Recent pictures of main dining room menus

[Dreams42Day]

Does anyone have recent (within the last month or so) pictures of the main dining room menus? 

[luv2kroooz]

I don't have pics but fresh off 13 day Gem and can speak to declines. Looks like revision were made July 2019. Significant downgrades. All veal, shrimp, scallop entrees have been removed. Replaced with repeating chicken, pork, flank steak and sausage. Yuk. Not only that, but now the everyday favorites ( left side of menu) mirror the Today's favorites ( right side of menu). Lemon pepper chicken was listed as today's favorite 5 of our 13 nites, plus the everyday menu has rotisserie chicken. Same with pork. You'll have rubbed pork loin as an everyday favorite and then roasted pork chop on the today's favorites. Kind of redundant. We did get prime rib and salmon one night of the 13, but the rest of the seafood offerings are just cheap whitefish. Bluefish twice, rainbow trout twice, coalfish, corvina, Pollack twice, barramundi. Really bad.

 

I actually used to find NCL's dining room food to be pretty acceptable. However, I found myself eating in the buffet more often on this cruise. And the buffet wasn't much better.

 

Again, I cruise at ridiculously low last minute prices, so I am getting what I pay for. If I could find a competing cruise line with slightly higher pricing, I would definitely give them a try.

 

 

Edited November 21, 2019 by blcruising

[Dreams42Day]

This is so sad. I have been reading several comments lately of changes in the menus so I am hoping that someone can post the menus. But, what you are saying mirrors what I am hearing from others. This will be our first cruise with NCL...and I am beginning to think it may be our last. 

[BirdTravels]

17 hours ago, Dreams42Day said:

Does anyone have recent (within the last month or so) pictures of the main dining room menus? 

NCL continually evolves menus to meet the tastes of the contemporary cruiser. They analyze what sells. And what ends up as fish food every time it is offered. What holds well and what foods decline in quality (when you do 15,000 covers a day, food can’t be cooked to order). What what person considers “high quality food” others wouldn’t touch. My dearest significant other would pick chicken over veal or scallops every meal. 
 

7 Recent menus are on the attached list. Remember, NCL has 14 MDR menus that the executive chef selects from based on the anticipated ship demographics. 
 

 

[tumblew467]

I have a question.. does anyone know when prime rib night is?  Is it the 1st night across the board on all ships?  am on the bliss and the people in my group want to go. thanks.. I have searched for dailies of the bliss but am having a difficult time finding them 

[scendro]

1 hour ago, blcruising said:

I don't have pics but fresh off 13 day Gem and can speak to declines. Looks like revision were made July 2019. Significant downgrades. All veal, shrimp, scallop entrees have been removed. Replaced with repeating chicken, pork, flank steak and sausage. Yuk. Not only that, but now the everyday favorites ( left side of menu) mirror the Today's favorites ( right side of menu). Lemon pepper chicken was listed as today's favorite 5 of our 13 nites, plus the everyday menu has rotisserie chicken. Same with pork. You'll have rubbed pork loin as an everyday favorite and then roasted pork chop on the today's favorites. Kind of redundant. We did get prime rib and salmon one night of the 13, but the rest of the seafood offerings are just cheap whitefish. Bluefish twice, rainbow trout twice, coalfish, corvina, Pollack twice, barramundi. Really bad.

 

I actually used to find NCL's dining room food to be pretty acceptable. However, I found myself eating in the buffet more often on this cruise. And the buffet wasn't much better.

 

Again, I cruise at ridiculously low last minute prices, so I am getting what I pay for. If I could find a competing cruise line with slightly higher pricing, I would definitely give them a try.

 

 

We too are fresh of the Gem and agree 100% with this post.  We noticed a major decline in the food choices in the MDR so much that we too chose to dine at the buffet.  I really felt as if we were eating cafeteria food every night for dinner since we didn’t purchase the upgrade dining package.  Breakfast & lunch were always good, but dinner was just downright disappointing.  

