Cruise Day Is Here

After a couple wonderful days in Ireland and a day in England, it was finally time to board our cruise. We woke up in the morning, stepped onto the balcony of the room we had and this is what we saw:

That’s our ship, the Carnival Legend, docked just around the corner from our hotel. We packed up our three suitcases and headed to the one small elevator. Since most of the guests in our hotel were heading to the cruise ship at around the same time, there was a line to get into this small elevator and that was just on our floor. I’m assuming it was the same on the others. So, we dragged our luggage down to the stairs and carried each one down. We beat the first people in line down to the lobby.

As I said, there were a lot of the guests that were heading to the dock, so we put our name on the taxi list. We sat in the lobby next to a nice family from Chicago who we would see again on the cruise and waited for our room number to be called. In only 15 minutes or so a nice cab driver came in and found us and we were on our way to the dock. It was a flat five pound fare for the short drive to the dock. He dropped us off, we left our bags with the porter and we were in the terminal. We quickly made our way through the security screening and went to the check in lines. Now, since we are platinum guests, we get a VIP check in line. However, when we got there we noticed that the “VIP” line was actually longer than the regular check in lines, so we got in the regular line. The only thing that slowed us down the tiniest bit was that the check in person had to go to the VIP area to retrieve our sail and sign cards. That took all of three minutes and then we were heading for the ship. This was the 18^th time that I have boarded a Carnival cruise ship, but this had to be the most exciting one for me.

We were on the ship and, of course, the first place you head…. The “Welcome Aboard” lunch on the Lido Deck. Now we ate a bunch of food on the Lido Deck and if I described every meal here in this blog it would take a year to get through. But, I do have to mention the “Welcome Aboard” lunch. Not that the food is any better than any other time on the Lido, but it is the FIRST time you get to eat on the ship. I opted first for the grilled ham and cheese sandwich from the deli:

 

And then a quick plate from the buffet lines. It’s been awhile since I took this picture, but as I remember from looking, I had some roast beef, potatoes, some cole slaw, some noodles and beef from the Chinese station and some sort of pasta.

Finally a slice of caramel cheesecake from the dessert station:

 

After we finished the first of what will be many meals on the ship, we went to the dining room to find our table. We ended up with a nice little table for two just inside the entrance to the dining room. Before we sailed, I had made a quick post to John Heald’s Facebook page requesting a table for two and he did not disappoint. We then headed to our room and found it ready for us. Something new that Carnival is doing is expediting luggage delivery for VIP guests. For the first time, our luggage had arrived at our room before we did. I stepped out on our balcony and snapped a quick couple of pictures. In the first one you can see the White Cliffs of Dover that were just off the ship and the second is looking back at our hotel (to go with the picture above of the ship taken from the hotel):

 

After our quick safety drill, where they show us our muster station and how to put on our lifejackets if we need it (which I must admit is just a little more difficult that putting on your seatbelt on the airplane), we were ready to sail. As we sailed past the famed White Cliffs of Dover, I had to pull up the Eric Johnson song “Cliffs of Dover” and listen to as we passed.

Once we were underway, we checked out the ship a little more and then relaxed a bit in our cabin before heading off to the Truffles dining room for dinner. Now, a typical dinner for us on the ship consists of two starters (soups, salads, appetizers, etc.), a main course and a dessert. For this first night, I selected as one of my starters a main course item. One thing you should know about any Carnival main dining room is that most of the pasta main courses are available in a smaller “starter” size. That’s what I do quite often. So, this night I started my meal with Linguini with Italian Sausage, Bell Peppers and Mushrooms served with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

My second starter was off the “Every Day” menu and it was a simple Caesar Salad. It is nothing super special, but a great salad nonetheless.

 

For my main course, I really didn’t have that tough a decision. I decided on the Tender Braised Beef Brisket in Gravy that came with roasted vegetables and mashed potatoes. Here’s what I got:

 

Nice chunks of brisket with smooth potatoes. It was a very nice main course, but Joan with her meal got something that would make this even better. I quickly flagged down Renato our server (I’ll talk more about our team later) and asked if I could get one of the sides that came with Joan’s main course. He said “Of course” and in a couple minutes I had one of these as well:

 

Ooey, gooey macaroni and cheese. It was just a little ramekin of it, so it didn’t add too much. Just enough creamy cheese sauce and pasta to top off my brisket. Then it was on to dessert. The first night on a cruise is a difficult choice because they have two great desserts that are only available the first night, the crème brulee and the black forest gateau. I went back and forth and back and forth and then decided on the black forest gateau which is a chocolate cake filled with bing cherries, heavy cream and kirschwasser. Here’s what it looks like:

It was very good, but the crème brulee was also in my mind. I then remembered the words of my friend Scott who says about dinning on a cruise, “There’s no shame in doubling up.” So, here’s my crème brulee:

 

Joan and I shared this and so ended our first dinner on the ship. We have 11 more nights and plenty of ports to go.

