Reviews of Share and Salty Dog with Pictures

[helenb]

While we are Elite Princess cruisers, we had never been on a ship that had either Share or Salty Dog until our recent Ruby cruise (Dec. 30, 2017 - Jan. 6, 2018). I know both places are a little controversial on these forums, but we went into both places with an open mind. We wanted to try something new, and we did! Since I haven't seen a lot of food pictures from these restaurants, I wanted to post here to help others.

 

When we were at Share, the restaurant was not crowded. There were other people present, but only about 6 or 7 tables total. The restaurant was far from full. This may be because of the cover charge, which at $39 per person was a little steep. We looked at it as being the same price as Crown Grill with an extra entree for each of us. Even so, it was a bit of a turnoff for us.

 

Before I get into the nitty gritty, our overall experience at Share was good. The food was (mostly) excellent and we really enjoyed it. They even accommodated our request to 'share' course selections (more on this below). We would definitely go there again, but probably not unless they lower the cover charge to $29, or if we had a free specialty restaurant meal (from some TA promotion or from traveling in a suite).

 

We started with a complimentary bread service. The bread was formed in small 'rolls', but was similar to a French baguette in nature. Very crusty. My only complaint is that the ratio of crust to soft inside was off, and the rolls should have been a bit bigger to make it right.

 

 

Course 1

 

For Course 1 you get a choice of a charcuterie plate or a cheese plate. We decided to try both. The meat plate was very good (we had the Hungarian salami). The cheese plate was disappointing. There were only 4 tiny, thin slices of cheese and they tasted hard and stale, like parmesan sliced too thick and left out too long. If we went again, we would both get the charcuterie.

 

 

Edited January 8, 2018 by helenb

[helenb]

Course 2

 

For the salad course, we both ordered the burrata. This was excellent and we loved it! We would definitely order it again. You can't see the burrata cheese itself underneath all of the tomatoes and toppings, but it was there and quite filling.

 

[helenb]

Course 3

 

This is the pasta course. We ordered each of the 2 pastas. I am allergic to vinegar, so I had mine (the ricotta cavatelli) without the beets. It was excellent: very creamy and cheesy. The pasta tasted like a good gnocchi.

 

 

My husband had the curry pasta with lemon sauce. He enjoyed it and characterized it as 'yummy'. He says that it was not spicy/hot, despite having curry in it.

 

[helenb]

Course 4

 

This is where we made our special request. My husband loves seafood, while I can't eat it. Originally I was just going to get the white corn veloute, but we thought of a better solution. My husband had both of our 'sea' entrees (course 4) while I had both of our 'land' entrees (course 5). We told the waiter that this was what we were doing and he arranged to have the kitchen prepare one of each course twice, so that I wouldn't be stuck watching my husband eat 2 dishes and then have him do the same afterward.

 

My husband started with the trout. He said that it was moist and well-prepared and tasted like a nice piece of salmon.

 

 

His other sea dish was the lobster tail. My husband said that it was very good, and that the ham added a particularly nice flavor.

 

Edited January 8, 2018 by helenb

[helenb]

Course 5

 

Since I had both land entrees, I got to choose 2 dishes. I had the duck leg and the steak.

 

The duck leg was excellent: very moist and tender and flavorful. I was excited to try the beans that accompanied it, but they turned out to be the worst part of the meal. They were undercooked and 'hard'. I don't want my beans to be refried mush, but they should be soft (mashed-potato consistency) when you bite into them. These were not, and they were the only part of the entire meal that I did not eat.

 

 

The steak looked beautiful, and the crispy leeks and sauce added a lot when I combined a bit of both with each bite of meat. The sunchokes (which our waiter told us were just artichokes from Jerusalem) were okay. They were just there, but I ate them.

 

The real problem was the steak. It was very well cooked, but suffered from being a poor quality piece of meat. It was a little too tough and chewy, although I think the kitchen did the best they could with this lesser quality meat. If they made this a tri-tip or another nicer cut, the dish would be excellent.

