Every evening during the Holland America ms Zuiderdam cruise, cruise
go-ers like myself had the special treat of fine dining at the lovely Vista Dining Room. Located on the third deck of the cruise ship, Vista Dining Room is a nice, spacious dining area with wooden decor and a beautifully lit ceiling.

Each dinner started out with a choice of a appetizer. Appetizer choices varied. I first got to try the grilled four mushroom crostini. It was lovely appetizer that had grilled portabella, shitake, oyster and button mushrooms on a toasted baguette. The following night I got the spinach and feta tart. This was a flaky crusted egg custard filled with tender spinach and creamy feta. A favorite for many was the calypso shrimp cocktail that had sweet shrimp with a mustard based Calypso sauce on a bed of gourmet greens and shredded iceberg lettuce

Second course always consisted of soup! Soup types were always different. One night there was cream of chicken and artichoke soup. This had tender artichoke hearts and chicken in a cream based soup. There was also french onion soup. This was topped with melted Gruyere cheese. One of the most interesting soups was the pepper pot soup with dumplings, root vegetables and beef flavored with ginger and garlic.

Main courses were always unique and fulfilling. For the main entrees we had choices of chicken, beef, vegetarian and fish! For the chicken dish there was a chicken breast with israeli couscous entree. This was pan roasted chicken that was served with mushroom artichoke sauté and accented with black olives and curry bell pepper coulis. Their gourmet vegetarian dish consisted of asparagus tomato risotto with fresh goat cheese and accented with pine nuts and balsamic caramel. The beef dish, the carribean braised beef pot roast was my favorite. The pot roast was braised in red wine sauce accented with rum raisins. The beef was topped with frizzled onions and served with root vegetables, a mushroom medley and pineapple marinated yams. As for fish, lot of people liked the fish dishes. They included swai with coconut lemon grass

At the end of the meal desserts were a special treat! Tarts seemed to be the dessert theme! The first night I had the banana chocolate tart. It had caramel and chocolate sauces, chocolate almond fudge and honey candied walnuts. Other tarts included tarte tatin, a classic tart of apples sauteed in butter and sugar and served with vanilla ice cream and the honey butter tart with caramel sauce. My favorite dessert however was the creme brulee. It was a huge creamy custard with a sheer layer of crisply caramalized sugar.

It was nice to enjoy such delicious and pleasant meals in the Vista Dining room each evening. Fine dining in the beautiful dining room on the lovely ms Zuiderdam was indeed a treat!