Next time, our second dinner after a day at sea.

Until next time,

Mike

We Head to the United Kingdom

After finally finding the wonderful dessert we were looking for, we had a good night’s sleep and in the morning we were off to the airport for our flight from Dublin to London’s Heathrow airport. In the morning, we caught a taxi from the hotel to the airport and were treated to a typically Irish cab driver. I don’t remember his name but he was very nice and talked to us practically the whole way to the airport.

Once we got there it was a simple matter to check in and then we were waiting for our British Airways flight to London. This day was the only day of rain that we had the entire trip but it did cause a bit of delay in our flight leaving. Once we did get on the flight it was uneventful, just the way you’d like a flight to be.

Once we arrived in London, we met a driver that we had hired to drive us to Dover to meet the ship. It is about an hour and a half to two hour drive from London to Dover and since we didn’t want to rent a car (and learn how to drive on the left for one day) we hired a car service to drive us. We figured this was easier than trying to haul all of our luggage on a bus or train. Another reason we wanted our own car was so we could schedule a side stop. This stop would be at the second of our possible six Hard Rock Cafés. This was no ordinary Hard Rock. This was the Hard Rock Café London, the first Hard Rock Café. Here’s what we saw when we got there:

Across the street from the Café was the Rock Shop, where we were able to pick up our shot glass and pin. And outside that was a typical sight of London, a red phone booth:

Our driver was able to find a parking spot right on the street around the corner. We were in and out in 15 minutes and back in the car and on our way to Dover. It rained most of the way down there and I would be lying if I said that we didn’t doze off a couple of times. One other thing that I wanted to mention about the drive down comes from the “Things are the same everywhere” file. On the drive to Dover, our driver had a talk radio station on and there was a wonderful debate on the “unique” problem that they were having in the UK. Should they give immunity to illegal immigrants living in the UK? I told the driver that you could pick that debate up and put it on any radio station in the US and it would be exactly the same argument.

So, after our drive, we checked into the Best Western Dover Marina Hotel right on the waterfront. After we got settled in our room, we went back down to the desk to ask about places for dinner. Now you will notice on this food blog, there hasn’t been much discussion of food for the day. That’s because we had been sustaining ourselves on some trail mix and almonds we had stashed in our carry on bags and some drinks from the airport. Now we needed dinner. The desk clerk gave us some ideas and we decided to walk below the underpass and into the city centre for dinner. We walked up and down a bit and checked out a couple of places.

We settled on this little casual place called illy. Now I had seen the illy logo before and they are known for their coffee over here in the US. In the UK they have a line of casual restaurants and here’s the one in Dover:

After perusing the menu, I settled on an English Beef Roast dinner. It was roast beef served with vegetables, potatoes and a Yorkshire pudding. Again, like most “puddings” on this trip, Yorkshire pudding is not what we Americans would call pudding. Yorkshire pudding is more of a batter pudding made with meat drippings that resembles a biscuit. Here’s my plate with the Yorkshire pudding right in the front:

Joan ended up getting a chicken and mushroom pie with a salad and chips (or French fries). Here’s what she got:

After we finished our dinner, we needed some dessert. They had a couple of options there at illy, however we had another plan. While we were walking around the streets of Dover, my wonderful wife Joan had a very keen eye. We were just checking out the dinner menu at a place called Blakes of Dover when she spotted the dessert menu and saw…. Sticky Toffee Pudding.

So we headed back around the corner and found this place again:

We headed in and ordered our Sticky Toffee Pudding that was served with custard again. This time, we decided to order only one and split it. Here’s what we got:

I can’t say it was better than the one we got at Bruxelle’s in Dublin but it was close. The custard itself was maybe a bit better in Dublin, but we thought the cake was a bit better here. In all, neither one was a mistake to order. If I was in either place again I would get them again in a heartbeat.

Blakes of Dover was a small place like many we had been in, with a small bar in the basement. This was just like going to someone’s rec room in their basement to have a drink. While we were using the restroom before we left, I struck up a conversation with the couple people that were at the bar. They were obviously “regulars” and were very nice. One even had their dog with them and anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a dog person.