 

[Keith1010]

Wow. Looks like a delicious meal. Love your narrative and beautiful photos.

 

Keith

[helenb]

Course 6

 

Dessert! I made the obvious (and best) choice: I went for the chocolate! Even though I generally prefer milk chocolate, this dark chocolate dessert was fabulous! You can see the chocolate (kind of like a very dense mousse) on the left, and accompanying ice cream (which was sweet and also very good) on the right. Having a bit of ice cream and chocolate in each bite took away the dark chocolate bitterness.

 

 

My husband had the caramel cheesecake. He said that it was good, and he liked the wine reduction with it, but there really wasn't any caramel. It was apparently mixed into the cheesecake itself, but he would have preferred a caramel layer, or at least a caramel flavor to the cheesecake.

 

Edited January 8, 2018 by helenb

[helenb]

On to the Salty Dog! I had been wanting to try this restaurant, and was extremely disappointed to discover that it wasn't open for lunch. It is NOT a lot of food, and seems to fit better as a lunch option rather than as a substitute for a full dinner.

 

Our overall opinion was that the portions were far too small and not all of the food was good. We won't be going back to Salty Dog again unless they change the menu.

 

The Salty Dog is a small section of the Wheelhouse bar, and as such there wasn't a lot of seating. There was a party of 11 people who had reserved the 7 pm timeslot, so that took up most of the restaurant. Again, there were other people present, and it seemed to be reasonably full.

 

The complimentary appetizer was breadsticks with a cheese fondue sauce. This was actually very tasty, and we wished there had been more of it. These are 2 portions in the picture below. Only ONE of these was given to a table with 2 people.

 

Edited January 8, 2018 by helenb

[GUT2407]

Thanks for SHAREing.

[helenb]

At Salty Dog you get to choose 2 'main plates'. I have this in quotation marks because some of the 'main plates' are really more like side dishes. There is a wide variety of 'value' in the dishes, depending upon what you order.

 

My husband began with the calamari. While they look good, he said that there was way too much breading. The ratio was 80% breading, 10% calamari, 10% sauce. He would have preferred equal portions of each.

 

 

I began with the short rib poutine. This was very tasty. The fries were battered, which made them extra good. The beef and sauce were very nice. However the portion was tiny. I felt like it was almost a 'kids' size' appetizer. In the picture, you can see that this bowl is only 9 (thin) fries across). Picture 9 McDonald's fries lying side by side, and that was the diameter of the bowl.

 

[helenb]

For the other dish, both my husband and I chose the grilled cheese with white tomato soup. The grilled cheese was good, but the portion was tiny. We got 2 'sticks' that were less than an inch wide. It felt like we had only gotten half a sandwich. If they doubled the portion of grilled cheese that would be much more reasonable. It's not an expensive item, so I think they could do this.

 

The soup was very bizarre. I had never heard of 'white' tomato soup, and it turns out that's because there were no 'white' tomatoes. Instead, the bowl was filled with what was essentially warm milk. A slice of roasted tomato at the bottom of the bowl provided a mild tomato flavor to the milk. But it was watery and thin and not at all hearty, the way I would expect tomato soup to be. I would not order this again unless they doubled the grilled cheese portion and changed the soup to a 'real' tomato soup.

 

[easyboy]

Nice lobster tail serving! But will still pass on Share if price stays at $39. Thanks for the nice photos.

 

 

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[helenb]

For dessert, the choices did not look appetizing. Neither my husband nor I drink coffee, so we didn't want the coffee and doughnuts dessert. The lemon dessert sounded unappetizing, and while we like strawberries, having them with ricotta seemed to be very bland. So we both went for the chocolate dessert. Now the dessert does have 'bourbon' in the name. I am not a drinker (my husband does drink occasionally). I have had desserts with alcohol in them before but generally the flavor is mild and not a big deal. Such was not the case with this dessert.

