Cruising to the Sun Part VI: I Dream of Tamarind

Specialty restaurants are an unavoidable part of the cruise business these days.The number and variety of restaurants seems to be limited only by the size of the ships. 

Specialty restaurants can be loosely defined as eating venues in which there is a premium cost to be paid for foods and for a level of service which you would not receive in the standard restaurants that make no surcharge for food or service.

Sounds straightforward? Some lines have different tiers, at different add-on prices, with different titles to distinguish them. Some companies run multiple specialties, on different days, in a single space. Some hold "pop-up" specialty menus in an otherwise common space like the buffet.

What types of foods may be found in specialty restaurants? Steaks and Italian are perhaps the most common, with steak houses and Italian restaurants appearing on the vast majority of ships with premium specialties. Seafood is another common theme. Many companies have sponsorship and planning tie-ins with one or more high-profile celebrity chefs or shore-based restaurants.

Since Holland America's ships are not overly large, the selection is naturally a bit more limited than on, say, Royal Caribbean's 7000-passenger monster ships. The Pinnacle Steak House and the Canaletto Italian restaurant are found on all of Holland America's ships. But my personal favourite, Tamarind, appears on only the five newest vessels of the HAL fleet: Rotterdam, Nieuw Statendam, Koningsdam, Nieuw Amsterdam, and Eurodam, the ship I've sailed on this month.

Tamarind is an Asian specialty restaurant, focusing on the culinary traditions of East and Southeast Asia, and combining those traditions in unusual and fascinating ways. The extra-attentive service is a key part of the Tamarind experience, and rightly so, since a full Tamarind dinner includes (for practical purposes) four courses, and will certainly require more than an hour -- and then some. But the quietness of the venue is noteworthy as well, since Tamarind usually offers far more space per table with fewer patrons overall than the main Dining Room. Frequent dividers and areas of plush carpeting plus quiet background music encourage the sedate atmosphere.

Tamarind does not serve sushi. I can hear some of my readers heading for the exits when they read that sentence. However, there is a separate sushi premium restaurant, Nami Sushi, which is contained within the same general space as Tamarind. If you are a sushi fan (I am not overly fond of it), you will want to plan a night with Nami Sushi as well as a night with Tamarind for a fuller picture!

After all that wordy introduction, here's a photo gallery of Tamarind on Eurodam, starting with a picture of the place setting when I sat down. It's a good choice to include both chopsticks, for the authentic experience, and standard cutlery for those of us with ten thumbs.

 

 Next, here are some views of the menu.

 

 

The starting point of a meal in Tamarind, after you peruse the menu and order drinks and dinner, is this Asian twist on the Euro-American bread basket: house-made, puffy tempura crisps served with an assortment of no less than four flavours of dips: the small pot of soy sauce, and then in order from left to right the sweet, moderately seasoned, and hyper-spicy flavours. I like all of them, but handle the last one with care. It's one of those sneaky, delayed-reaction hot sauces.

On my first dinner, I started with the shrimp and lobster potstickers. The pickled ginger set off the flavours of the seafood very well.

For the main course, I went on to enjoy the wasabi and soy crusted beef tenderloin, with a side of bok choy, and it was marvellous. Yes, it's there, hiding under the centre tempura onion ring.

After such a diverse menu, I certainly want a dessert that is light and doesn't overwhelm everything else before it. The yuzu cheesecake in a kind of saddle of lightly-sweet white chocolate fit the bill.

That was the first night. The second visit, a week later, began with the crisps and dips, of course. The first course which I ordered this time was another old friend, the satay sampler.

For the main course, I ordered the crispy duck, again with a side of bok choy. (Can you tell that I am very fond of bok choy?)

The dessert this time was another old and valued friend, the Passion Fruit Cloud with the custard on the right and the sorbet on the left. It's a classic example of the type of light dessert that fits a meal like this to perfection.

For any cruise on any of the five Holland America ships which feature it, Tamarind should be a do-not-miss for anyone who enjoys east Asian food or is feeling adventurous. Go early in the cruise, because I'd say there's a very good chance that you will want to go again (as I did) before the trip is over!

Now the bad news. My next cruise on Holland America, as presently planned, is going to be on one of the six older ships which doesn't include Tamarind. Sometimes, the right ship and the right cruise don't go together as neatly as we might like. I'll enjoy Tamarind all the more when I do get another chance to sit down for dinner there!

