{"id":2868,"date":"2013-01-08T14:02:20","date_gmt":"2013-01-08T14:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/?p=2868"},"modified":"2013-01-08T14:02:21","modified_gmt":"2013-01-08T14:02:21","slug":"royal-caribbean-cruise-line-allure-of-the-seas-giovannis-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/?p=2868","title":{"rendered":"Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, Allure of the Seas – Giovannis Table"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Giovannis Table is one of the signature restaurants on both the Allure of the Seas and Oasis of the Seas Royal Caribbean Cruise Line ships.\u00a0 This restaurant has an additional service charge\u00a0($20 per person for dinner and $15 per person for lunch) and is their flagship Italian eatery.\u00a0 It’s location in Central Park truly makes it feel like you are miles away from a cruise ship which happens to be miles at sea.<\/p>\n

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The space is elegant and intimate with no more than 20 tables of varying sizes.\u00a0 The dress code is suggested as resort\/cruise casual\u00a0(no bathing suits, flip flops, tank tops, etc) and is no way fussy.\u00a0 When you first enter the restaurant you are greated by a large Proscuitto slicer.\u00a0 In my opinion this should be in the entry way of every establishment where I eat, including the gas station where I get coffee and a donut in the morning.<\/p>\n

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After being seated\u00a0we were\u00a0treated to some of the best food and service I have ever experienced on a cruise ship.\u00a0 The staff is attentive but not over bearing.\u00a0 Food is delivered quickly and timed perfectly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At first bread is brought to the table and an olive oil and balsamic vinegar glaze is poured into a small dish and covered in cheese if you like.\u00a0 The bread is warm and crusty, just as a good Italian bread should be.\u00a0 The bread and dippings\u00a0are followed by an appetizer plate for the table with proscuitto from the wonderful slicer, sun dried tomatoes, olives, marinated muhrooms and cipollini onions and a small but well dressed side of greens.\u00a0 Just enough of everything to get us even more excited about our upcoming meal.<\/p>\n

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Before the waiter takes our order he tells us that the appetizers can be served family style if we prefer.\u00a0 I immediately reply that I do not intend on sharing anything!!<\/p>\n

Having been to Giovannis Table on a previous cruise we knew that there were certain items we had to order.\u00a0 One was the baked mozzarella wrapped in proscuitto.\u00a0 We knew how fantastic these were so we ordered two!!<\/p>\n

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After that we each ordered our own baked eggplant appetizer.\u00a0 No sharing here, we knew these were ‘individual portions’ and would be too delicious to share.\u00a0 One hint, ask that they leave these in the oven a little bit longer than usual so that the top gets nice and brown (can I hear you drooling?)<\/p>\n

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We also ordered a mushroom flatbread to round out the appetizer portion of our show.<\/p>\n

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We had actually eaten in Giovannis Table 3 times over the course of our 7 night cruise so I can’t exactly remember which entrees were ordered when.\u00a0 I do know that the appetizers were prettty much consistent each meal since they were so good.<\/p>\n

One entree ordered during our cruise was the lasagna.\u00a0 The waiter suggested a side of meatballs and I gladly capitulated.\u00a0 The lasagna was incredible; cheese filled and meaty with a nice fresh,\u00a0homemade\u00a0sauce.\u00a0 The meatballs were OK, but I have to say I’m a bit of a meatball snob.\u00a0 Growing up with and having spent most of my life around some amazing cooks it’s hard to impress me with a restaurant meatball.\u00a0 These were good – but after one bite\u00a0I decided to leave room for other goodies.<\/p>\n

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Another entree I had was the Veal Osso Bucco.\u00a0 This was served over a rich cheesy polenta and was incredible.\u00a0 The meat was tender and the sauce was spot on.<\/p>\n

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For one of his meals Kevin ordered the stuff shrimp.\u00a0 Four very large shrimp were delivered and while he enjoyed them he commented that it was odd that they were split, stuffed and somehow still in the shell.\u00a0 Who serves stuff shrimp in the shell?<\/p>\n

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On another occassion Kevin ordered the Lobster stuffed ravioli.\u00a0 These were incediblly flavorful in a light cream sauce.<\/p>\n

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Other entrees we tried were the mushroom risotto and filet.\u00a0 Both were very good, but in my opinion there are far better choices on the menu.<\/p>\n

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For dessert you are presented with the dessert cart that has chocolate cake, tiramisu, panna cotta and minature cannolis.\u00a0 I tried a little bit of everything, and they were good, but I asked the waiter to slice me some more proscuitto for dessert – which he did happily.<\/p>\n

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In my opinion our meals at Giovannis Table were the best\u00a0we had\u00a0on the ship (all three times).\u00a0 My traveling companions disagree and say their favorite was 150 Cenral Park.\u00a0 I will review that later but let’s just say that I am right and they are wrong.<\/p>\n

I understand that many people will not be happy paying an additional $20 per person for dinner on a cruise ship where there are so many free food options.\u00a0 In my opinion this is well worth the $20 and more.\u00a0 One of the discussions we had was\u00a0what exactly is the $20 service charge supposed to cover.\u00a0 I was under the impression it was a gratuity for the staff working the restaurant but others disagree.\u00a0 In any event everyone in the restaurant did such a great job we gave them an additional gratuity.<\/p>\n

I think the logical comparison for people who have also sailed on Disney Cruise Line (DCL) ships will be between Giovanni’s Table on RCCL and Palo on DCL.\u00a0 In my opinion Giovanni’s Table is a better overall experience for dinner.\u00a0 The restaurant is elegant without being stuffy and the food is more ‘rustic Italian’, which I prefer.\u00a0 However, there is nothing like Palo Brunch on the Disney Cruise Line ships!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Giovannis Table is one of the signature restaurants on both the Allure of the Seas and Oasis of the Seas Royal Caribbean Cruise Line ships.\u00a0 This restaurant has an additional service charge\u00a0($20 per person for dinner and $15 per person Continue reading Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, Allure of the Seas – Giovannis Table<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,206,891],"tags":[893,22,938,651,50,941,921,942,481,1702,920,939,940],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2868"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2958,"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions\/2958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}