Bayou Specialty Restaurant

[miss]

i enjoy the specialty restaurants but have never eaten at a Bayou Restaurant. If anyone has been there I would appreciate your reviews.

[Colo Cruiser]

i enjoy the specialty restaurants but have never eaten at a Bayou Restaurant. If anyone has been there I would appreciate your reviews.

 

 

A quick search found a few threads on the Bayou.

Here are a couple.........

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2399205&highlight=bayou

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2382003&highlight=bayou

[Happy2cruise]

Only been once a few years ago, but the filet was the best we ever had on a cruise ship.

[AZ Ocean Lover]

I wasn't too keen on going but the line to the MDR was quite long and so we just asked if we could get a table. No problem. It was one of the best specialty meals we've had on Princess. I agree, the filet was excellent. The lobster tails looked delicious, and huge (table next to us out ordered us). My husband said the gumbo was the first spicy thing he's ever had on a Princess cruise so was in heaven. Go, you will be pleasantly surprised.

[Murray's Pop]

Having grown up in New Orleans I'm kinda choosy about "Cajun" food. From what I see the steaks are pretty good, but how about the Cajun stuff. The gumbo? Do the serve whole crawfish or is it a sauce with tiny bits of mud bug?

 

I'm sure we will go on our upcoming cruise, but was just curious.

[taxatty]

The Cajun style food at the Bayou Cafe is good, but it's not French Quarter amazing. Just like the other specialty restaurant steaks are good, but they're not Morton's or the Palm.

[memoak]

Think steak house with a Cajun flair

[OCruisers]

We <3 Bayou!

Fantastic filets and the lobster is actually good.

The Cajun items offered are good (no problem) ... but definitely not French Quarter Great.

[nukesubsailor]

The Bayou Cafe is our favorite specialty restaurant on Princess. The steaks are as good as you find in the Crown Grill on other ships and the Cajun dishes are icing on the cake. We would rejoice if every Crown Grill became a Bayou Cafe. Nothing would be lost and some spicy Cajun dishes would be added.

[sunsetbeachgal]

One of the best filets I have had....ever!!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[azgrandmax3]

i enjoy the specialty restaurants but have never eaten at a Bayou Restaurant. If anyone has been there I would appreciate your reviews.

We have eaten there twice. Really enjoyed the atmosphere. Also the music. Expect spicy there is little choice of foods without lots of spice. Service was excellent. For me I preferred the choices and ability to control spice on foods available at the Crown Grill.

[OCruisers]

We have eaten there twice. Really enjoyed the atmosphere. Also the music. .

 

(y) Thanks for mentioning the atmosphere and music! Really does add to making Bayou special!!!!

[lmentzer]

Just to balance out some of the previous comments. Four of us went to the Bayou on our last cruise on the Carribbean Princess, and were thoroughly disappointed. Half of the restaurant was taken up by the happy hour so noisy and crowded. The service was horrible. The food was not particularly spicy and certainly not worth the extra cost. We had booked for two different nights, and canceled the second. If you have a choice, and your ship has a Crown Grill, that would be my recommendation, and while not five star, Sabatini's was better than the Bayou.

[Coveguy4]

Great food, I will echo the statement.....The best filet I have ever eaten on a cruise ship! This was true both times on the Coral. Enjoy!

[lmentzer]

My mistake, we were on the Island Princess, not the Carribbean.

[Sackat60]

We were on the Island Princess for the 3/15-3/30 Panama Canal cruise and went to the Bayou on the third night (3/17). We had a very disappointing meal and I am a huge fan of Cajun/Creole cooking. We were 2 couples and the room was less than 1/3 full and the service was very slow. It took us 3 hours. That wasn't too terrible as we enjoyed ourselves, but we did miss all the St. Patrick's day festivities.

 

My gator ribs were very tough and although they were to have been "smothered", they seemed like they were just boiled with a little BBQ sauce on them. They were inedible. My DH's giant NY steak was cooked properly (med rare), but was too tough for him to cut even with his steak knife. And my beloved fried cat fish was disappointing as well. It was hard and tasteless (I had the same thing later in the cruise for lunch in the MDR and it was just right). The sweet potato pie was tasty, but really sweet with A LOT of ginger. Just not what I've ever had in the south.

 

Now to be fair, the oysters were really good and the gumbo was fantastic! I also tasted the Jambalaya and it too was very good. Also, the same couple we went with returned late in the cruise with another couple and all said that they had a wonderful meal and the gator was fall-off-the-bones tender. They said they all ordered the filet for the main course and that it was also very good.

 

My take is that either the regular chef was away for St. Patrick's day or something else was just terribly awry that night. We would have asked for a refund or comp for another meal, but we didn't realize that it had gotten better on other nights. And we definitely didn't want to go for another hour having any replacements sent out that evening. Based on that experience, I promised my DH that there would be no more specialty dining on the cruise.

[taxatty]

The gator ribs should be skipped, and I gave them a shot. Good alligator meat (no, that's not an oxymoron) is the tail, that's it.

[Lucky TGO]

The gator ribs should be skipped, and I gave them a shot. Good alligator meat (no, that's not an oxymoron) is the tail, that's it.

 

I have to try that someday. 🐊

Tony