A Night in Tuscan

March 24, 2012 – A Night in Tuscan

I may have mentioned that of all the specialty restaurants the Tuscan Grille is my favorite. I hope that doesn’t offend my friends who work in Lawn Club Grille, Qsine, Murano, The Porch or Bistro on 5. It’s just something about the relaxed elegance and exceptional steaks and ‘comfort food’ that make Tuscan my personal favorite. Of course, any restaurant with wine barrels on the wall of the entryway tends to get my attention.

It turns out that it is Tim’s, as well. So we agreed to have an ‘adults only’ dinner out, leaving the children (Lavern and Dwight) ‘at home.’ It was a chance to get to know the new boss and for him to get to know me. Of course when the HR Manager and the T&D Manager dine together you can be sure that lots of crew members working in the restaurant will find their way to come by the table. Some come just to visit but others, unfortunately, to try to get your help outside of office hours. Now we are happy to adjust our schedules to make sure we can help crew members but we need to have some downtime, as well. So we do our best to redirect their concerns until tomorrow but happily chat with all those who wish to simply make contact.

The meal that night was simply smashing. It started with us each getting a bowl of their Tuscan Onion Soup. It is a take on French Onion Soup, but the broth is creamier, probably not good if you are on a diet, but absolutely wonderful if your interest is taste. They then brought an antipasto platter that allowed us to graze on prosciutto, cheese, melon, and vegetables while we awaited our salads. They are proud of the Caesar salads, here, and make it at table side. I, of course, get extra anchovies. That may make others wince but it is an absolute delight for me. Finally, we each had the filet mignon. I’ve been at some fancy steakhouses in my day but that cut of meat was absolutely perfect. Tim’s was medium and mine medium rare and each was cooked beautifully and virtually melted in our mouths. There was literally no way to eat dessert .  . . but we managed. Fortunately, we went ‘light’ having gelato . . . in a freshly made waffle ‘bowl’ . . . . okay, maybe not that light. Finished off with a great cup of coffee, I knew that I was cutting back to one meal the next day!

The meal was perfect except for one disconcerting fact. We were sailing very slowly that night as we had a short distance to cover between islands. Our ship is apparently built for speed and we had the disconcerting feeling of the ship shuddering and ‘bumping’ along every few minutes. Since our restaurants are all at the back of the ship we really felt the effect. We rudely suggested to each other that we were simply running over small fishing boats, which makes us sound more callous than we are. Yet, we still haven’t gotten a good explanation as to what causes that unusual vibration at slow speeds.

Unless, of course, we were running over small fishing boats!

And the adventure continues . . .