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- Amsterdam to Budapest: That’s our trip!
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- Our Viking goodie pack.
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The menus look wonderful, Tonya. Thank you so much. It’s good for me to see the direction they’re headed in. I thought they were serving many local things and was actually looking forward to sausages and sauerkraut. All I saw in your scans was a mild reference to something Hungarian. I hoped that goulash and Wiener schnitzel would still be on the menu. In fact, I remember seeing someone post a special menu they had when they docked in Vienna, the dinner was called the Mozart dinner and included Wiener schnitzel. I guess they expect you to fill up on local food on your own. That is a shame because I don’t want to miss dinner onboard or stay and eat lasagna. Did you find the food and or/menus a bit too generic? The cheeses look ok and the wines a bit boring but hey, they’re included.
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The chef didn’t give me the menus for the last evenings and there were no menus for the “special” dining nights (Austrian was one, “International” night was another). I have some photos of the kitchen/food and account of the Austrian night posted somewhere here, I know (definitely wiener schnitzel was included)!
Some of the lounge “events” (held afternoons and evenings) featured local foods, including Dutch cheeses, jenever, apple strudel and at least one other, which I don’t recall…I’ll go look at my “Viking Daily” collection (which I’ll be scanning and posting soon, too—those have oodles of itinerary details).
Oh, there was also a late-night goulash, I think it was after the Mozart concert… And lots of sausages (local and otherwise) at breakfast. Fresh northern shrimp (they’re really small) at lunch as well as a local mussels and pasta dish that folks raved about (I don’t like mussels…).
But the menus do describe most of the evening meals in the restaurant. There was a nod to the local area but the food, overall, was of a genre that would be in a high level restaurant, not focused on “local” cuisine.
I do know, though, from watching some buying going on for the kitchen, that they buy “local” food items for the menus; I’m not sure what percentage, but I did see staff heading out to buy local stuff while we were docked. And they did use the herbs from the garden up on the top deck.
Also, for the wines, they did change ’em up–a couple of nights our white was Franconian wine (distinctive bottle). At some of our tables I heard folks asking for “other” wines–and getting them–but not being a really sophisticated oenophile I wasn’t tuned in to the details.
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Oh geez, thank you. I am now really looking forward to this trip. I know how difficult it is to please 200 people with different tastes and taste buds. By the sounds of it you were quite pleased with the offerings. You’re lucky you didn’t gain any weight. I have to get some rigo jancsi when I’m in Budapest . I don’t know if you had any when you were there but it’s a chocolate cake filled with rich chocolate mousse and covered with a thick chocolate glaze. I used to get it at a local Hungarian restaurant until they closed about 30 years ago and I have not had it since. Did you get to Gerbaud’s for pastry or did you go to other places? Somehow, I’m thinking you will have a post on that in the future…or at least my salivary glands are.
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Thanks for the menus. This is the first time I have seen them. Interesting food items.
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Not only interesting, but tasty and very well presented. I’m thankful I only gained one pound (I think it was all the walking)… I’m just finishing up a post about the various dining venues on the ship (with photographs) and some tips. I should be able to post it by tomorrow.
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I’m really looking forward to your scans of the Viking Daily. That would be very helpful.
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Ask and ye shall receive, Linda. I’ve scanned ’em and posted them as PDFs. Thanks for the gentle encouragement 🙂
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