Cruise Day #3, “Date Night” Redux

[Note: This should have been posted yesterday…]

Tonight we went to Le Bistro ($15 per person; before 6:30 2-for-1). This was actually our 3rd trip to NCL’s signature restaurant. We ate there 10+ years ago aboard the NCL Leeward on our honeymoon. We also dinned there on the overnight “cruise to nowhere” aboard the NCL Sun this past April. I’ll skip the French titles in describing our dinner. Libby had the seared scallops, French onion soup, freise salad (w/ blue cheese, dried figs, and walnuts), and an Alsatian (I assume) dish of various pork culets and sausages along with potatoes and sauerkraut in a Riesling sauce. I started with the escargot (snails – a first for me!) in butter and garlic, the same soup/salad as Libby, and a wonderful beef tenderloin in wine reduction and pepper sauce. For dessert, we shared a chocolate fondue with fresh fruit and miniature profiteroles. I also finished the second half of my 2004 Chateau Mont Redon Châteauneuf-du-Pape bottle. Of all of it, everything was good, but the escargot was great! This perhaps proves one-and-for-all my long-held theory that anything in enough butter and garlic is bound to be delicious! Also, the wine stored excellently. Therefore, I’d recommend this approach to those not wishing to finish a bottle in a single evening. It’s more cost effective than buying by the glass.

After dinner, we went to the Star Bar on Deck 13 to try the drink of the day in honor of my mother. Why in honor of Mom? Today’s cocktail was a “Tropical Itch.” This particular concoction was a favorite cocktail that she occasionally shared with my grandmother during the times we spent in the Hawaiian Islands while I was a child. So, now being of legal age (and then some), Libby and I thought it only fitting to try this drink in honor of Mom and my happy vacation memories of the past.

After the beer tasting, wine drinking, and scratching of my tropical itch, we thought it best to return to the cabin and make it an early evening (skipping “Monte Carlo Night” in the Jade Casino). Libby did so in a straight line. I think I wobbled a bit (due to the slightly higher seas… right… the seas). By the time we returned, we had out first towel animal (a bunny) of the cruise awaiting us, which I’m not ashamed to admit we both enjoyed seeing. We also noticed that we’d turned left to enter the Mediterranean! This also meant that the sunset was directly off the aft of the ship.

Tomorrow we begin our exploration of Spain in Malaga.