Izumi and other Asian food

Being from Asia and a bit of a foodie I'd like to share come comments on Asian food on the Oasis.

Izumi:

complimentary edamame beans - a very small portion for 3 people, about 6 each!

complimentary miso soup - a bit salty (like all the broth-type soups all over the ship) but nice taste and has lots of ingredients (wakame seaweed, tofu, I think carrots?)

lobster roll - made with soy wrapper instead of seaweed, but the "champagne sauce" didn't seem to add anything.

deluxe sushi combo - here in Toronto I would have to pay at least twice if not 3x the price to get quality sushi like this. This is the first time I actually enjoyed a tako (octopus) sushi!

beef hot stone grill - the beef is reported to be tender but a bit lacking in flavour. Again a similar meal locally would cost 3 times as much.

seafood udon - was very surprised to find what seems to be overcooked linguine in place of udon. The real thing is soft and soaks up a bit of the broth for flavour, this one is chewy and tasteless. To top it off, I tried a bit of the broth and found it extremely salty. When asked how our meal was, I told them so. The manager later came over and said he tried the broth personally and agreed that it was way too salty, and removed it from the bill! I was impressed.

cold sake - they had a 300ml Kanbara "Bride of the Fox" Jumai Ginjo, very nice. No price was listed and it turned out to be $23. (Aside - I couldn't finish it and they said I should take it with me to the MDR. We did not sit at our regular table at MTD the next night and the server did not want to do anything with it, so I had to pour it myself into the wine glass on the table!)

Other Asian food -

Windjammer - the most authentic things there seem to be Indian food. They often had some kind of Jain curry. Unfortunately they cook papadums (crisps) the healthy but not tasty way which is to bake them instead of deep frying, otherwise I would be having several every day. The Chinese shrimp chips were not fresh and crunchy until Friday! why can't they make (or open?) a fresh batch at the beginning of the cruise?

MDR Lunch - Singapore Noodles. What we know as Singapore noodles is rice vermicelli with a light curry flavour. Instead we got the aforementioned "overcooked pasta masquerading as asian noodles", in a sweet and sour sauce. The most disappointing dish on the entire cruise.

Park Cafe and Broadwalk cafe - Asian noodle salad. For a change they used actual asian noodles, reconstituted dried rice sticks. However, this is the wrong kind of noodles to serve cold in a salad as the texture is almost powdery. The dressing was OK, sort of sweet and sour with sesame oil and the shrimps were nice and crunchy.

I guess I was spoiled by Navigator last year, they had excellent Indian Food at the Jade Cafe everyday, so I was hoping for something a bit more authentic. Oh well, at least there were a lot of choices.

Thanks for your great post. I think you about covered it. From the lack of response, I think that most cruisers don't care for Asian food at all, or they haven't been exposed to it enough to apreaciate it. From past cruises, I have found that the Asian food on the ships are usually not very good. The names are there and the presentation is there, but the flavors are lacking. This is surprising, since a lot of the staff is Asian.

My DW and I will be on the Oasis in October and will let you know if there has been any inprovements.

I am also going to be on the Oasis Oct 2nd. I cannot wait to try Izumi and will be tryint the sushi combo for sure!!

Thank you for the great review. We will be on Oasis in May and I am very excited to try the sushi combo now. I do enjoy the miso soup with all the add-ins that is always available in the Windjammer. This is usually my favorite breakfast item!

I'll be onboard in 2 days ( :p ), and we plan on eating there at least twice. We don't do the formal nights in the MDR, and prefer the alternate dining to the MDR anyway. And we love us some sushi! (and sake!!)

Hopefully the quality will be a little better, but I'll be sure to let everyone know!

Thank you for this, I am looking forward to Izumi :)