Whisper Menus

Attached are a number of menus from our cruise this August/September on the Whisper.

We were told that the Restaurant menu will change every three months.

The room service menu can be ordered without advance notice in the Restaurant. In addition a filet mignon, Strip Steak, Salmon and chicken is also available without advance notice.

La Terrazza.pdf

Pool Grill.pdf

Restaurant Lunch Menu.pdf

Restaurant Dinner Menu.pdf

Room Service Menu.pdf

Caviar Menu.pdf

Wine Menu.pdf

Two of the $140.00 Sauvignon Blanc wines (Matanzas Creek California and Cloudy Bay New Zealand) are served without extra charge on Seabourn.

Matanzas Creek is less than 3 miles from my home; the Sauvignon Blanc retails for less than $50.00 here.

are you sure it was the Cloudy Bay and not the Oyster Bay?

Ive seen Oyster Bay on SB (along with the Villa Maria) bot in the $20 range here.

IME most of the SB wines were in that price range.

Does anyone know what the included down under pours currently on SS are?

Thanks for scanning and posting looking.

I guess some will think they are great and something to look forward to and "salivate" and others will be dissapointed and think they look pretty thin and cheap and different from what they expected - but either way seeing typical menus is illuminating and interesting.

Jeff

Two of the $140.00 Sauvignon Blanc wines (Matanzas Creek California and Cloudy Bay New Zealand) are served without extra charge on Seabourn.

 

Matanzas Creek is less than 3 miles from my home; the Sauvignon Blanc retails for less than $50.00 here.

Cloudy Bay can be purchased in Australia for $35.00 - $40.00. I agree that it is Oyster Bay that is the included Sauvignon Blanc on Seabourn. Both are lovely whites, but Cloudy Bay is the better wine IMO.

Cloudy Bay Te Koco (? Spelling), is THE best. Rarely available anywhere outside NZ.

Actually some of the boutique sav blancs from the Adelaide hills knock the socks off the kiwis.

You won't Find them on a cruise ship and some are almost never found in restaurants having small production runs

We keep the best stuff at home 😉

What do CC'ers make of the food menus?

Jeff

IMHO

It's not what the menu says...

It's how the food tastes.

I've eaten from some very elaborately described menus where basically it was steak and chips. And others (think fat duck style). Where steak and chips were anything but...

Proof of the pudding....

Thank you for the menus.

IMHO

 

It's not what the menu says...

 

It's how the food tastes.

 

I've eaten from some very elaborately described menus where basically it was steak and chips. And others (think fat duck style). Where steak and chips were anything but...

 

Proof of the pudding....

Is that true? Isn't it both? :confused:

You can only choose what they offer and then as you say it is what they do with it.

You don't go into a restaurant and eat if they don't offer anything you fancy.

Do you not have any view at all concerning the menus?

You may have read that the Fat Duck has lost his stars because he has gone off to Oz to do a "pop up" and abandoned his own place.

You might be interested in a Sunday Times article basically saying how tough or impossible it is to run a profitable top restaurant.

Juicy profits are off the menu

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/features/article1608906.ece?shareToken=f7f5ca60d6353435dd0e490a3e0c44e9

Jeff

Re Cloudy Bay - it is Oyster Bay and sometimes Villa Maria included on Seabourn - both retail from about £8 to £10 a bottle in the UK, so not complete cheapos.

We once had quite a lot of OBC on Seabourn, and decided to have their Cloudy Bay one evening. Maybe our tastebuds have been ruined by cheaper wines, but we both preferred either VM or OB!

Attached are a number of menus from our cruise this August/September on the Whisper.

 

We were told that the Restaurant menu will change every three months.

 

The room service menu can be ordered without advance notice in the Restaurant. In addition a filet mignon, Strip Steak, Salmon and chicken is also available without advance notice.

Thank you, Looking, for taking the time to post these! Much appreciated!

Our first post!

Thank you, Looking, for the menus.

We last sailed SS on the Wind in 2006. Return to SS in Jan 2016 on the Cloud in Africa.

We were hoping menus would be about the same in 2015 as in 2006. Seems to be the case except for the burgers. I do like Kansas beef, but....

On the other hand, we are surprised with the over-the-top mark-ups on the wine.

BYOB!

Cloudy Bay Te Koco (? Spelling), is THE best. Rarely available anywhere outside NZ.

Cloudy Bay Te Koko, has been and is still freely available from Majestic Wines in the UK, and it is a pretty good attempt at a Fume. Still not a patch on Didier Dageneau's wines though.

Is that true? Isn't it both? :confused:

 

You can only choose what they offer and then as you say it is what they do with it.

 

You don't go into a restaurant and eat if they don't offer anything you fancy.

 

Do you not have any view at all concerning the menus?

 

You may have read that the Fat Duck has lost his stars because he has gone off to Oz to do a "pop up" and abandoned his own place.

 

You might be interested in a Sunday Times article basically saying how tough or impossible it is to run a profitable top restaurant.

Juicy profits are off the menu

 

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/features/article1608906.ece?shareToken=f7f5ca60d6353435dd0e490a3e0c44e9

 

Jeff

Jeff I don't have a view on the menu as I haven't sampled from it yet. For me It's all puff and blow until then. I haven't eaten on ss since 2006 so I am keen to see what has happened food wise in the interim.

I'm not big on using the menu to choose a restaurant. I tend to do a bit of blog searching, review reading and lurking ;) outside the door. The dining room at the park Hyatt in Sydney has amazingly, beautifully cooked food, the menu isn't that appealing if you read it.

When faced with the menu I look for protein first then flavours second and do they match. There are a lot of options there, to the point where Miss W, also foodie, read them and went oh..... I won't be able to decide at the table, too many options.