After we left, we took a walk around Dover and caught a glimpse of the White Cliffs of Dover. I’ll get to more of that in the next post. We headed back to the hotel and began preparing for our cruise on the Carnival Legend.

Next time, we depart Dover and get our first dinner on the ship.

Until next time,

Mike

Still Looking For Our Dessert

After a full day of riding the hop on, hop off bus around Dublin, seeing some amazing sites and driving past both the Guinness Storehouse and the Jameson Distillery, we needed some dinner. We knew we wanted something traditionally Irish but had no idea where to go. We asked the concierge at the hotel if they had any suggestions and said that we were specifically looking for Sticky Toffee Pudding. They had some menus there and we couldn’t find it anywhere. One restaurant called the Pig’s Ear had something called Bread and Butter Pudding and the concierge said that their food was very good so he made us a reservation there. We were disappointed that we couldn’t find the dessert we were looking for so much but we were looking forward to the traditional Irish food.

After freshening up for a bit we took the short walk down Grafton Street (past the McDonald’s) and around the corner right across from Trinity College. We found this little door off the street:

This was just the entrance with the rest of the restaurant on the floors above. We ate in the “Main Restaurant” which was on the first floor. We found a lot of places in Europe that the “first floor” is what we would call the second floor. What we would call the first floor they call the ground floor. Here is a map of the restaurant that was hanging just inside the door:

We got a nice little table right on the window so we could look down on the street below. Like many of the places that we visited in Europe, this was a small dining room of maybe seven or eight tables. Once we ordered, they brought us some Irish soda bread in this neat little burlap bag:

As for our main courses, I had not had a Shepherd’s Pie since we had been in Ireland so I ordered one made with lamb and Joan got a salmon dish. Here’s what we ended up with:

We also got a side dish of potatoes cooked in duck fat. Here they are:

The food and the service were very good. As you can see, the Shepherd’s Pie came in its own little cast iron dish and it held the heat in perfectly. As we were waiting for our food, though, we were a little disappointed that we couldn’t find our Sticky Toffee Pudding. I had one more idea. While we were waiting I pulled up an app on my iPhone called “Foodspotting” and typed in “Sticky Toffee Pudding.” It pulled up a number of places that were hundreds of miles away…. And one that was just around the block!

I pulled up their website and found that they stopped serving food at this pub at 9:00. It was already 8:00. It was going to be close, but we thought we could make it. We finished our dinner and quickly got the check. We walked back toward the hotel and down Grafton Street to Harry Street and came across Bruxelle’s

We sat down in the bar area around 8:45 so we had just made it. Our server came over and said that the kitchen was about to close so if we wanted food we would have to order quickly. We said that was just fine with us because we only wanted dessert and we knew what we wanted. We wanted the Sticky Toffee Pudding. She said it was available with cream, ice cream or custard. Well we knew about ice cream so we decided that we would each get one, mine with custard and Joan’s with cream. We probably should have shared but what the heck we’d each get our own.

Now I have been discussing Sticky Toffee Pudding but have not really described it. Like most “puddings” on this trip, Sticky Toffee Pudding is not what you would think of as pudding. Sticky Toffee Pudding is a sponge cake made with dates and covered with a toffee sauce. The ones at Bruxelle’s are then served with cream and a custard and let me tell you it was one of the best things we ate all trip.

Here’s what they looked like. First, mine with the custard:

and Joan’s with the cream:

The custard was smooth and creamy and the cake was so moist. It took us a long while to find but it was well worth the wait. We will definitely be looking for this on menus here is the US and sampling it whenever we can.

By this time we were thoroughly stuffed. We made our way back to the hotel and packed up what little we had unpacked and got ready for our trip to London.

Next time we make a stop at the Hard Rock in London and dinner in Dover before we get on the ship.

Until next time,

Mike

A Full Day in Dublin

After sleeping on and off during the night, we got up the next morning and were ready for a day in Dublin. Now, we did sleep in fairly late so we really didn’t need a huge breakfast (certainly not the full Irish breakfast I had the morning before). We had heard of this local cheese shop off of Grafton Street on Anthony Bourdain’s Dublin episode of “The Layover” and also a PBS episode of an Irish food show called “Clodah’s Irish Food Trails.” We looked around and on South Anne Street, a block and a half off Grafton Street, we found Sheridan’s Cheesemongers. Here it from the outside:

 They had a wonderful selection of cheeses from all over Europe but we were interested in specifically Irish cheeses. We sampled a bunch of local cheese, mostly in this area of the shop right in the front:

We decided on four different cheeses, all from Ireland. Three were from County Cork and one was from County Tipperary. We ended up with small pieces of a Coolea, a Cashel Blue, a Smoked Gubbeen and a Durrus. We then took a quick visit to St. Anne’s Cathedral at the end of South Anne Street who counted among their parishioners the author of “Dracula” Bram Stoker.

