Jewel Specialty Dining Review

[bouhunter]

We were on Jewel B2B recently, thought I'd post a brief review of specialty dining (Chops 2x each week, Giovanni's once each week).

 

Chops: all around very good. Caesar salad, soups, filet and deserts were all good. Sides also quite good. They've removed the "tater tots" that everyone mocked a while ago:p Service was EXCELLENT.

 

Giovanni's: Filet excellent. Pasta OK but nothing special. The biggest disappointment was desert. Pretty sad actually. They brought around a cart that they served from directly. Bland canolli. Bland chocolate cake. Tira Misu that was dished out of a bowl half full (they had already been scooping from it for other tables). It looked pretty disgusting actually, wouldn't dream of asking for any of it. Service week one bad, the waiter explained nothing, said little, and acted like he could care less if we were there. Second week the server was very good and attentive.

[bluebeard39]

Thank You. I will be on the ship in April.

[erniesband]

I was on the same sailing and here's my 2 cents worth.

After multiple disappointing dinners in Chops we didn't go there this cruise.

Didn't like Giovanni's at all. Service was slow and not that good, my wife tried to explain to our waiter that her pasta dish had waaayyyy too much garlic in it and wanted something else, he didn't understand her and just kept nodding. We liked the menu in Portofino better. The only good thing in there was that you can now order a half size entree if you want. I'm going to give this a just OK experience.

Izumi was new to us this cruise so we had to try it. Two soups that were offered were pretty bland, the wonton soup had absolutely no flavor and reminded me of the old 3 Stooges routine of pouring hot water through a chicken. The Miso was just plain weird, more soy sauce than miso.

We had a table of 4 and shared a number of appetizers: SHRIMP & VEGETABLE TEMPURA, SHRIMP FIRECRACKER SPRING ROLL, CHICKEN KARA-AGE, TUNA WASABI, ALBACORE TATAKI WITH SESAME DRESSINGAND CRISPY LEEKS, and OCTOPUS YUZU CHIMICHURRI. These were all very tasty.

As our main course my wife and I shared the Seafood Hot Rock also very good.

The service here was very good but at the time we were in there we were almost the only ones.

I will say that had we not been offered a 50% discount we wouldn't have been happy, the ala cart pricing makes this one very expensive dining choice. I would recommend going on your first night when they offer the 1/2 price deal.

[attitudeda]

Were gratuities included or were they extra.

 

Doug

[nicoleskr]

Clearly we had different dining experiences. I loved Giovanni's cake. The filet meal was my go to and was always prepared as asked/expected. Chops... Well, the service was good but I could tell the employees didn't get along well, which as a guest I shouldn't notice. Food took a lot longer there though, so that added to noticing their irritation in dealing with each other. I had the apple pie for dessert one night at Chops- it was not good. Had key lime the other day, and aside from too much cream on top it was good. Not great, but pretty good. Izumis, I really hated having to cook my meal, while also waiting forever for it to come over to the table. It was also freezing cold inside. I'm not a sushi person though (DH is so that's why we went twice). Miso was awful. I did want to add at Giovanni's the ravioli was good not great, and the salad with cranberries and warm goat cheese was our favorite. I think that salad was at Giovanni's but I can't remember. Overall, we were really happy with the dining package, and I still want more of the cake. Yum!