Re losing stars, it's been the same with the celeb chefs here.. Too busy on Masterchef actually (fat duck pop up was only for a few months, some of his wasted time was on Masterchef Australia) we and a friend onsite who said HB was in the restaurant a lot less than expected/anticipated.

Similarly a lot of our top restaurants have closed for the very same reason. We had a similar article written here about 18 months ago.

Part of my view on that is the status anxiety thing, so many people I know will eat at the top place once just to say they have been there. I've had work colleagues who have booked, just done an entree (appetiser) and left. Given that the restaurant has a 3 month wait list, with a 7pm booking it will be hard to cover costs.

If you don't develop return customer base you eventually struggle especially in a smaller market.

NOMA is next to do the pop up thing here.... We have our name down, but I'm not al that sure I'm keen.

Recently did test kitchen in Cape Town and while it was good I wouldn't say it was amazing enough to be in the top 50 in the world. I was seated at the bar on the pass and it was interesting to note some of the inconsistency in the meals that we're going out. My degustation at Signal at Cape Grace was much much better as were almost all my meals at Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo island.

My next top restaurant will be post cruise at Gaggan. Like you I play around at home a lot with food, much to some peoples consternation.

My bar is high, but I view a cruise ship as an island. What can be done to service 400 people in a short sitting session, with logistics of supply is very different to what can be done in a major city with constant supply on hand

Thanks,

We may be talking at cross purpsoses, because I agree with everything you say! :)

The menus kindly posted by the OP give an indication to those for which these things are important, how they might do on an SS cruise presuming the food is prepared expertly. It gives an impression of budgets, inventiveness, and variety. So irrespective of whether they can cook or not you get a good idea - remembering that you are effectively captive with limited choice - of whether you might be happy of grumpy.

We didn't really study in detail so no real science, but wifey and I got several snapshot impressions. Thin menus with a more limited choice than I'd expect when considering people are at your mercy every day not just going out for a weekly meal; expansively described and over-egged plates; rather cheap average ingredients per plate; an over reliance on larder ie too much pasta; a lot of tomato and veg; the puffing of menus by adding for example stuff on both sides of the page ie a la carte on the right with recommendations on the left; some odd sounding combos, the repetition of very similare meals to soon after witgh slight changes in description to fool you into thinking it's a differnt meal; a desire to impress some who are rather more easilly impressable than you ( ;) ) etc.

I think I'd summarise it by saying there's a feeling about it for us that it is too mean on budgets and not inventive enough to cope with the lower budget. There is an awful lot more that could be done even on limited budgets. Some oif the meals that seem to be most admired that I prepare are from the the cheapest of ingredients and raw material and often look the most luxurious.

I also thought the wine prices were too greedy.

Jeff

ps .... this week I have ordered a box of langoustine from Scotland ... I am going to cook them in the pizza oven ...:)

 

ps .... this week I have ordered a box of langoustine from Scotland ... I am going to cook them in the pizza oven ...:)

I am not jealous….

I think I'll head to the fish markets and "get me some mud crab" ;) on the weekend. Thank you for the inspiration (at the very least it will be yabby)

Its lamb backstrap tomorrow here wrapped in filo with sun dried tomato and red wine sauce and pureed peas (mums garden).

I think i will have to sit down and deconstruct those menus more closely….I do have to admit with northern hemisphere fish for us its hard to work out what a winner but halibut and turbot I think are on the budget end??

If anyone wants to compare, here's a menu I found from 2011:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=196079&d=1306320705

I'm a recent convert to frozen fish which as long as it is handled well is often better than fresh because it is gutted and frozen on the trawlers so is fresher than what is often "fresh". We get very good frozen sea bass filets and I cannot tell it from fresh except it is often without any fishy smell although badly handled there can be burn and in my view a change in texture. Not a halibut fan but turbot is quite pricey in the UK and considered a luxury fish. Turbot is certainly something I'd go for preferably fresh and then let it "speak for itself" ie at most a simple butter and lemon sauce of some sort but none of the silly stuff SS can sometimes do.

We are also having moules and plaice this week! :)

Jeff

If anyone wants to compare, here's a menu I found from 2011:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=196079&d=1306320705

Mark - to me it seems to be in a different league to the new menus. And the the house pour wine "in it's day" was better quality. To me it shows quality, care and a better budget.

Do you get the same impression?

Jeff

EDITED: Sorry ... forgot to thank you for hunting them out and posting the link :)

Jeff,

On the one hand, the new menus seem to have more options, even without the burgers, which can be nice. On the other hand, in a quick look, I saw more dishes that appealed to me on the old one. But that's just me, and I'm neither a gourmet nor a gourmand.

Anyway, like someone mentioned, the proof is in the eating not the reading. Ask me again in December, after our cruise.

Mark

Appreciate seeing the menus, thank you. We're on Whisper in November.

Two of the $140.00 Sauvignon Blanc wines (Matanzas Creek California and Cloudy Bay New Zealand) are served without extra charge on Seabourn.

 

Matanzas Creek is less than 3 miles from my home; the Sauvignon Blanc retails for less than $50.00 here.

The markup is overly exorbitant. $900 for Krug N/V?

Attached are a number of menus from our cruise this August/September on the Whisper.

 

We were told that the Restaurant menu will change every three months.

 

The room service menu can be ordered without advance notice in the Restaurant. In addition a filet mignon, Strip Steak, Salmon and chicken is also available without advance notice.

Thanks for posting the menus, however to clear up the confusion on the wine menu, these are the discounted prices for 3 bottles!

Cloudy Bay SB still costs $45 a pop on the standard Whisper price list, and this is not the Te Koko, which can be bought in Majestic for 32.5 STG today.