Paying for food on the Norwegian Sun

While we could have gone the entire cruise without paying a dime for food, we did opt for two of the restaurants with cover charges. The Norwegian Sun offers nine restaurants, six of which have a cover charge. While that seems like few choices, it’s not. The menu at the free restaurants, the Four Season, Seven Seas and Garden Cafe, changes daily and the food is amazing. The restaurants with the cover charge just offer a little bit more personality.

After a day of walking around Puerto Rico, my husband just wanted a steak. When we embarked on the boat after our day on land, we checked with the service desk and they had openings for that evening so we decided to give the East Meets West Steakhouse a try.

Located on Deck 12, the steakhouse is available for $25 a person, and it was well worth it.

Some of the speciality restaurants are sort of lumped together on deck 12, so it’s a little confusing, but the staff makes it seemless. Teppanyaki (the Japanese grill), Ginza and East Meets West were all together. Teppanyaki looked awesome, but we had no extra time in our week to get there. Had we seen it sooner, we might have gone. In retrospect, it’s probably a good thing we didn’t go.

At the steakhouse, we were given an appetizer, entree and dessert. My husband went with a portobello mushroom appetizer, which the waiter said was the largest mushroom he had ever seen. Seriously. It was huge. I had a shrimp cocktail. My husband has a Caesar salad that came with anchovies on top. Gross. With some prodding from the couple next to us, he even ate them. Yuck.

I had a clam chowder soup, which was so good.

We both had a steak. I had mine with potatoes and veggies, as did my husband. The beef was cooked exactly to order. It was amazing and we ate it all. For dessert, they talked us into getting one. I had cheesecake while my husband had creme brule, which he said he could have taken or left. We were trying to save room for the chocolate buffet the ship was having later in the evening, it didn’t even start until 10:30 p.m. That chocolate buffet should really be a post in and of itself but I’m not sure I’ll have the chance to mention it again. Just know, it’s chocolate as far as you can see it. And people line up early to get it!

The East Meets west Steakhouse was totally worth the $50. The food was amazing, the waitstaff was more personable because they weren’t running between a million tables trying to make everyone happy. The view from the restaurant of the pool area was so much fun. While we hadn’t planned to pay for a meal, it was totally worth it.

On Friday, Nov. 11, we went to Le Bristro, the ships French restaurant. On that particular day, we were celebrating our fifth anniversary. My husband had purchased the honeymoon/anniversary package so a dinner at that particular restaurant was included. Before we ate at East Meets West, we had considered asking if we could change our reservation, but we are glad we got to experience both places.

I didn’t know what to expect when going into the French restaurant, but it was divine.

For starters, I had a scallop appetizer. I love scallops and this did not disappoint. My husband opened his meal with cream of mushroom soup. He had this soup earlier int he week at the Seven Seas and he loved it. He was very excited to have it again. The waiter even brought him a second bowl because he loved it so much. The chef sent out some salmon mousse with crackers in addition to what we ordered. It was great, and I’m not much into salmon or fish made into mousse. In my opinion, the only thing that should be moussed is chocolate, but this salmon changed my mind.

For our entrees, we both had another beef dish. Perfection. The steak was cooked so perfectly, I took a picture of it. It was served with cheesy potatoes and carrots. All of it was so yummy. I was so full I wasn’t sure I’d be able to eat again.

Our waiter than pushed us into a dessert, not that it took much pushing. We went “healthy” and got the fruit fondue. It was Heaven. I wanted to drink the chocolate right out of the bowl.

If that weren’t enough, this happened:

That’s right. The waitstaff sang for us.

Then they fed us cake. This ship has the most amazing cake. Not only is the cake moist and tasty, the frosting makes me want to lick the plate when I’m done eating. I was so afraid they were going to have to roll us out of the restaurant when dinner was over. And the waitstaff was so amazing that we immediately went to our room and wrote a comment card for the entire staff and dropped it off at the front desk. They were so attentive and yet gave us some privacy. Then they SANG! And the waiter even took my camera to film us while they were singing. It was so perfect and memorable. I can’t speak highly enough of the care and courtesy we received there and the food was great.

So while we boarded the boat with the expectation of eating only the free food (what? you pay enough for the cruise!) we ended up at tow of the ships cover-charged restaurants and they were so great and totally worth it.

From cruiser to cruisee, I highly recommend the East Meets West Steakhouse and Le Bistro.