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Dreams pig and anchor a massive disappointment not real barbecue at all

imouer

By imouer,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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cb at sea

cb at sea

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We have a local Dixie Bones BBQ joint. They offer an Alabama sauce...it's vinegar based, but without the red pepper flakes to give it ZING.....don't care for it...but, they have a "white sauce" that is FABULOUS. Something I'd never had and now, I crave that stuff! It's so delicious!

I will eat a tomato based sauce, but prefer the true NC style vinegar/pepper sauce! It has to have some "hotness" to be good!

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Flatbush Flyer

Flatbush Flyer

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We booked the Dream for a third time because we love the tandoor grill only to learn that is about to be removed from service. That said we also were excited to try the new pig and anchor barbecue Because we are from the south and love barbecue and we are Guy fans. We waited in a long line for about 20 minutes to get our barbecue and I could tell when I saw the beef brisket that something was wrong. It was a dense and hard and had no smoke ring. Then they piled the greens on my plate and they were covered with a slimy yellow grease and had no vinegar smell. I reach for the Carolina barbecue sauce for my pulled pork in it was the right color but again had no smell of vinegar in was a bit sweet tasting nothing like anything in any of the Carolinas. I tried to eat the greens I took two or three bites forcing myself to eat this slimy crap with no vinegar. I have no idea what that was but they were not greens this southern boy knows better. I took one bite of the brisket and spit it out. Anyone that knows me knows that I love beef brisket and I know what it is and whatever this crap was it had no business being on the menu and I’m sure guy would be hugely embarrassed if he tasted it. The chicken was just OK not enough smoke as was the pulled pork. But again Carolina style pulled pork is all about the vinegar-based sauce and there was none to be found on the ship. Is I threw most of my food away I heard other people complaining that the food was not worth the wait and there was much disappointment all around me. At the dinner table The only ones who had anything nice to say about the barbecue were the people from Michigan and being that they don’t have a strong barbecue tradition up there I will give them a pass for not knowing better. The sad thing was the dream heels out of Louisiana and poles from all the deep southern states and everyone on that ship nurse for barbecue were supposed to be in the aint this crap unfortunately

 

 

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Wrong cruise line for "spot on" reproduction of "regional favorite food" anything.

 

 

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JinxyB

JinxyB

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I’ve tried the BBQ on Vista, Magic, and Breeze, and found it pretty tasteless with poor quality meats used. The sides like the Mac n’ cheese and baked beans were really bland and not worth the calories IMO. The meats used were too gristly and full of fat. I won’t waste my time in line for it again.

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Underway53

Underway53

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As a Texan I am deeply troubled by all of this. The brisket should have a beautiful, wide smoke ring and be not rubbery but have a little stretch to it as you pull pieces apart.

 

Secondly, we make pulled pork down here. I don’t claim to be great at it BUT my brine and sauce both have vinegar. What the OP describes sounds like an abomination.

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imouer

imouer

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So the Dream no longer has Tandoor?

 

 

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Yes they still have it but it’s slated to disappear sometime in the near future. And yes I get that you cannot expect spot on local taste on a crew ship I can tell you that the Indian chefs prepare incredibly authentic and consistently great dishes at the spot. The lamb stew is to die for the meet melts in your mouth.

 

 

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Retired_to_Cruise

Retired_to_Cruise

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Yes they still have it but it’s slated to disappear sometime in the near future. And yes I get that you cannot expect spot on local taste on a crew ship I can tell you that the Indian chefs prepare incredibly authentic and consistently great dishes at the spot. The lamb stew is to die for the meet melts in your mouth.

 

 

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I have tried the Tandoor twice and am glad it has disappeared on most of the ships. The lamb I had there one of the times was to die FROM, not for!

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apatchetear

apatchetear

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Yes they still have it but it’s slated to disappear sometime in the near future. And yes I get that you cannot expect spot on local taste on a crew ship I can tell you that the Indian chefs prepare incredibly authentic and consistently great dishes at the spot. The lamb stew is to die for the meet melts in your mouth.

 

 

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We really enjoyed it when we were on the Dream. Hate to see it go. Do you know what is replacing it? Seafood Shack?