Then we headed back up Grafton Street to find somewhere to sample our cheeses. On the way back toward our hotel I notice a store called Marks and Spencer (M&S) and caught a glimpse of a sign that pointed down the escalator that said “Food Hall.” Now one of the things that Joan and I like to do when in other places is to visit grocery stores. It gives us a glimpse into everyday life in a place. We do this in other parts of the United States all the time so it would be very interesting in another country. Well the “food hall” was indeed a full blown grocery store. We wandered around for a bit and ended up buying some fresh rolls from the bakery to eat with our cheese.

We headed down to St. Stephen’s Green and found a bench in the center of the green and got out our rolls and cheese. Here’s what we saw:

Here also, are some quick pictures of our cheese and the rolls. Here is the Durrus:

Here is the Smoked Gubbeen:

And here are the Collea (on the left) and the Cashel Blue (on the right):

As soon as we opened up our cheese and started to eat it, we also found this little guy:

He was very interested in our cheese. So were we. As the cheese go, I enjoyed the Smoked Gubbeen the most. It was a Gouda style cheese that had a great smoked flavor. The Durrus was my second favorite as it was a semi-soft cheese. The Blue was also very good. The Coolea was a softer cheese that I wasn’t as fond of. For the most part I don’t like softer cheeses. Brie has never excited me so it is understandable that the softer Coolea was not as much to my liking. We ate about half of our cheese and then headed back to the hotel to put the rest in the mini-bar for breakfast the next morning. Then we headed out to use the second day of our hop-on, hop-off bus tour.

We rode the bus a few stops down the route and got off to see Dublin Castle. Since the G8 Summit, which was held there, just finished the week before, the state apartments were not open yet for tours. So we checked out the outside of the castle and then headed into Temple Bar. Our number one destination in Temple Bar was the Hard Rock Café. As you may know, Joan collects a shot glass and a pin from all of the Hard Rock Café’s that we come across. On this trip we could possibly hit six new Hard Rock Cafés and this is the first. It was a short walk from Dublin Castle and after finding our shot glass and pin we were back to catch the bus. Along the way back to the stop, we found a little restaurant that had a two-for-one deal for bus tour ticket holders and it was about time for lunch, so we stopped in.

This restaurant was called The Shack and was in an old building that back in the day housed a butcher shop.

It was a very small place as most of the places were that we had found in Dublin and it served traditional Irish cuisine. I perused the menu and decided on an Irish classic, Bangers and Mash. For all intents and purposes, Bangers and Mash are just Irish sausage and mashed potatoes. It seems the term "Bangers" dates back to the 1920s when, during rationing, sausages were made with water and could explode if not cooked carefully. Although modern sausages won't explode, the term "Bangers" has persisted. Joan also picked a very classic dish, Fish and Chips. Here’s what we got:

After lunch, we got back on the bus and rode the rest of the way around the loop. Among the stops was Phoenix Park which is an urban park two and a half times bigger than Central Park in New York. It also houses the Dublin Zoo which is the largest paid attraction in all of Ireland. The highlight of our bus loop though, had to be St. Patrick’s Cathedral. We took many, many pictures but here are a couple of the best ones:

We got off the bus at Trinity College and it was a short walk back to Grafton Street. At this point we were in need of a restroom so we popped into the McDonald’s. At this point I remembered the words of Dr. Sheldon Cooper in the TV show “The Big Bang Theory.” In one episode he stated that when using the facilities in a retail establishment, it is customary to make a small purchase. So, of course I fished out two Euro and got a couple more of these:

Delicious, deep fried Apple Pie. Thank you Sheldon!

Next time, our last dinner before flying to London for the cruise and we're still looking for Sticky Toffee Pudding.