[luv2kroooz]

1 hour ago, BirdTravels said:

NCL continually evolves menus to meet the tastes of the contemporary cruiser. They analyze what sells. And what ends up as fish food every time it is offered. What holds well and what foods decline in quality (when you do 15,000 covers a day, food can’t be cooked to order). What what person considers “high quality food” others wouldn’t touch. My dearest significant other would pick chicken over veal or scallops every meal. 
 

7 Recent menus are on the attached list. Remember, NCL has 14 MDR menus that the executive chef selects from based on the anticipated ship demographics. 
 

 

Many professional chefs can plan for what sells and doesn't sell and adjust preparation based on this. Your SO will love NCL because there is chicken everywhere, including the everyday menu. It would be nice to have a veal or shrimp option on the right side of the menu once or twice on a 13 day sailing. Are you suggesting veal and shrimp that was served in the MDR was ending up as fish food? Wonder why they would offer it in a specialty restaurant? I just call it what it is.....a cutback.

[luv2kroooz]

1 hour ago, tumblew467 said:

I have a question.. does anyone know when prime rib night is?  Is it the 1st night across the board on all ships?  am on the bliss and the people in my group want to go. thanks.. I have searched for dailies of the bliss but am having a difficult time finding them 

It was not the first night on our cruise. It was night 11. I rescheduled my La Cucina dinner when I finally found something in the MDR that sounded appetizing.

[NCLGirl2013]

 

This is from the Getaway this week. Note- I got this picture off of a FB group

[NCLGirl2013]

[NCLGirl2013]

[jaja]

I am not very impressed with the new menus.  Can anyone tell me if the "every day" selctions still includes strip steak? At least it is something to fall back on......

[wilmingtech]

In management there is a constant tug of war between competitively pricing cruises to fill ships and budgeting to feed a hundred thousand people everyday of the year.

 

A regularly priced Caribbean Cruise for 7 days might be $700pp for an inside cabin.  Think about how they need to split out those funds to cover costs.  $100 a day has to go to fuel, food, personnel, maintenance.. etc.  You can't possibly expect a cruise line these days to be able to contract suppliers long term for something like lobster on a shoestring budget.  Possibly shrimp but certainly not lobster.  

 

Then you have to look at the supply chain and whats available.  Every time Royal Caribbean puts another 6000 person ship in the ocean that supply chain dwindles.  Not that they can't fill ships with food but the cost of food now goes up based on whats available and the supply chain freezer isn't overflowing with lobster.

 

And as mentioned in the post above, waste also needs to be taken into consideration. 30% food waste on a cruise doesn't seem to be too far a reach.  That comes right off the top of the food budget.

 

The challenge for the cruise lines is going to be taking cheap food and making it taste and look good.  It's funny because you see comments all the time about "Indian" or "Phillipino" dishes that are not on the menu but people ask for them and when they get them the reports seem to be that they are really tasty.  It's alot of the same food well prepared with great seasoning.  It's what the cooks and crew are eating for themselves.  They don't put it on the menu because it's not what 90% of North Americans want.

 

The challenge for us as cruisers is figuring out what the yummy dishes are on the menu and what nights they are being served in the MDR.  Once we figure that out we can plan our Specialty Dining on the other nights.

 

That being said...   Back to the original question, anyone have pics of the MDR Menus?

 

 

[luv2kroooz]

56 minutes ago, jaja said:

I am not very impressed with the new menus.  Can anyone tell me if the "every day" selctions still includes strip steak? At least it is something to fall back on......

Yes, still available. The everyday flounder was also acceptable for me.

[luv2kroooz]

What is so obvious is how they disguise the same food over and over again just in different forms. One night it is called turkey scallopini, then the next you'll see turkey medallions. Or it is braised beef brisket today and then barbecue beef brisket tomorrow. Hungarian beef ghoulash today becomes beef stew on the buffet tomorrow. Today we add a pineapple slice on the chicken, tomorrow we wrap a piece of bacon around it.

[jaja]

2 hours ago, blcruising said:

Yes, still available. The everyday flounder was also acceptable for me.