 

The caramel corn and the vanilla mousse on top were good. But the chocolate underneath (the biggest part of the dessert) was so heavily laced with bourbon that it was all I tasted. It literally burned my tongue and the disgusting flavor would not go away, even though I had only the smallest bit to try it. I tried again, thinking that I had gotten a bad bite, with the same result. It was as if I (as a non-drinker) had been forced to ingest a shot of straight bourbon. There really was no chocolate flavor at all. My husband agreed that there was no chocolate flavor. He ate his portion, but didn't like it enough to want to eat my portion, which says a LOT (we are both HUGE dessert and HUGE chocolate fans).

 

The host/head waiter at the restaurant noticed that I did not eat the chocolate and asked me what was wrong. i explained it to him and he agreed that the taste was very strong, and that he couldn't eat it either. He did offer me another dessert, but warned that both the coffee and doughnuts and the lemon dessert also had alcohol. Only the strawberries and ricotta are alcohol-free. Completely turned off at this point, I turned down his offer. Both my husband and I left the restaurant still hungry, and not feeling as if we had gotten our 'money's worth', even though the cost was only $12. We do not plan to return to the Salty Dog.

 

[helenb]

Thanks for the comments! I am glad that people like the photos. It was difficult finding a place to host the photos (as most sites seemed to be blocked by Cruise Critic) but I wanted to get them up, because to me, the photo tells so much more than the description on the menu.

 

I am happy to answer any questions about our experience.

[voljeep]

Amazing - No signature Earnesto Burger? and that looks like plenty of food to me

[helenb]

Amazing - No signature Earnesto Burger? and that looks like plenty of food to me

 

The description didn't look very appetizing to me (kimchi and jalepeno?) and my husband isn't really a burger fan. I saw one go by and it did look like a heartier portion than our choices turned out to be.

[UpcountryTravelers]

Our next bookings are on Caribbean Princess, then Emerald Princess. Glad to see that neither Share nor Salty Dog are on either ship.

[voljeep]

Interesting - why would you be glad they are not there? - with them being there, does that diminish your cruise experience?

[Taer al Saefer]

Share looks right up my alley, but I couldn't convince my mom to go. She was concerned that it would be $120 + tip for the three of us and either we would leave hungry, or dissatisfied. Looking at the pictures make me wish we had gone!

[Host CJSKIDS]

Amazing - No signature Earnesto Burger? and that looks like plenty of food to me

 

Love that burger!!

[Micahs Grandad]

Interesting - why would you be glad they are not there? - with them being there, does that diminish your cruise experience?

 

Only thing I can make of the comment is if they were not there something more appealing to the poster might be.

 

We were on one of the first ships that had Share and noticed the menu was not to our liking so not a place we would go to but realize others might.

[Host CJSKIDS]

Thanks for sharing your review and the amazing pictures.

 

We loved our meals in Share and I loved the atmosphere.

 

My next sailing is on the Crown which unfortunately doesn't have Share but does have Salty Dog. We will have to give it a try again. I do see that they have lowered the price from $19 to $12 and now you get to order 2 rather than 3 portions. That grilled cheese/soup selection is more an appy. Would have been nice if they would have cut the price and left it to 3.

[fishywood]

Only thing I can make of the comment is if they were not there something more appealing to the poster might be.

 

We were on one of the first ships that had Share and noticed the menu was not to our liking so not a place we would go to but realize others might.

Hate to burst their bubble but Emerald Princess has both Salty Dog (served in Wheelhouse Bar each evening) and SHARE (on Deck 16 where Sabatini's used to be). Though maybe I should have kept shtum as perhaps they would have preferred to be outraged when discovering this after boarding.

 

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[Host CJSKIDS]

Our next bookings are on Caribbean Princess, then Emerald Princess. Glad to see that neither Share nor Salty Dog are on either ship.

 

Share and Salty Dog are actually on the Emerald Princess. Salty Dog didn't take a dining venue away, it's just food served in the Wheelhouse bar at night. Share took over the space where Sabatinis was located.

[WVBill]

So, only two possible choices for each course? Is that right?

 

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