Until next time,

Mike

My Bucket List Gets One Item Shorter

One of the happy coincidences in planning this Baltic Sea cruise was I that I was able to cross an item off my bucket list. My favorite show of all time has to be Riverdance. The story of how I got into Riverdance is a whole story in and of itself but suffice it to say that I had seen Riverdance 13 times in the United States in locations from New York City’s Radio City Music Hall to the Pantanges Theater in Hollywood. Well, I vowed that one of my bucket list items would be to see Riverdance in Dublin where it all started. In planning this cruise we determined that Riverdance would be at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin right about the time of the cruise, so that’s how we ended up with a couple of extra days there before our 12-day Baltic cruise. As we wandered Dublin before getting into our hotel, we found the theater:

Now, since we had been planning this trip for quite some time, I was able to get my tickets very early and we ended up in the very front row. Here is a quick view of the theater and of the stage from my seats:

The show was as fantastic as the other 13 times I had seen it and I couldn’t have asked for any more. The show was at 5:30 so of course when it was finished, we needed some dinner. In my preparation for the trip, I had found on-line a little place a couple of blocks from the theater called the Whitefriar Grill. This place interested us because prior to the trip we had sampled a couple of Irish restaurants in Las Vegas and found a wonderful dessert called Sticky Toffee Pudding. We were eager to try it in Dublin and according to the menu on the Whitefriar’s website they had it on their dessert menu. So we walked the two blocks to the restaurant:

Once we got there, we browsed the menu and were disappointed to see, no Sticky Toffee Pudding. We ended up eating there anyway because the rest of the menu sounded interesting and besides, we were getting pretty hungry and we were already there. We would vow to find Sticky Toffee Pudding somewhere else before we left Dublin.

So we headed in and got a nice table for two and browsed the menu again. I had just about settled on something they called “Ribs and Rump” which was a combination of barbeque pork ribs and a rump steak. We then noticed that they had an “early bird” special that was good all night Saturday and Sunday. This being Sunday we decided to take advantage. With the early bird you were able to pick an appetizer and a main course. Well one of my appetizer choices was the barbecue pork ribs and the rump steak was a main course option. So there you are, the “Ribs and Rump” and at a discounted price. I ordered that and out came our appetizers. Here are my ribs served on a wooden plank:

And Joan ordered a prosciutto and melon appetizer:

The ribs were very good. I wouldn’t exactly call them Irish cuisine but still very well done. When my steak came it was also served on a wooden plank:

Now you can see that it was served with thick cut chips (French fries) and you can see a small little salad. What you can’t see is the actual steak because it was buried under that big heap of fried onions and let me tell you they were wonderful. They were fried just enough to be crunchy but not too much that they crumbled when you ate them. The steak was a perfect medium and being a rump steak is not a cut that you normally see in a steakhouse. I did notice that I did see it on the menu several places in Ireland though.

We had the option with our “early bird” meal of adding a third desert course, but since they didn’t have what we were looking for, we decided to add a cheese board as a dessert. It was supposed to come with three different cheeses but they were out of the third kind and brought us a little more of the other two. Here’s what it looked like:

It was served with crackers and a wonderful strawberry jam that went well with the cheeses. We asked the manager what the types of cheeses were and he wondered where our third cheese was. He went to the kitchen and was able to get us a sample of the third cheese so we actually ended up with some of all three. I’ll talk more about Irish cheeses next time.

So that was our meal. We left the restaurant and took a short walk back up to Grafton Street. Now last time I mentioned something about a blast from my childhood past. Have you been able to figure out what I found in Dublin, Ireland that reminded me of childhood in Ohio? Well, on Grafton Street there is, like many thousands of places across the world, a McDonald’s. Now I swore that on this trip I may look at some McDonalds’ but would not get anything there that you can get in any McDonald’s in the United States. I had heard a rumor about a certain item that was no longer available in the US but was still available overseas. Who out there remembers these:

That’s right, it’s the good old fashioned, super bad for you, great tasting, burn the roof of your mouth, deep fried McDonald’s apple pie. I had not had one of these in probably 20 years since the US McDonald’s switched to the baked apple pies that are possibly a tiny bit better for you but in every other way inferior to these beauties. For the super low price of only 1 Euro, I was able to take myself back to every McDonald’s I ate at from birth until they took away my “Egg Roll” style apple pie. So if you’re looking for one of these, I can tell you that you can get it here:

On Grafton Street in Dublin, Ireland (and I’m guessing about 1000 other places across Ireland, the UK and probably most of Europe). After that wonderful night cap we were back to our hotel for our first real night’s sleep in Dublin and hopefully we’ll adjust to the time change OK.

Next time I’ll tell you about our second and final day in Dublin that included some local cheeses, St. Patrick’s Cathedral and a pub lunch.

Until next time,

Mike