Lunch buffets?

[Masonpips]

We caught the Seafood one on the Western last year, OUTSTANDING and not to be missed.

We're doing the Eastern this year and see two additional options that we might be interested in:

What did you think of the Asian?

What about the Italian?

The other days we'll be off-ship and will miss lunch. The Italian doesn't thrill me that much (that might be our Palo brunch day) but I think I've heard good things about the Asian one.

Any advice?

Thanks!

 

[PiperG]

We definitely preferred the Italian lunch better, but that happens to be our favorite ethnic food. They created individual pasta dishes which included a variety of pasta types, sauces and toppings. I was able to have mine with lots of garlic!

We did have to wait in a rather long line to get our pasta, but it was certainly worth it. They also have a nice variety of other items at the buffet each day, so if you don't care specifically for pasta, there are other items from which to choose.

Have fun!

 

[Doctor P]

For the most part, I was disappointed in the themed buffets. Their strength, IMHO, was whatever special "bar" was associated with the meal. The Italian buffet had a great pasta bar, the Asian buffet a nice stir fry bar. The disappointment for me was that the buffets were very similar day to day with a very few special dishes for the given day. For example, I think there were four Asian dishes on the Asian buffet with the rest just a usual "American buffet" We ate at Palo on seafood buffet day, and the selection of seafood dishes was better at Palo than at Topsiders (Topsiders had crawfish, though). Food quality was good, but I expected more of the buffet to be themed foods. Perhaps my expectation was unreasonable.

 

[Favorite Auntie]

I also thought the pasta bar was great! I loved the way you could pick everything about your dish. The one problem was that the preparer did not speak English and he could not understand my friend who is allergic to nuts. She kept asking about what had nuts and if the untensils he used were cross contaminated from the pesto.....I loved it though!

 

[lrmillen]

seafood was good, but asian was terrible. it was rather bland and knowing what good asian tastes like, this wasn't it. i tried to sneak into the kids line that day for the mac n' cheese instead.

 

[abitjaded]

I agree with the posters that liked the pasta (Italian) or noodle (Asian) stations. The rest of the asian food was unremarkable, though. The chefs would cook the noodles to order. We got to the buffets just as they opened. But they were quite deserted on our October cruise. Really liked this food much better than that at the sit down lunches, although the service at those was wonderful. The kids liked the buffets, too. They could get their noodles however they liked, i.e. plain, and we could get ours loaded. The kids could go off to their activities and we could linger with a glass of wine.

Carla

 

[rae519]

Buffets were good but I do so like the lunches at Lumieres best of all!!!! Especially the risotto with mushroom!

Rae