Review of new menus on 4-day Sunshine

[momin05]

Hi all.  As promised, here are my thoughts on the new menu. We were on the first sailing with the new menus on Sunshine on October 19. It was a 4-day sailing. Overall, we were very pleased with the new menu. The quality of the food was much improved over our last sailing on Sunshine, just 3 months ago. Even items that were the same as the old menu were of better quality this time (penne mariscos, I am talking about you!)
 

I was also worried about kinks in the process, being the first sailing with this menu. But that was also not an issue. On the 3rd night, the wait staff mentioned it was new menu and apologized for any issues. Maybe things were going on behind the scenes, but we didn’t experience anything. We had slow service one night (night 2), but I think we timed things wrong and had an inexperienced server. They were serving a lot of food as we were seated so it took about 30 minutes to have our orders taken. The other nights were very prompt. 

[momin05]

Night 1:

We ordered papparadelle with braised lamb. It wasn’t that great. Very little lamb and the pasta sauce was just so-so. 
 

 

the roast duck rolls were very good. 
 

 

[momin05]

The crawfish strudel was also good. 
 

[momin05]

Sorry for the duplicate picture. This is going to be clunky. Inserting these pictures is not straightforward!

 

We had a variety of entrees. First, the BBQ salmon. It was good, seasoned nicely. 
 

We also had Cornish game hen that was better than I expected. It’s not something I would normally order because I mean, it’s just chicken. But it was good. My husband had the Szechuan shrimp. It was just ok. He had done the JiJi’s lunch that day and said it was no better than lunch. 
 

The winner of the evening was the 12- hour braised short rib. There was a similar menu item every night (except elegant night) and my dad ordered it every night. It turned out to be the winner every evening. I was very surprised at how good it was. 
 

There were six of us in this cruise and we were all able to taste each others’ menu items.  That’s how I am able to speak to so many of them!

 

I am really struggling with these pictures!  They seem to do better if I don’t also have text in the post. So, pictures up next. They should be self explanatory as to which one is which. 

[momin05]

[momin05]

Mmmm, seeing that short rib is making my mouth water. It was so tender and so tasty. 
 

I didn’t get pictures of dessert, but we had strawberry cheesecake and chocolate melting cake. Both as expected. 
 

The next night was elegant night and somehow I forgot to get pictures. It was the night we waited so long to have our orders taken so I guess I was just hungry!  For starters we had calamari, crawfish fettuccini, spinach salad and the corn chowder. It was all so delicious. I recommend them all and highly recommend the crawfish fettuccine and spinach salad. The calamari was so good, too. We had the calamari back in August, but this one was better. It had some peppers included that gave it a nice taste. It definitely had a New Orleans flair. 
 

For entrees we mostly had the prime rib. One person’s had a bad streak through it, but all the others were quite good. I order this on most cruises and had seen the quality go down, but I felt this was better. Maybe it is because I was smart enough to order it rare this time. It is so thin, I decided to go for it. It was nice and rare but was not cold, so we were pleased. My husband doesn’t eat beef so he ordered the chicken cordon blue and said it was good. 
 

We all had crème brûlée for dessert and it was good. We had it back in August and I would say it was the same. Interestingly, we also had it in JiJi’s back in August and there is a definite difference. JiJi’s is lighter with a lighter crust on top. Better, I guess, but we were not disappointed with the MDR version. Oh and I told my dad about the banana split option and he ordered it every night after the first night (he actually had ice cream the first night). It was a big hit.

[momin05]

On Night 3, we had frog legs, penne mariscos and parched pig ale and cheddar soup for starters. The frog legs were better than in August. The penne mariscos was the biggest surprise. This used to be one of our favorite menu items but it went downhill so much these past few years that I refused to order it. My mom ordered the appetizer portion and it was so much better than the recent past. Full of seafood and the seafood was cooked well. It had previously been tough, overcooked and not fresh. This seemed fresh and was cooked well. Also, we often had shrimp cocktail each night and it was the same as always. Oh and we had fried tomatoes this night. The menu doesn’t say they are green, but they are. And they were nice and tangy and very tasty. 
 

Actually, I see I am out of order. This was night 4. I will come back to night 3. 
 

pictures up next. 

[momin05]

[momin05]

For entrees on night 4 we had coffee glazed roast duck, the barramundi, braised beef brisket and Asian chopped salad with chicken. As I mentioned before, the braised beef brisket was really surprisingly good. Tender and delicious. It looks like I didn’t get a picture of it, but I did of the rest. The barramundi was over cooked. It would have been good if it wasn’t dried out. 

[momin05]

I forget to say, the roast duck was very good. That glaze was amazing. It was sweet, which I wasn’t expecting. The leg portion was a little dried out but the thigh portion was perfectly cooked. 
 

