So we got on board and immediately headed to "La Veranda" for lunch. La Veranda is aft and provides lots of outdoor seating. If I could, I'd eat lots of meals there. One of the best things about cruising is the lunch outside.

We grabbed a beautiful table outside and got some grub. The food was pretty good, with the lamb chops being excellent and the shrimp just meh. I will vouch for the cookies however.







I did manage to get a few shots of the buffet. Please let me apologize in advance about the pics. I grabbed some when I could, but I didn't want to spend my whole time waiting for a moment in time when the shot was clear and I also didn't want to haul my camera around every minute of every day on the ship. Some pics are from my phone and some I just didn't get...Also, sorry about the size of the pictures. I know this is not a trip report that really warrants these huge pics, but I did try to reduce the size and truthfully, when I saw they were too big I really didn't care that much to resize. Just being honest.








Dinner times were pre-assigned for this cruise as they wanted everyone to try each of the restaurants. It saved us the trouble of having to make reservations and made sense for this kind of cruise. They did have us in the main dining room too many times and not at all in the Asian restaurant. We pulled some strings and ended up with dinner at the following: Main Dining Room, Italian, Steak, Asian, and pool deck for BBQ/Deck Party.

Unfortunately, our dinner reservation the first night was for 6:30pm, the same time that Kenny was invited to a cocktail party. We ended up going to the cocktail party first and then went very late for our dinner. While at the party, we met the President of Regent, a pretty young guy named Jason Montague. We chatted for a few minutes and then went to our dinner.

Dinner tonight was at Sette Mari. They turn La Veranda into a fancier restaurant for dinner. As with all of the public spaces (that'll be the next installment), this restaurant was really nice looking. I know you can't eat the decor, so it's a good thing that the restaurant was very good Somehow I missed the picture of the outside part during our lunch. Here is just a shot of part of it in the inside. I think it was from one half of the restaurant. They only use one half for dinner. If I remember correctly, I probably took these pictures on the way back from the restroom.






They brought us some appetizers (fixed) and then we ordered off the menu some soup, pasta and our main course. There was a buffet available for anti-pasta, salad etc. We skipped that part of the meal.

The tour de force of the meal was the veal chop. I think they had smashed it down a bit and then fried it and made it into a veal parmesan. It was really great. Seeing as we had already ate a ton, I left about half on my plate. You've gotta leave room for dessert right? That would be the tiramasu.












Here are some pictures of what we skipped. If I had to pick, I'd take dessert over appetizers all day long.





The restaurant had a bit of an open kitchen.






Let's discuss some of the other meals. Breakfast is the only meal that I'll eat in my room. When we had an early excursion, we ordered room service. The food was fine. The only problem was the service. They were friendly and prompt, but I think twice they forgot to actually put the table cloth down. They brought it with them, but never put it out. Hmmm...







I think there was one morning when I took my breakfast and ate on the veranda. That's the way to eat on a cruise. Take in some fresh air with your fresh squeezed OJ.



Dinner in the MDR was very nice. We were at table hosted by one of the salespeople for Regent. Kenny knew her well and we shared the table with another travel agent and husband. The restaurant had amazing light fixtures. My understanding was that they wanted to get Chihuly, but he couldn't do the stuff in time. What they got was beautiful. The entire restaurant was gorgeous.

This light fixture is even bigger...the picture doesn't show the entire length.




I ordered surf and turf and they had a little problem with it. In addition to the steak and lobster I also ordered something else, like scallops maybe? Those came much later as they forgot. I would have preferred to have them put the steak and lobster on the same plate, but because it was a made up S&T, they sorta had to order each individually and bring two plates. It was silly, but perhaps they weren't set up yet for any deviation. The first course was a caviar profiterole.















We had another dinner in their steak house. They served up some legit pieces of meat. Again, this restaurant was aft and we got a table all the way aft next to the window. I present to the viewers a variety of pictures of steak and other stuff...













Look! Attention! A little vegetable made it on my plate! I think i even ate some









Following are some pictures from the breakfast in the MDR (I think that's where we ate, but I wouldn't swear on it. It could have been at La Veranda also).



















Eating by the window is second best to eating outside. I think we forgot about the outside and just grabbed one of the first tables we saw. Total rookie mistake LOL. Now that I think about it, we must have been at La Veranda...



Caviar for breakfast! Why thank you






Lunches on the ship were pretty decent, but not as great as the dinners. We ate by the pool at their cafe. Following are some pictures from various lunches. I sorta forgot to film it all







Can you find the lobster in the Lobster Nachos? We had a difficult time...




The best meal by far was at the Asian restaurant. I'm so glad that Kenny got us in. Originally they didn't have a reservation for us there and we were either in the MDR or the French place. Holy cow was this good. We ate with a travel agent and her friend. I think that if we ate this quality and quantity at a restaurant in a big city, the meal would have been $1000 without booze. And it would have been worth it. We even dragged the chef out and visited with him.

The food was fantastic. The very best lamb chops I've ever had. We had to wave a waitress down to put in an order for more. She said "you know, it'll take another 15 minutes or so..." I told her that we would patiently wait...Really, the food was that good. And the restaurant was beautiful as well. They art they had in the lobby was stunning.


























Really, there was not one bad bite of food. So much more to eat! We basically ordered the entire menu







I believe the following dish was brought over from Oceania. The Miso glazed cod was amazing. OMG, I want more now please!












We ate and ate and ate. We shut the place down! We brought out the chef so we could personally bow at his feet.


The final meal was the last night of the cruise. I'm not sure if this is offered on regular cruises, but they had a poolside BBQ/buffet dinner party.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present without comment the last food pics for tonight! I was so hungry and thirsty posting all of these pics, I had to go downstairs and get a drink...



































And that's a wrap for tonight. Please accept my apology if this post either bored you or caused you to go to your fridge and chow down.

The dinners on the ship were really exceptional, especially the Asian and steak meals. OMG, the lamb chops in the Asian place were worth swimming to Asia for!

The next post will be of the ship and the cabin. I'll preview the post by saying that the ship was fantastic looking.