The Tamarind restaurant is one of our favorite places on the ship to eat. I always have to be careful when I eat at the specialty places though, because I'm such a hillbilly. Last time I was there, (on a different ship) we were supposed to drink the tea with the flower in it, and dip our fingers in the bowl. (Plus I may have eaten some styrofoam - but they assured me I didn't.) This time ..... the beautiful Indonesian hostesses put a little thing that looked like a pill beside each of us. Then they took a pot of hot water and poured it over top. Then they poured hot liquid from another pot into a little cup. Took me a minute.
Okay.... don't eat the pill. It expanded into a cloth to wash your hands with. And for goodness sake, don't eat or drink the flower. You are supposed to drink the hot water in the cuppie thingie though - that's tea. Got it.
Now for the "bread" - which tastes like shrimp chips to me.
The trick with the bread is to be very careful with the dips that come with. There's mild, hot and oh, I shouldn't have done that hot.
My soup was Indonesian style Lasksa:
with tofu, quail eggs, scallions, snow peas, bean sprouts, cilantro,
vermicelli noodles in red curry coconut milk broth, and lime leaf, and galangal
Appetizer: Trail of Spices Satay Sampler: Malaysian spiced lamb, Chinese pork, Thai
spiced beef, Indonesian spiced chicken, and Vietnamese spiced shrimp with Asian pickled vegetables and traditional
dipping sauces. I was kinda curious to taste this because one of the sauces was a peanut sauce. It was pretty good. It was like dipping meat in peanut butter - which I must admit I have never done before. But ya - good stuff.
Oh - and in case you're wondering - no - you don't eat the banana leaf. I had to ask just to make sure, and the lady smiled and came and opened up my banana package for me to reveal what I was supposed to eat.
So the Thais call the barramundi pla kapong and we might refer to it as Asian sea bass. Apparently they are one of the saltwater crocodile's favorite foods.
I had the Mango cloud for dessert: light
egg white souffle with mango sorbet. However, we were all fairly intrigued with Michael's dessert once he tasted it, because it was super super flavorful.
Trio of sorbets: Thai basil, lychee, and yuzu
I don't know which one is which, but wow - were they different from anything I've ever had. And in case you are like me and don't know what a yuzu is - (hey - I don't watch cooking shows often) its a type of orange of the Far East. It's only available in the winter and has a very sharp taste (ya they got that right).
Everything was absolutely fantastic.
