The food
I don’t want to tarnish my good memories and happy feelings of a brief cruise from Los Angeles to Ensenada, Mexico and back again. With a stay in Ventura on the way back. So I will reserve this entry for the good. In fact, just for food.
Good food. Not always great, but good. I am enamored of the breakfast buffet’s turkey sausages and suspect that I might have to go on another cruise just for them. Other than that, the breakfast buffet was OK.
What they say about cruises is true: you eat as much as you want, and yes, you probably gain weight.
We went to the formal dining room all three nights. Assigned seating is a bit intimidating, but I turned on my friendly switch and was able to babble the whole time.
Our waiter, Yuliya, was from the Ukraine. We loved her. We quizzed her about her life and how she ended up serving on a cruise ship. We even caught her later, outside the dining room, and talked some more. Felt very bad for her, in some ways.
Everyone on the ship is from another country, pretty much. It’s either part of the schtick or cheap labor. Or both. But it was interesting to listen to the different accents and even suffer through the first night in the dining room, as the wait staff all sang. We missed, for better or worse, the waiters wearing cakes on their heads the last night.
It’s very easy to get used to being waited on your every whim. You could have breakfast cocktails in the morning (for a price) or any drink you wanted. Come back to your room, and there is a towel sculpture.
Our waiter constantly prodded us to try extra things. We ate things outside our comfort zones. The assistant waiter would often take my stuff away before I was finished, mostly because I was too busy talking and figured I probably wouldn’t finish my food anyway.
There were six people assigned to our table, and two of them were there the entire time. Another Heather and Nick. The other two showed up the first night, late and tanked. And didn’t show the second time, the formal night. They did show up the third night, after I’d left early to go to my spa appointment, but Heather said they showed up just as she was leaving. And looked happily drunk again.
The formal night featured French cuisine, which included escargot. Snails. Yum.
I must preface this by saying I’m starting to develop a phobia about snails and slugs because in dry Fresno, they seem to like to congregate anywhere there’s unnatural moisture, such as where sprinklers have been, or in your plants. My least favorite place to find them is on a wet, bagged newspaper.
So anyway, escargot…
I ate some. I ate three, in fact. I think I was the only person to go back for seconds, and then thirds. Hey, there was one left!
The Heathers ate theirs together, on the count of three. Nick and I were test subjects. I remarked that they had a texture of mushrooms, which didn’t recommend it to the other Heather, who apparently is much pickier than I am.
But it was mostly garlic and butter and cheese. And it was good. I am ashamed to admit I enjoyed it, and if I didn’t have to pay for them, I’d probably eat them again. As long as I didn’t have to think about it. I still don’t want to think about it.
Dining was a chance to try lots of things. I had shank of lamb, which I discovered too late was served on the bone. I ate as much as I could before I got weirded out by the bone. I’ve had a long-standing policy to not eat things still attached to their bones. I ate a combination of exotic mushrooms and pastry.
Dessert was always good, too. And our waiter encouraged us to try multiple items, either of appetizers, entrees or dessert. I loved the freedom to eat without worrying about cost, though I sometimes felt vaguely guilty about all the food that must be wasted.
Sometimes the food at other times wasn’t that great. The pizza bar, available pretty late, served decent food. And I was so stuffed by the Sunday afternoon barbecue that I only managed to eat a pretty uninteresting hot dog.
I wanted, pretty badly, to have a coco loco, which appeared to be an excessively frilly and undoubtedly expensive alcoholic drink served in a pineapple. Yes, a pineapple. With an umbrella.
But I didn’t get one. Mostly because I’d already gotten a beer and didn’t feel like making another trip for the ridiculous drink.
I mostly drank pina coladas. One night I had a glass of wine.
Oh, in Mexico, we both had a Mexican Coca-Cola, because our tour bus guide said it was important — Mexican Coke is made with real sugar as opposed to high fructose corn syrup, so it tastes better.
I haven’t had a Coke in so long I honestly couldn’t tell you whether it tasted different. But it was cold and washed down the fresh, fried and sugary churros we ate.
Mmmm. All I have to say about churros is I must have more. Luckily, I think I can get them in Fresno.
One last thing: the Mexican margarita.
We were tired, ending our journey through Ensenada’s downtown, and we decided we couldn’t leave Mexico without drinking at least one drink.
So we drift into a bar, laden with purchases and ordered margaritas.
The best part of this whole trip: never thinking about work, or going home, or even much beyond tomorrow.
I wish I could recapture some of that happiness without the constant attempts by the cruise ship workers or locals to separate me from my money.
