Regent Seven Seas Mariner - November 2005
When the Regent Seven Seas Mariner recently visited Australian shores, Australian celebrity chefs Vic Cherikoff and Benjamin Christie from the cooking show, Dining Downunder ™ were invited on board as part of the Regent Spotlight on Wine and Food from the 8th to the 11th of November 2005.
During the five day cruise from Sydney to Hobart, Chefs Vic and Benjamin held a series of cooking classes using native Australian ingredients in every day cooking. Each of the cooking classes consisted of two dishes which were then available each evening in the main restaurant, The Compass Rose.
The Australian menu onboard included:
• Creamy cauliflower soup with West Australian marron scented with lobster oil and Oz Lemon
• Seared kangaroo fillet with Yakajirri rosti, aniseed myrtle mushrooms, quandong confit and crispy enoki
• Lemon Aspen Sorbet
• Wildfire spiced Tasmanian ocean trout fillet on paperbark smoked kipfler mash topped with pineapple and riberry salsa
• Rolled Wattleseed pavlova with wild rosella coulis
Whilst onboard the Mariner, Vic and Benjamin also presented an Australian Steakhouse menu in the La Veranda restaurant, which served a range of Australian steaks and game meats including kangaroo loin, emu steaks and crocodile tail served with native flavoured sauces including a sweet Kakadu plum sauce, Mountain Pepper BBQ Sauce and a wattleseed mushroom sauce. As many of the guests were American, Vic and Benjamin also served up an Australian style pork ribs with Illawarra plum sauce which proved quite popular.
During the cruise down the east coast of Australia, all Australian menus was accompanied a selection of both white and red wine by Wolf Blass. The chefs were also joined by Wolf Blass’s Chief Winemaker, Chris Hatcher who conducted two very popular presentations on Australian wines.
The Regent Seven Seas Mariner is the world’s first all-suite, all-balcony ship, as well as the first to offer dining by the famed Le Cordon Bleu® of Paris in Signatures, one of four single, open-seating restaurants. Catering to only 700 guests, she is one of the most spacious cruise ships afloat. For more information on Regent Seven Seas Cruises visit www.rssc.com
After arriving in Hobart, Vic and Benjamin spent time travelling around Tasmania visiting food producers, restaurants and wineries sampling the best food and wine Tasmania has to offer as an exploratory visit for the 2nd series of Dining Downunder™.
