Food on Riviera

[artlee]

food is such a subjective thing. What I hate someone else loves, etc. We are currently on the TA to Trieste. This is day 7 of 23 for us. So far we find the food to be average at best. We sailed Riviera in Dec 21 and were generally pleased which encouraged us to take this cruise. So far we have only been in Toscano’s, Grand Dining Room, Waves, and Terrace Cafe. My wife liked her lobster dish in Toscano’s. My veal piccata was tasty but a bit tough. The Terrace Grill has had several Market takeovers where a theme took over the entire cafe — Indian, British Bermuda, etc. the British one ran 2 strait days. Again its personal taste, but not ours. I didn’t realize British food was a thing? We had mexican night, and asian lunch which were fine but nothing special. During Mexican night the grill at Terrace that had fixed steaks/fish/lobster/chicken was replaced with a Churro stand. My wife had had grilled shrimp and lobster there on another night and was looking forward to more but she would be disappointed. Two nights in the main dining room were fine but I can’t say memorable. Two nights we did not find anything on terrace or the main dining room that appealed to us so we had pizza at Waves which turns into a Pizzeria at night. It was excellent!! Today at lunch a passenger was hand feeding her dog in between her own eating. Not a dog owner so maybe this is ok? Overall, I am finding myself question whether the best cuisine at sea is actually pretty close to the standard fair from Princess/Holland/RCL/NCL/etc. I hope the balance of the trip changes our mind. I was going to book the next cruise while on board but having second thoughts. I’m sure others may have a different opinion and I totally get that, but this is ours so far.

art

[LHT28]

What type of food was on British night??

[jackdeb]

Maybe British Night was fish & chips and Indian takeaway 😂

[LHT28]

1 minute ago, jackdeb said:

Maybe British Night was fish & chips and Indian takeaway 😂

works  for me

skip the mushy peas though

[shepherd really]

I'm trying wrap my head around "a passenger was hand feeding her dog in between her own eating".  I assume this was a service dog so why is what she was doing an issue?    

 

[Woofa]

While we enjoyed the food on Riviera we also felt that Terrace would be better served by having the grill open every night.  Themed diners are hit and miss for many and on our Caribbean cruise we had two nights which we did one night in the MDR and another with pizza.  

[MEFIowa]

26 minutes ago, artlee said:

... We sailed Riviera in Dec 21 and were generally pleased which encouraged us to take this cruise....

Was that the W. Caribbean, 12/12-23/2021? We were on that. And that was our very first cruise, which led us to book an 11/2022 cruise on Sirena while on board and later in early 2022 book Riviera B2B 10-11/2023 and another cruise on Sirena 9/2024.

[JPR]

We were on Marina very recently and the British passengers were not complimentary regarding what they deemed the poor attempts at fish & chips, mushy peas, shepherd’s pie, etc. Roast beef was fine with ok Yorkshire Pudding.

[jonthomas]

We are on a Viking ship right now, horrible food almost all of the time and everywhere. We did 3 O cruises in the past 12 months, now that we have had a taste of Viking,  we can't wait to get on an O ship again. 

 

I did find that there were too many theme nights on O, and we said so on our questionnaire...please do the same. But there was always a good green salad and pizza that I could count on.

[artlee]

honestly, besides fish and chips, nothing looked familiar. I always had thought there was not much food the British were famous for? I didn’t see bangers, lol. 

 

As for the cute little furry white dog…..I would be shocked if it was a service dog, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe undercover? All comfy in a baby stroller.

 

I was curious as to the popularity of Indian food in the USA. (I know it’s a bigger world than just the USA but it’s what google gave me.) It’s in the top 10, number 8. I was surprised so maybe others thought it a good choice.

[shepherd really]

1 minute ago, artlee said:

honestly, besides fish and chips, nothing looked familiar. I always had thought there was not much food the British were famous for? I didn’t see bangers, lol. 

 

As for the cute little furry white dog…..I would be shocked if it was a service dog, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe undercover? All comfy in a baby stroller.

 

I was curious as to the popularity of Indian food in the USA. (I know it’s a bigger world than just the USA but it’s what google gave me.) It’s in the top 10, number 8. I was surprised so maybe others thought it a good choice.

Service dogs can be trained to l detect seizures low blood sugar and a number of other issues that doesn’t require a lab or golden retriever sized dog. Here’s a radical thought, ask the person before rushing to judgement. Maybe it’s a legitimate service dog, maybe it’s not. 