Out to the Mountains and Back # 1: The Beauty of Life in Kelowna

It's a natural fit. I've loved being around and near mountains for as long as I can remember. Kelowna is a modern city, surrounded by mountains, on the shores of Lake Okanagan in southern British Columbia. When my nephew, Robert Stephen, tells me he's got another commission to create a new work for Ballet Kelowna, that gives me all the reason I need to pack my bags. I had no part at all in making Robert the wonderful artist he is. I'm just extravagantly proud of him, and go to see any of his work whenever I can manage it. Call me a "Robert Stephen groupie."

 

So this trip began with an overnight stay in a hotel at Toronto airport, followed by a morning flight to Calgary and an early afternoon connection to Kelowna. On the main flight to Calgary, I had put in a request for upgrade using my credits, not with much hope, but at boarding time I got the upgrade to the last available seat in the Premium Economy cabin. On Air Canada, this means that the flight is being operated by a wide bodied aircraft, normally dedicated to overseas service. The Business Class cabin has individual pods with lie-flat seats that turn into beds. Premium Economy is not unlike the Business Class on a narrow-bodied aircraft: wider seats (seven across instead of nine), much better legroom, with the same or similar meal offering as Business Class, and free alcoholic beverages. 

That certainly made the flight much easier! The breakfast and coffee were delicious. And then, I walked off the plane in Calgary and my connecting flight was at the gate directly across the hall -- barely fifty steps' walking. Was I getting the breaks that day, or what? The 1-hour flight to Kelowna was on a commuter turboprop with 72 seats, so there was only a simplified beverage service, but that was fine.

I was soon checked into my go-to hotel in Kelowna, the Delta Grand Okanagan Resort. It has a splendid view over the waterfront park to the waters of the lake, especially so when you get an upgrade to a higher floor with the view. The view to the south from my room takes in the huge marina and waterfront promenade. You can also see the outdoor portion of the hotel's pool, the hot tub, and the covered outdoor pool which will be opened and surrounded with lounge chairs  when the warmer weather comes.

 

 

To the east, you see more mountains with snow.

 

The view to the southwest gives a clear sight of the bridge across the narrows of Lake Okanagan. This vital link not only continues the highway southbound down the valley to Penticton and on to the U.S.border, but also leads to the freeway which runs west through the mountains to the Coquihalla Highway, the main route of the Trans Canada Highway towards Vancouver.

The resort has a lovely indoor-outdoor pool, plus a sizable outdoor-only pool which will open in warmer weather. There are indoor and outdoor hot tubs, although the indoor one was out of order. I'm not surprised. So many hotels are pulling the things out altogether. They're a royal pain in the you-know-where to keep running because people keep dumping drinks and food into them, "by accident" of course, and clogging the jet pumps. Nor does it help when people decide to bring the shampoo and wash their flipping hair in the hot tub! Yes, it happens.

 

As soon as you step out the door of the hotel, you see this view across the lagoon towards the mountains on the far shore of Lake Okanagan.

 

 

The hotel also looks impressive when looking backwards from across the lagoon in the park.

 

 

I did a lot of walking in that park, and along the waterfront walking path as a whole. Yes, the weather was a bit chilly, but with hardly any wind, the outdoor walking was a delight. Here are a few pictures of the outdoor park area north of the hotel. 

 

On top of a small hill in the park is this artificial spring, which feeds two small streams tumbling downhill over rocky beds into the lagoon. 

 

 

 

A panorama of the lake and mountains from the slopes of that small hill. 

The trees show fascinating sculptural silhouettes in winter when stripped of vegetation.

 

 

What looks like clear, calm water at a first glance proves to be a very thin skin of new ice with an equally thin layer of liquid water lying on top of it. The true open water is riffled by the breeze.

At noon on my first full day, I walked north a bit from the resort, and at the first bend in the road found this impressive and evocative sculpture.

 

In another couple of blocks, I came to the Train Station Pub. I ate there twice, and highly recommend it as both meals were fantastic. So was the service. Here's the exterior of the old station.

Here's a better view of the delightful statue of an old-school train conductor standing on the corner outside the pub.

 

 The interior of the pub shows a thoughtful mix of the old and the new.

In the area south of the resort, there are some further striking public art sculpture installations.

 

 

One of them actually appears as a location on Google Maps. "Ogopogo" is the name of the mysterious water beast which lives in the lake. Ogopogo is quite likely a first cousin of the Loch Ness Monster, and like Nessie is lengthy, serpentine in form, and shy to the point of being reclusive. The map label, "Ogopogo Statue", sounds impressive, but the result is better described as whimsical and user friendly.  Parents are always coming to perch their little ones on Ogopogo's back or head for pictures.

 

There's also a sizable outdoor skating rink, and a sunny weekend day like this with the high temperature just below freezing was perfect for skating. 