Thank you.  Appreciate the reply.  

[ready2cruzagain]

3 hours ago, NCLGirl2013 said:

 

What in Heaven's name is a Walleye Cod Fillet???? Lake Erie here and never heard of that one.  There is Walleye and there is Cod, is this some type of new breed. 😂

[jaja]

12 minutes ago, ready2cruzagain said:

 

What in Heaven's name is a Walleye Cod Fillet???? Lake Erie here and never heard of that one.  There is Walleye and there is Cod, is this some type of new breed. 😂

 Made that is the chef's name...Walleye...and it is his signature dish.  😁😲

[luv2kroooz]

1 hour ago, jaja said:

 Made that is the chef's name...Walleye...and it is his signature dish.  😁😲

Haha, that would make it Chef Wally's Cod!!

 

And now I see Pollock, Boston bluefish, and coalfish are all really the same type of fish....hmmm. So, you get the same fish every night. It just has a different name each night. Nice!! At least I know why I didn't like any of the fish dishes....they were all the same fish, lol.

 

"Boston bluefish, Coal fish, saithe, coley, called pollock in the US. A cheap fish found in the Atlantic ocean and fished from Nova Scotia to Virginia. It has slightly brownish flesh which lightens as it is cooked. It is related to cod and has lean, sweet flesh and darker skin. It is used for gefilte fish in North America and for making imitation shellfish products."

source: nittygrits.org

 

[ready2cruzagain]

35 minutes ago, blcruising said:

Haha, that would make it Chef Wally's Cod!!

 

And now I see Pollock, Boston bluefish, and coalfish are all really the same type of fish....hmmm. So, you get the same fish every night. It just has a different name each night. Nice!! At least I know why I didn't like any of the fish dishes....they were all the same fish, lol.

 

"Boston bluefish, Coal fish, saithe, coley, called pollock in the US. A cheap fish found in the Atlantic ocean and fished from Nova Scotia to Virginia. It has slightly brownish flesh which lightens as it is cooked. It is related to cod and has lean, sweet flesh and darker skin. It is used for gefilte fish in North America and for making imitation shellfish products."

source: nittygrits.org

 

 

Chef Wally's Cod...omg too funny. 😂 I am still trying to figure out what the heck it is.  Walleye (even living on Lake Erie) is $11.99 a pound here but Cod is $4.99 a pound. Hopefully it is Walleye.  I am going to have to order it next month and see.  I can definitely tell the difference between Walleye and Cod. It would not surprise me if it was really pollack.  Restaurants use to use cod for  the fish frys on Fridays around here but for the last 7 or so years have been using pollack and there is a difference.

 

Yes, Pollack is pretty cheap, it is $1.99 a pound here so I can only imagine how cheap NCL gets it for.  I about fell over when I seen it on the menu. 

[scendro]

I didn’t take many menu picks but here are two from the November 8th sailing of the Gem 

[scendro]

[Greenpea2]

10 hours ago, NCLGirl2013 said:

Wow. Not one item on any of those drew me in.  I used to really enjoy several dinners in the MDR. But it’s been a few years and change has come. Sad. 

[yankees111]

2 hours ago, scendro said:

I didn’t take many menu picks but here are two from the November 8th sailing of the Gem 

So many choices! NCL rocks!

[BirdTravels]

28 minutes ago, Greenpea2 said:

Wow. Not one item on any of those drew me in.  I used to really enjoy several dinners in the MDR. But it’s been a few years and change has come. Sad. 

That essentially means that you are not representative the contemporary Demographic that NCL is targeting. You are in the demographic that will cruise with any menu. 
 

There was an outcry when chicken fingers were pulled from the menu. And, of course, the absence of three cheese ziti on the Haven menu. 
 

The chocolate buffet was axed when fewer and fewer showed up to participate. 10,000 pounds of chocolate was ground and tossed overboard weekly. The contemporary cruiser is more interested in howling at the moon versus ooohing and ahhhing at a chocolate fountain.