And here is the banana split!

[momin05]

Back to night 3. The issue here is our 4-night menu did not match what JH posted for the 4-day menu. I didn’t take screenshots of the menu while we were on the cruise because I had already taken screenshots of his posts. From an online search, our night 3 is the equivalent of night 5 of the 8-night menu. We had French onion soup that was very, very good. Somehow I didn’t get a picture. We also had stuffed mushrooms (good) and linguini and clams. I was impressed with that app. It needed some salt or something, it was a little bland, but it was full of clams and a nice surprise. 

[momin05]

For entrees, we had fried Mississippi catfish, chicken Parmigiana, pepper steak and BBQ pork spare ribs. I only got pictures of the catfish. I liked it but others thought the cornbread breading was too much. The other entrees were very good, with the spare ribs winning the night. 
 

for dessert we had tiramisu and it was better than the old version. Very light. Sorry I didn’t get a picture. oh, I got a fruit plate one night and it was delicious. 
 

also, on elegant night, someone ordered the panna cotta. We didn’t really know what to expect. It looked pretty, but I don’t know how good it was!  It’s a no added sugar dessert so I guess you can’t expect much. 
 

[momin05]

That’s all for food.  Overall, very pleased with the menu. And no worries about it being the rollout cruise. 
 

We don’t frequent the Alchemy bar often because it is usually so crowded, but in the last night it was not crowded.  We had some excellent drinks there. This is the “give me something chocolaty” and the remedy. 

[momin05]

We only had one port stop, Bimini. I was excited to go somewhere we had never been. We rented a golf cart and went to the casino, which was very nice. Complimentary drinks if you are playing. Different machines than on the ship, more like what we saw in Vegas in June.  Then we headed out to find some beachfront bars and conch ceviche. We were successful with both!  We really enjoyed the island.  To the left of the port is all resort-y.  To the right is all local. We ended up at Joe’s Conch Shack and it was phenomenal. We got to meet Joe and talked with him about his trade. Everyone was so nice. Then to radio beach which had lots of beachfront bars and much more of a beach than I expected. 
 

We enjoyed our short cruise. The ship was so different than August…it felt like it was only about half as full. I am sure it was more, but it was so different without all the kids. 

[MistyRo76]

I was so disappointed that we missed the new menus on the Sunshine by 1 week! We got on the ship on the 9th! But we enjoyed the food we had! I had the penne mariscos on our cruise from the old menu and thought it was great as well! 
 

There were really no desserts on the old menus that struck my fancy so I got the melting cake every night. But I’m excited to have the key lime pie and cheesecake back on the new menus! 
 
Thanks for your feedback and pics of the new menu items! 

[Ideb]

Very nice review and pictures. Thank you for sharing this!

[happy cruzer]

We also really enjoyed the cornish game hen and coffee basted duck!  Great reviewy!

[momin05]

6 hours ago, Ideb said:

Very nice review and pictures. Thank you for sharing this!

You are welcome. Hope it helps!

[momin05]

1 hour ago, happy cruzer said:

We also really enjoyed the cornish game hen and coffee basted duck!  Great reviewy!

Good!  Duck is not something I would normally order in a restaurant, so this was a good opportunity. 

[ninjacat123]

Great review! Thx for posting 👏🏻

[z_cruisers]

Thank you for the review and pics! Food definently LOOKS better than the past for sure!! 😃

Edited October 29, 2023 by z_cruisers
spelling

[LouChamp]

Aloha.  Thank you so much for your posts and the food pictures. Our first Carnival cruise was decades ago and my wife did not like the food so she refused to sail Carnival again. Thereafter I would cruise with my brother in law occasionally on cruises out of NY. The food was never great but we had enjoyable times nonetheless.  I think they try hard but I cannot figure out why the food consistently is panned. That said, I would sail Carnival again but only with brother in law lol! 

[momin05]

9 hours ago, ninjacat123 said:

Great review! Thx for posting 👏🏻

Sure!

[momin05]

7 hours ago, z_cruisers said:

Thank you for the review and pics! Food definently LOOKS better than the past for sure!! 😃

It all seemed like it was higher quality.

[momin05]

6 hours ago, LouChamp said:

Aloha.  Thank you so much for your posts and the food pictures. Our first Carnival cruise was decades ago and my wife did not like the food so she refused to sail Carnival again. Thereafter I would cruise with my brother in law occasionally on cruises out of NY. The food was never great but we had enjoyable times nonetheless.  I think they try hard but I cannot figure out why the food consistently is panned. That said, I would sail Carnival again but only with brother in law lol! 

I agree. It isn’t 5 star restaurant quality, but it is solid.