Just inland from the promenade lies the Kelowna Community Theatre, and here it is from the outside, with the advertising sign for the ballet's production plainly visible on the right. 

Here's a picture from Ballet Kelowna's social media of the cast after the performance of Robert's new work, Mustard, inspired by the play of the same name by Kat Sandler. Robert is standing second from left in the back row. The entire show was fantastic, both Mustard and the other premiere, Delicate Fire, by the company's Artistic Director, Simone Orlando.

Ballet Kelowna photo.

 

The afternoon after the final performance, I flew down to Vancouver. The takeoff from Kelowna's airport showed both an intriguing cloud pattern in the sky and a clear and detailed view of the city centre on the shore of the lake.  

 

 

I spent a relaxing night at the Westin Wall Centre hotel near the airport, another location I recommend highly. A top floor room gave a spectacular view over the industrial district near the airport to the majestic mountains on the north shore of Burrard Inlet, including the two angular peaks of the Lions of Vancouver.

 

The next day, I rode the hotel's free shuttle back to the airport and then took the Skytrain downtown, changing trains at the Waterfront station to get out to the Main Street station. From there, it was a short one-block walk to the Pacific Central Station on Terminal Avenue, the point of departure for my trip home.

 

The Springtime Escape Part 2: Sometimes You Can Go Back

There's an old saying, "You can't go back again." Often in life it's true. 

But there are exceptions. I love to come back to this Gulf Coast region of Florida in no small part because of a string of favourite restaurants I've enjoyed over the years. I visited three of them this week. All are golden oldies, and all thoroughly lived up to my expectations from previous visits.

One of my other old favourites has sadly gone from the scene, it's place taken by a sports bar which was of no interest to me. Instead, I gave a first go at another long-time place which I'd never visited before.

By the way, if you do not enjoy eating seafood, you can skip right over this post. I'm sure that there are many fine restaurants all up and down the islands, offering everything from pizza to burgers to steak to sushi to Tex-Mex or pure Mexican to French to whatever your heart desires. Since seafood of any quality is non-existent where I live, that's just about all I do eat when I travel to places like this where it is plentiful and tasty! So seafood is my focus.

Taking them in the order they appear from north to south, we'll begin with the new entry from this trip: Frenchy's Rockaway Grill, right at the end of Rockaway Street in Clearwater Beach. All I have to say here is, "Why have I never visited this place before???" But actually, I already know the answer. I did come here once before, on a very cold night back in 2011 with my husband. By the time we got seated, he was just about frozen, and I wasn't a whole lot better off. We had to toss in the towel and go somewhere else which was more "indoors" and better heated. But, as the photo clearly shows, Frenchy's Rockaway Grill (one of six different Frenchy's restaurants in and around Clearwater) is right on the beach -- literally so as the outdoor tables with the colourful umbrellas sit right out on the sand!

This visit was a different story altogether from that frozen night in 2011. It was sunny, the temperature was 23 C (73 F) and even an outdoor seat under cover was comfortable. Now: the meal. Frenchy's has a huge and diverse menu, and it took me some time to scope it all out. I finally settled on a cup of she-crab soup, and a seared tuna salad. The soup gets its name from the fact that it was traditionally made with the meat of the female crab, and with the crab roe (eggs) thrown in. Aside from that, it's a thick, rich cream soup with various spices and seasonings, and usually a dollop of dry sherry. Frenchy's claims this as a signature item with a secret house recipe, and it tasted fabulous.

 

The salad was a generous helping of spring greens and baby spinach, with crisp wontons, wedges of mandarin orange, and six thick slices of rare seared tuna crusted with white and black sesame seeds, all in a sesame dressing, with side dishes of soy sauce and wasabi. The tuna was absolutely top-notch. I had not tasted such wonderful tuna since my visit to Tahiti ten years ago when it was on the menu at every meal in the resort's restaurant. You haven't lived until you've eaten seared fresh-caught tuna along with your eggs and bacon from the breakfast buffet! But Frenchy's gave a first-rate experience, in its own way with this salad -- it's a real winner!

 

The service, too, was outstanding at every point (kudos, Richard!). This restaurant now goes into an honoured place on my must-return visit for the next time I come this way.

 

Next on the way south, and the first of my old favourites, is Crabby Bill's on State 699 in Indian Rocks Beach. At least I remembered to take pictures here (some places I forgot -- bad, bad, BAD!).

At busy times, you're quite likely to find a seat at the long communal picnic tables down the middle of the restaurant, or perched up on one of the many stools at the bar. Be sure to study the random assortment of signs, mottos, old licence plates, and the like on the walls. 

