Food OnBoard
In the reviews of this trip I see consistent comments about the food not being good. We have booked this trip for next year and am wondering if Tauck doing anything to address this?
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Tauck and maybe still Arthur Tauck, Jr. read all the reviews. They don't own the ship, Ponant does, so changes may not be instantaneous. It seems like most of the negative comments were from August 2018, so maybe a new cook/kitchen crew, new husbanding agent, kitchen equipment issues, etc. were the cause. Another thing that can often affect the appearance, taste, and even "thoughts" of food is the sea state and how passengers react. Even a mild case of seasickness can really impact your enjoyment of food. You may not be sick enough to yak, but it is easy to lose your appetite and taste. For the ladies, it can be like how food or certain foods affect you when you are pregnant.
Without going back to compare the weather and departure dates, and the number of negative comments about food (4 in August 2018) I suspect it might just be a new cook.
Also, this is one of Ponant's smallest ships so you don't have the staff that larger ships have. I was surprised at the comments about the size of the cabins- some people didn't do their research, and obviously spent too much time in their cabin when they should have been on deck or touring! : )
That being said our one trip on Ponant, Le Soleal the food was quite good. We will be on Le Champlain in January and Le Ponant in 2020. We will be on Wind Surf in July, where we have been seven times, and the food is quite good.
P.S. I suspect post number one is SPAM or some other website critique. I don’t give anyone’s first post that is negative any validity. Most people want to share their positive experiences. If I did not like the omelet, I normally keep that information to myself. I order somethibng else the next time.
Concur on airline food being bottom of the heap, but a mix on hotel vs boat. Some unforgettably great meals on both, but also things I'd never bother ordering again. One advantage of the boat (and the longer stay on board) is you learn what you like and don't like. Changing hotels every 2 days is a learning experience especially wrt breakfast.
I've also found on the river ships that each chef has strong and weak points. The first one didn't have many desserts but that was ok because everything else was more than enough. The second had fabulous soups and entrees, but her desserts and ice cream were odd. Last guy had marginal soup, but everything else excellent. Breakfast is pretty standard on all Tauck river cruises - the only high points for us being whether chocolate croissants are on the menu that day. I don't need breakfast to be an gastronomic adventure.
Of course I'm assuming you aren't including food aboard USN or RN ships.
Interesting re USN ship board meals. I knew the submariners were noted for good food, but asked my husband (retired Supply Officer) and he confirmed that on bigger ships the officer's and chief mess had their own kitchen and could pay more for better food. I'm afraid most of my personal knowledge is limited to OCS where the food was distinctly marginal.
Concur that the view/location is the most important and during the day would prefer to spend my time seeing rather than eating a long meal. I get that the french like these long drawn out meals even for lunch, but if I only have a few days to see a place I'd rather be seeing and doing.
However, when in a foreign country I'm also interested in tasting the local cuisine. Prior to the trip I do research on the local cuisine and while on it I make it a point of trying things that are outside my norm. Getting ready for Danube/Rhine next year I'm currently reading up on Hungarian cooking and just bought some paprika at the local Penzey's to experiment with some recipes.
Ponat. Actually everything was wonderful!
That's my plan. Is the Great Market a good place or should I look elsewhere?
This is a great link to understanding the different types of Paprika. I remember buying some in the great hall market place. Food area was great but the upstairs we found it was the same crafts you can find anywhere and not worth the longer walk to get there. You can buy the tourist paprika just about anywhere, but the above article explains things nicely. I was forever making Hungarian goulash in the seventies, it went with obligatory Black Forest gateaux at dinner parties. Seems funny now.
Black Forest Gateaux..... The other part of my food researching for this trip is all the different Viennese cakes and pastries.
Also, Tauck tells you how long the boat will be docked. So easy - you can do it. Really expands your trip. Enjoy
https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g274887-i263-k6709983-Paprika_Best_Place_to_buy-Budapest_Central_Hungary.html
There was a gentleman who wrote a long answer and broke it into - do you just want a souvenir, are you a serious cook or are you a foodie and he provided different answers for each category. For the first, yes pretty much anywhere will do including the great market.
For the next group, he said " it would be difficult these days to find a Hungarian home cook (or most restaurant cooks for that matter) who uses dry powdered paprika as the base for their dishes. There are paprika pastes available, and small jars of hot paprika condiment (like Eros Pista), and you can see several in pretty much every supermarket. Everyone has his or her own favorite, and there are gulyas bases in tubes as well, and porkolt bases, and you could go wild and buy a whole bunch and bring them all home and do a tasting report. These have two great benefits: for the casual cook they eliminate the easy possibility of burning the paprika when adding it; and, on the other hand, they eliminate as well the possibility of not properly getting its flavor to blossom when added.
Went into more about why this is as well as adding a later post for foodies that read more like a wine snobs level of detail.
Think I'll look for the paste.
Hope you got the paste, Claudia
This is an old thread. But yes I got paste in a tube and came home with lots of powder including presents from the TDs.
Old threads contain a lot of “old”, great and informative information gathered over many years, and sometimes is more telling than anything else. Thanks!
Yes there is lots of useful info. Though some things change - especially in this post covid world. But the older threads are a good starting place.