohlrabi, and Larry isn't, try it this way! He really enjoyed it. And it was paired with Nobu's Premium Sake. Not something we would normally drink, but again, the two complemented each other very nicely.

The third course was Assorted Nobu Sushi. This was a small selection of Tuna, Yellowtail, Salmon and Whitefish with a cup of Caviar over sushi rice. The Sake also paired very nicely with this dish.

Anybody who ever goes to Umi Uma is already familiar with the wonderful sushi prepared at the Sushi Bar, so this course was not anything really new and different. The sushi chefs are all Nobu-trained, and sitting at the bar to get the floor show while you eat is always a real treat.

The best thing about our table was
that I had a great view of the sushi bar
and Nobu checking up on his chefs

Course number four was Chilean Sea Bass, steamed and served with cucumber and a mint-apple salsa. Again, not something you would immediately think of pairing. With this course the waiters served Nobu's own California Chardonnay.

It must be looking like we had a lot of food, but even after a nice sized piece of fish, we weren't getting full. But then, there wasn't a lot on the plates other than protein and a few vegetables.

Head Sommelier Jiri showing us one of the
bottles in a special Nobu Sake series that was on
offer. No, we didn't buy any!

Chef Nobu and the Executive Chef
of the Specialty Restaurants checking
out how service was going

Our meat course was Japanese Miyazaki Wagyu Steak, served with Shiitake Mushrooms and a Wasabi Pepper Sauce. The Nobu red wine that they served with this, the Cabernet Sauvignon also from Sonoma County, was like velvet and held up against the wasabi pepper sauce.

It was odd to find Wagyu beef sliced thin and, to any steak lover, overcooked! But it was very tender and layered with the shiitake mushrooms like a lasagna. Yummy!

And finally, we reached the dessert course. This was Mango Cheesecake with a Green Thai Curry Sorbet.

The cheesecake was very light and the thick mango layer on top gave it a mildly citrus flavour. The sorbet was delicious and actually had a hint of heat from the Thai Curry.

Once we were finished eating, we saw Chef Nobu by the sushi bar and asked Ritchie, one of the waiters whom we've known for a long time, if he would take our photo with him. Nobu kindly consented and we have a great photo that has even been published by Crystal Cruises in their social media.

Shortly afterward, we all started filing out to let the staff set the tables for the second seating of the Omakase Dinner.

Fast forward to Saturday evening. There was a pre-dinner 'meet and greet' with the special guests and Chef Nobu.  I had spent some time in the morning doing sketches of some of the courses, and took the opportunity to put them into my purse before we went to Palm Court.

When I had my turn to talk to Chef Nobu, I also showed him the sketches. He immediately asked for a pen and signed them all! Then he took out his phone and took a photo of them. I later found out from Naomi, one of the bar waitresses, that he had posted it on his Instagram stories for the day, and we managed to get a screenshot of it before it disappeared. One of the ship's photographers was on hand to take photos of guests with Chef Nobu and he was happy to pose with the sketches. An OMG! moment if ever there was one!!!

The photo posted on
#therealnobu

Me and Nobu and my sketches. WOW!

The sketches were even a hit with some of the Crystal maitre d's and headwaiters. A few of them took photos themselves.

So our brush with culinary greatness turned out even better than I could have imagined. Our meals at Umi Uma from now on will be that much tastier.

Kristiansand, Norway

 On July 18 we visited the town of Kristiansand, Norway. We went from the very top of Denmark to the very bottom of Norway in just a few hours.

The seas have been calm as glass, but we weren't expecting anything else as this whole area is protected by land. I remember overhearing a couple in the Crystal Cove just before we left Copenhagen. She wanted to make sure she took her medication before the ship left the pier. If she'd looked at a map she probably would have realized that there wouldn't be a lot of heavy wave action like she may have experienced in the ocean at any point in the cruise.

Kristiansand is not a very large city, but because of its situation, it is a real vacation destination. It gets the most sunshine of any place in Norway....which, considering there is nothing further south in Norway, seems a little obvious. We had another fantastic warm, sunny day for our visit, and it looked to us as though the town had declared a holiday to celebrate. We took our walk around in the late morning, but it seemed that the stores were closed, road construction equipment stood idle, and there weren't many people around.

As with most towns and cities bordering on the Skagerrak, Kristiansand's economy revolves mainly around trade and the fishing industry as it has since the town was established in 1641. Along with the main fish market that supplies retailers and restaurants, we checked out a small market in a little enclave of shops and offices near the port. There was a nice selection of fish, and even lobster, still to be had even though it was toward noon.

The waterfront is all public parkland and includes a couple of beaches where children were splashing around in the water. We walked along here until we reached Christiansholm Fortress. Built by King Christian IV in 1660 to defend the harbour and local naval operations, it is apparently also a museum, although the interior is currently closed. We had nice views of the bay from the cannon placements though.

The building is a very popular fish restaurant

Cannons overlooking the harbour

We next headed toward the old part of town known as Posebyen. There was a major fire in the city in 1892, in which many of the wooden houses were destroyed. This area contains the ones that were not affected, and now this is one of the largest collections of wooden houses in all of Norway. They are all beautifully kept. We really enjoyed walking through the area.

An artist must live here. Who else would match
the purples with this teal green??

After leaving Posebyen, we headed toward the Kristiansand Cathedral, the tallest building the city, and also found the Rådhus, or Town Hall, and a large public square and garden. And we also found all the people. It was a lot busier here, with restaurants and cafés starting to fill up. We took a look inside the Cathedral and found it very interesting. Obviously dedicated to protecting sailors or fisherman as there is a wooden boat hanging just inside the entrance.

The Rådhus was quite a surprise

The Cathedral

The boat is hanging under the organ loft

A gorgeous organ. There are
free recitals on Tuesday mornings

We walked back to the ship after this. We had a 6:00 reservation for one of the Nobu Omakase dinners and wanted to make sure we showered and were ready on time. The next post will be dedicated to the dinner.

After dinner we headed up to Palm Court to see the sunset, and were not disappointed. Here are a few photos:

Now on to the next post, as I think everyone is really interested in the special Nobu food we enjoyed at dinner!