 

 

This is old Florida at its chatty best, and it can be good fun. Last time I came here, I got into a conversation across the bar with a gent on his night off -- he was the bartender from my hotel! On this trip, I was there at lunch time, when it was much quieter, and I had a table to myself. Service was friendly and prompt. Like all their dinners, the grouper comes with your choice of two sides from a list of six or seven. The fish was tender, flavourful, well-seasoned (I ordered it blackened), and a good sized portion. The coleslaw is the sweet green variety, not the vinegar coleslaw of a Montreal or Toronto deli. Mac and cheese? Well, I don't do it very often but this is a great place to break the rule with some of the best I've tasted in a long time -- creamy and cheesy.

 

 

The key lime pie (the quintessential Florida dessert) wasn't off the top shelf but it still had good flavour and a good rich crumb crust.   

By the by, if you're located down at the south end of the chain, there's another Crabby Bill's location in St. Pete Beach. Not to be confused with another local chain called simply "Crabby's",

 

My next pick is Conch Republic on State 699 in Redington Beach. This is one of the two ultimate seafood restaurants of all the many I've visited in this region through the years. The menu is full of interesting touches which allow for a huge range of meal experiences. The key one for me was the opportunity to upgrade any appetizer to a meal by paying $5.99 extra to add a side and a salad. As I get older and my appetite declines, I wish such options were available in more places -- and especially in areas like this where even the appetizers can be pretty enormous. Fried conch strips with a spicy remoulade dip, house-made potato salad, and Caesar salad with absolutely the most garlicky dressing I've ever tasted -- and the croutons appeared to be made in house. The bread was also house-made, I think, and certainly hot out of the oven.

 

But I knew that, even after all that carb-laden main course, I simply had to go for the key lime pie. I've never been handed a bigger serving. 

 

 

I'm ashamed to say I ate it all. As a diabetic, I should have run in screaming horror from almost that entire meal, and I certainly paid for it in spades through the restless, dream-ridden night that followed.

The heartbreak of the week was the disappearance of Sea Critters Cafe in Pass a Grille. With an open-air deck out on the wharf overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway, there was no better place to get that fresh-from-the-boat vibe -- in fact, you could even arrive by boat and tie up out back! Sea Critters always had a diverse assortment of fresh fish, more so than most places, as well as shellfish. Alas for the good old days.

My final old favourite is clear out of the region of this blog series altogether. It's located on the west side of US41 (the Tamiami Trail) just north of the border between Bradenton and Sarasota.

 

All I can say is that, as ever, the Anna Maria Oyster Bar justified every second of the 80 minutes of driving each way, not to mention the cost of gas and tolls (since you have to cross Tampa Bay on the Sunshine Skyway to get there). I first came to this restaurant way back in 2001, when I rented a house in Bradenton for 2 weeks of intensive writing time. I've come back on every visit to the region ever since. 

 

It's a bright, cheery, restaurant with plenty of windows letting in the daylight. The first thing that always hits me is the quirkiness of hanging a roll of paper towels from a coat hanger over the table -- that's your stash of table napkins!

The Anna Maria Oyster Bar has a big, diverse menu, full of possibilities. Since it was lunchtime, I was drawn from old experience to the blackened grouper sandwich. The sides I ordered it with were the side dish winners of the trip, hands down. Their signature coleslaw is a magical treat in itself, as the traditional cabbage salad is flavoured with tiny little bits of chopped pineapple. The combination is irresistible! My second side was their house-made chips, which in Canada are sometimes called "kettle chips." These didn't come out of a bag either. This restaurant knows exactly how to fry up the thin-sliced fresh potatoes so that they are all completely crisp and utterly delicious.

What's that you say? Oh, yes, the fish! Half a pound of grouper, no less, as moist and tender as your heart could desire, dished up on an oversized bun with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and pickles. I knew from previous experience to eat it with knife and fork, as the bun's underside quickly collapses from all that moist, tender goodness. And there was the sole drawback of the experience, as the paper liner in the basket-like dish had no staying power at all when the juice from the fish and the coleslaw attacked it. Otherwise, I was in heaven. 

The grand finale, the house-made dessert of desserts, was a key lime pie that remains triumphantly at the top of my list as the best-tasting example I've ever eaten anywhere. I'm sorry, but I was so preoccupied with the food that I utterly forgot to take a picture of the sandwich. However, here's the pie. 

 

 

After that massive feast, all I wanted or needed for dinner that night was a dinner salad!

 

To close out, here's a map showing the approximate locations of each of these great eateries.

 

 

The moral: when it comes to these restaurants, yes, you can go back!