Chefs Table
Carnival Spirit Cruise Ship
Out Of Sydney
The Carnival Spirit is a big ship with plenty of food options on board. It's amazing how personal and tailored they can make this considering they have around 2,000 passengers on board. But they do achieve this!
One of the more unique and exclusive choices is the Chef's Table which is limited to just 12 people. It's an experience that is certainly worth it if you get a chance.Executive Chef Daniel Arulraj runs a big team on board the Carnival Spirit yet still manages to stay involved at a personal level as well. The Chef's Table is an evening of spectacular food and lovely wines in a private room with excellent service and even entertainment. It's also extremely informative as well.
The Chef's Table evening started by meeting in the lounge bar area where we were greeted with a glass of champagne - we were off to a good start already! We were then taken to the kitchen where Daniel Arulraj meets you all and explains a bit about how the food side of the Carnival Spirit works.
It's a real eye opener as it's a huge operation.
Then, much to our delight, Daniel showed us how they make their delicious warm chocolate melting cake - and to top it off he even gave us the recipe! We're certainly going to give this a go at home.
While in the kitchen we also had canapes. We started with a lovely prime beef taco with avocado cream and tomato salsa. Then it was some delicious duck pot stickers with a mushroom oyster glaze.
Finally we had my favourite canape - the crayfish and sundried tomato jam fritters. These were amazing!
We then left the kitchen and moved to a private room, with a beautifully decorated table. The first food to arrive after we were seated was a delicious brioche with a whole garlic clove baked into the top. Lovely.
This was closely followed by "Tomatoes Our Way" described as aerated tomato juice, cocoa butter coated and chardonnay poached. It was elegant and tasty.
The Southern Bluefin tuna banh mi was listed in our menu as lemon bread, sesame crisp, miso cream and avocado gel. It was so much more than this though - the textures were so delicate and it was the same with the flavours! The next dish was spatchcock that was caramelised and came with butternut squash and sofrito. Again presentation was immaculate and the food impeccable.
The Barramundi was again a beautifully presented dish.It was served with herb pesto, cured tomatoes, carrots, fava, mushroom earth and condensed beets.
The fish was lightly cooked retaining its moisture nicely and we just loved the condensed beets for both their appearance and taste.
Being a red meat eater at heart I absolutely loved the Wagyu.It was a slow stewed short rib with potato pebbles, pumpkin fudge and tomato dust.
The meat was so soft and tender that it literally fell apart.
Again, as with every dish for the evening, presentation was excellent.
Our final course in this amazing degustation was of course dessert. The chocolate 32C came with aerated pistachio and mango cake, marscapone cream and guava and caramel praline.
It was a sweet spectacular finale to a wonderful dinner.
During the meal we were fortunate to again hear briefly from Executive Chef Daniel Arulraj and to question him on his food philosophy and his signature dish - which turns out to be a duck creation that we were lucky enough to have specially prepared for us another evening to try! We were also entertained by the magician on the cruise - who was great.
If you get a chance to sign up for the Chef's Table on the Carnival Spirit - do it! It's an absolute bargain and amazing from start to finish!
We'll be posting more details of the food and facilities on the Carnival Spirit - which was really impressive. It was our first cruise and we're now eager to go again!
Sir and Mlady were guests on Carnival Spirit for the Chef's Table. Special thanks to Daniel Arulraj and to Carnival Cruise Line. Thanks also to MG Media Communications for arranging everything so professionally.
