Text 2142, 155 rader
Skriven 2006-06-14 23:20:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: next day of cruise 820
==============================
Out into the blazing sun to queue up for our trip, to find
nothing. Other guides came and went: Dolphin Encounters; the
Breezes; Atlantis. I speculated that the Yellowbird Party
Boat crew had perhaps gotten into the rum punch a little
early. About 15 minutes late a very Rasta-looking guy with
a Yellowbird sign strolled up, looking as though he had
partaken of substances a little stronger than rum punch, and
led us in a straggly parade out of the port area, through an
attached shopping mall, and to the boat, which looked jolly
but a little rickety. Rum punches were available whenever we
weren't docked; Carol and I had three each each way, and at
one point, tired of the taste of cheap rum and canned fruit
juice, I had a can of Kalik Bahamian beer, which had nice
hops but tasted a little pre-skunked. The leader of the band
gave a fairly informative and pleasant travelogue about the
waterside monuments (along the line of this hotel here is
going up at the cost of $2 Billion, Sean Connery used to
live over there, Thunderball was filmed over here, and so
on). After an hour of leisurely boating and frantic drinking
we landed on Blackbeard's Cay, which is a little island that
used to have nothing on it and a respectable name, but which
was transformed into yet another engine for separating the
tourists from their dollars by tricking it up with pictures
of pirates, a pen with tame stingrays (for a modest fee you
get to snorkel with them), and assorted enterprises such as
a souvenir shop, a massage lady, a burger joint, and of
course a rum punch shop. Carol and I swam instead. The water
was coolish (a surprise) and refreshing.

We returned accompanied by loud singing, a limbo contest,
and more rum punch.

Carol tried to persuade me to join her on a trip through the
Straw Market; but just inside I had a combined anti-shopping
and claustro attack and rushed away. Even the duty-free
booze shop down the street didn't appeal. Later, having
thankfully not bought anything of note, she joined me for a
walk through Nassau, which culminated at the Bahamian
Kitchen, where we had conch four ways:

fritters, which were the usual, rather like Rhode Island
clam cakes only more aphrodisiacal, supposedly;

chowder, a thin vegetablly liquid but pretty good tasting;

salad, good but tenderized;

and cracked, the local equivalent of calamari steak, only
with the neat texture of raw conch, as it had been flash
fried very expertly (raw conch I've had only in fancy
Chinese restaurants; cut just so it has an appealing tender
crunch that puts me in mind of a tenderer version of chicken
keelbone cartilage).

Good food in a few-frills setting. They were out of Kalik
Gold, which I'd wanted to try, so I had a Heineken instead.

Emigration from Nassau cruise port is a simple matter of
photo ID and boarding pass.

Back on board for the formal dinner, which we couldn't miss
because Carol had made me pack my tuxedo, speaking of tails
wagging dogs. One good thing about having an 8:30 dinner
seating is that there is time for four meals a day, if one
is so inclined.

Most of the company folks missed this event - the top execs
at Nobu, the others at less stratospheric parts of Atlantis
or trying out the local food but not being as piggy as us.
So we invited the occupants of one of our half-empty tables
to join us at our half-empty table, and everyone had a good
time, except for the waiters, who spent quite a long time
fussing amongst each other about the allocation of tips.

As this was formal night, Carol had four appetizers instead
of three (they are really not very big). Orange carpaccio
was just a fancy name for orange slices with red onion and
some garnishes. The special escargot had a lot of butter
and not enough garlic - most of us got this, and one who
hadn't ended up ordering one because she was intrigued by
our glee at eating rubbery little gastropods; turns out she
didn't like them, and I ended up finishing hers. Lobster
bisque was deep-flavored and classic. I didn't bother
getting a bite of or even asking about the Caesar salad.

I started with the escargot, accompanied with the rest of
the Vouvray from the previous night, which had been saved
for us, followed by a respectable medium-rare filet mignon
(I'd asked for rare). A bottle of Chateau Villa Bel Air
(Graves) 02 came: it was on the menu as Chateau Bel Air.
I was wondering which of the various Bel Airs - preferably
the Margaux or Pomerol or (dreaming) the St. Emilion - it
would be. It was a stupid experiment, as one knows ahead
of time that it wouldn't be one of the good Bel Airs, but
which of the less good ones it was was a surprise. It was
actually a decent wine, probably retailing at 10 or 12, but
on this list at 30. Went well with the meat with its slight
mintiness, touch of cassis fruit, but mostly brown chocolaty
coffeeish flavors.

A couple of us ordered dessert.

What came was a riot of desserts (boys and girls, can you
say "working for tips"? I thought you could).

Carol's cherries jubilee out of a can were okay - not
flamed, probably because of the fire code. I had a Grand
Marnier souffle, rather tasteless and heavy, but helped
by a liqueured creme anglaise added at the last moment.

Coconut cake and strawberry cheesecake came unbidden,
multiple servings. Both were standard, the coconut cake
taking a slight edge.

One of our colleagues from the other table had had the
tiramisu the previous night. It wasn't on this menu, but
she cajoled the maitre d' (Ahmed, very oily, probably
dangerous with the older lady clientele twenty years
ago, and other than this service, kind of useless) to go
back into the kitchen and find her some leftovers, of
which he returned with about a pound block, and, the next
day, the recipe ("serves 100").

Oh, yes, every night they flog after-dinner drinks in
festive take-home glasses. I'm not generally into this
culinary genre, but on the previous night Vince (at Nobu
this night) had bought a round of Loving Cups, which are
Bailey's and something, water perhaps, served in little
green St. Paddy's Day shots that say "Loving Cup" on them.

Buttery Nipples were the shot of the day. This I understand
to be Bailey's and creme de butterscotch, which sounds
nauseating to me, plus there was no veep around to buy.

=

No cruise is complete without after-dinner entertainment:
we saw juggler-comedian Jeff Harris, who was actually pretty
good (unlike the Rosario Strings, who played in the atrium
just outside our room and were so bored that you could hear
the wrong notes, miraculously multiplied a hundredfold by
the amplifier-harmonizer machine, seemingly as often as the
right ones - thank goodness for the fire door, which was
almost completely soundtight).

=

The midnight buffet is mostly reruns from lunch but with
extra desserts and a bit of a surprise, roast suckling pig,
which was pretty decent; in fact, that's all I had, having
recently been stuffed with escargot, a 6-oz filet, and
more patisserie than any human should encounter at one time.
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