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e3g

e3g

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Been eating BBQ for over 70 years. It is very regional. Grew up in S.C. eating tomato based sauce with liver hash over rice. Still standard in S.C. It's just OK..IMHO

Vinegar based sauce is primarily from N.C. It is my favorite for PORK.

Can't stand the mustard based sauce from Charleston, S.C., but locals love it.

I never order BBQ beef in the south. The west does it best. My favorite beef is brisket from Texas, especially San Antonio and the hills area. Surprisingly, California is a close 2nd to me. Maybe some Texans migrated:D

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Virga

Virga

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Central Florida has had pulled pork for as long as I can remember - and I'm in my mid thirties now. I do like a good vinegar based sauce, but the key for me is the smoke factor and if it's not there, it's not barbecue. To be honest, the only bbq sauce variety I don't like is some weird white mayonnaise based stuff I accidentally tried - I like virtually all the other regional favorites. Can't remember for the life of me where the white stuff was from (somewhere in the panhandle, maybe?) but it was only tolerable when mixed with an awful lot of good stoneground mustard, and at that point it barely resembled its original form.

 

Anyway, I am sorry you had a subpar experience. BBQ is something that Carnival probably should have stayed far away from, people are pretty partial to 'their' regional tastes. It just sounds like even the underlying meat wasn't going to be salvageable even with the 'right' sauce =(

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TubT

TubT

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Expecting any food on a cruise ship to match what you're used to at home is a fool's errand. If that was the case, why not just stay at home? After all, you wouldn't go in one of the restaurants, order chili, and expect the esoteric and unexplainable Cincinnati article, would you? I know that when we went on NCL's Norwegian Sea out of Houston (twice), although they called the cruise the "Texaribbean Cruise," any "Tex-Mex" food they served tasted like it had been made from a recipe written by someone who vaguely remembered eating in Texas some time back, wrote the recipe from memory in Indonesian, faxed it to Norway on a bad fax machine, where it was translated into Norwegian by someone who didn't speak Indonesian or English. But we ate it, and enjoyed it, and took it with a grain of salt...and a few flakes of chili powder, sometimes.

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idraconis

idraconis

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First time I had Pig and Anchor was on the Vista last November. Loaded up my plate and I couldn't eat any of it. It was so salty. Couple of days later I tried it again and much better. It was good, didn't blow my socks off. I'd compare it to a chain restaurant. Typical commercial sauce.

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Zeta3

Zeta3

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You booked the cruise just for the Tandoor Grill?? Maybe it’s not supposed to be Carolina BBQ. I’ve had BBQ in Texas Tennessee and Carolina and they are all different.

 

 

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I have chosen a ship over another because it had the Tandoor Grill. Some of the best food available at sea.

 

 

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imouer

imouer

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I have chosen a ship over another because it had the Tandoor Grill. Some of the best food available at sea.

 

 

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One time my wife were eating at the tandoori Grill in this lady with the heavy North Carolina accent walk by and loudly proclaimed that that was the worst damn Chinese food she had ever had! LOL

 

 

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british lady

british lady

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I have chosen a ship over another because it had the Tandoor Grill. Some of the best food available at sea.

 

 

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We have loved Freedom until they removed the Tandoori Grill, sailing next week on the Breeze because they have it:)

We have very good BBQ in Texas, but we drive 2 hours to get a curry:( so Yes I book Cruises that have the Tandoori.

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Flatbush Flyer

Flatbush Flyer

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We have loved Freedom until they removed the Tandoori Grill, sailing next week on the Breeze because they have it:)

 

We have very good BBQ in Texas, but we drive 2 hours to get a curry:( so Yes I book Cruises that have the Tandoori.

 

 

 

You and zeta 3 sound like my kind of folks (food quality is actually an important cruise consideration, particularly when it's more than a one week boat ride). You both should really consider an Oceania cruise if for no other reason than the food!

 

 

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british lady

british lady

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You and zeta 3 sound like my kind of folks (food quality is actually an important cruise consideration, particularly when it's more than a one week boat ride). You both should really consider an Oceania cruise if for no other reason than the food!

 

 

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I will look into Oceania, we enjoy the Celebrity Curry, but not as good as Carnivals Tandoori!

Thank you

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