[marieps]

We were on Riviera last month.  The Goat Cheese souffle at Jacques was phenomenal.  We enjoyed Red Ginger as well.  I hope you get to try those two venues.  Grand Dining was not great for us.  Many temperature issues.  

[LHT28]

Most  service dogs  do not eat at/under  the table  they sit by the owner & do their  what ever that may be

Some use the excuse of  a therapy dog  so they do not have to leave their pet at home

 

They had miniature horses that were trained to detect certain diseases/episodes  they banned them from airlines  a few years back

 

[LHT28]

22 minutes ago, artlee said:

honestly, besides fish and chips, nothing looked familiar. I always had thought there was not much food the British were famous for? I didn’t see bangers, lol. 

 

As for the cute little furry white dog…..I would be shocked if it was a service dog, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe undercover? All comfy in a baby stroller.

 

I was curious as to the popularity of Indian food in the USA. (I know it’s a bigger world than just the USA but it’s what google gave me.) It’s in the top 10, number 8. I was surprised so maybe others thought it a good choice.

A lot of British were in India  during the wars maybe they  discovered a liking for the food there  😉

 

 We have a lot of different cultures here in Canada  & a lot of  different food  some we enjoy others not so much 😉

 

[jackdeb]

The taste for Indian food in the UK comes from years of immigration from the subcontinent after all the years of empire building. 

[artlee]

just to clarify…Indian and British were different nights, lol

 

 

[artlee]

4 hours ago, shepherd really said:

Service dogs can be trained to l detect seizures low blood sugar and a number of other issues that doesn’t require a lab or golden retriever sized dog. Here’s a radical thought, ask the person before rushing to judgement. Maybe it’s a legitimate service dog, maybe it’s not. 

thank for the tip

[ORV]

I might need to duck here, but I don't think of British food as anything special. Other than maybe Fish and Chips, and that's ok on the buffet anytime. Not really what I think of as fine cuisine. 

[AMHuntFerry]

6 hours ago, artlee said:

I was curious as to the popularity of Indian food in the USA. (I know it’s a bigger world than just the USA but it’s what google gave me.) It’s in the top 10, number 8. I was surprised so maybe others thought it a good choice.

I grew up in the west, have lived in western NY (mix of east and midwest) and in Colorado (mix of west and midwest). My initial assessment of O food was that it is geared toward the eastern US pallet more than the western US (which makes sense given the Miami base). Indian/pakistani food is extremely popular in the west, especially anywhere there is tech-business.

[LHT28]

Wonder what they would serve on Canadian night ??😄

[AMHuntFerry]

5 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

Wonder what they would serve on Canadian night ??😄

According to O's Victoria BC shorex, that would be Tim Hortons 😉

[ToxM]

17 hours ago, JPR said:

We were on Marina very recently and the British passengers were not complimentary regarding what they deemed the poor attempts at fish & chips, mushy peas, shepherd’s pie, etc. Roast beef was fine with ok Yorkshire Pudding.

 

We had a fun few minutes looking at the British Night buffet - it wasn’t up to much and was more what they thought things should be. Hubby always get excited when there is Fish and Chips on the Terrace menu but whoever tells the chefs how to do Mushy Peas is causing great offence to Brits LOL. He’s a northerner so mushy peas are a food group for him. 

 

While it may seem that we don’t have much of a cultural food heritage, done correctly it would surprise many of you. 

 

The Indian night buffet was amazing - the exec chef told me while they were planning it he told his chefs to cook like they were cooking for their sister’s wedding and left them to it. It was amazing and lovely. 

 

They do speciality buffets on two nights so that if you have a reservation in a speciality you can enjoy the still go to the speciality buffet the other night. 

[artlee]

6 minutes ago, ToxM said:

They do speciality buffets on two nights so that if you have a reservation in a speciality you can enjoy the still go to the speciality buffet the other night. 

thats true but at least we did not know which nights the specialty buffets were on until that morning, after specialty restaurant reservations had to be made. Actually I misspoke earlier and the Indian specialty is tonight so maybe based on your recommendation I will give it a try! Thanks for the tip. Thank you!  Art

 

[jonthomas]

We only like Italian ..there are way too many of the other kind....

[ak1004]

12 hours ago, ORV said:

I might need to duck here, but I don't think of British food as anything special. Other than maybe Fish and Chips, and that's ok on the buffet anytime. Not really what I think of as fine cuisine. 

 

You know the old saying..

 

Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian and it's all organized by the Swiss.

 

Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lover's Swiss, the police German and it's all organized by the Italians.

 

Sorry, couldn't resist..