Cruise to Catalina Island and Ensenada on the Carnival Imagination

Fine dining and also buffets on the ship!

My sister invited me to join her and her son on a 4 day trip to Catalina Island and Ensenada onboard the Carnival Imagination!  This was my second cruise, having gone on an Alaska cruise years ago on Princess Cruises.

I decided to document all that I ate in photos, both at the buffet and the fine dining that was included in the price of the trip.  Most noted was the Alligator Fritters... I never had that before!  Interestingly, I could not taste the alligator at all.  Tasted mostly like breading.  I also had a rabbit too... but again, could not taste much of it.  I've had rabbit before.

Overall, I felt the food offerings on Princess Cruises was better, but this still was very good as well for the fine dining meals.  The buffets... well, typical.  Sorry for the photo of the half eaten Reuben sandwich.  By the time I remembered to take a photo, it was too late!  :)

Here are some photos from the fine dining onboard the Ruby Princess ship to Alaska back in 2015...

Lunch at Maggianos Little Italy - Vernon Hills, IL

My wife and I went to Maggiano's Little Italy restaurant in Vernon Hills, IL for lunch today.

This is not the first time we have been to Maggiano's.  We have been there many times.  But this was our first visit to Maggiano's in Vernon Hills.

We found the restaurant to be  more "open" in seating and less intimate than other Maggiano's we've been to in the past.  There's nothing wrong with that.  It's just laid out a bit differently than the others.

Like many of these restaurants, the lighting was rather dim and so I needed to rely on my Canon G7xMkII camera to be able to take photos of the food.  I color balanced later in Lightroom.  Sorry for the slight camera shake in the photos... it was very low light in the restaurant causing a slower shutter speed than I'd prefer.

We started out with bread and followed that up with fried calamari as our appetizer.  It was very good.  Crisp and light with a nice marinara sauce to go with it.  Perfect.

My wife ordered a plate of spaghetti with the meatball on the side (that's for me because it had cheese in it and she does not eat cheese).  I ordered the Mom's Lasagna.  As part of the Maggiano's promotion, we also got to order dishes to take home after our meal.  She ordered the Taylor Street Baked Ziti (again for me as she doesn't eat anything with Cheese on it) and I ordered the Four Cheese Ravioli.  Are you getting the feeling that most of this meal is for me?  :)

For dessert, we split the Double Chocolate Brownie with strawberries, Vanilla Ice Cream and Hot Fudge Chocolate Sauce.

Overall, our meals were great.  Spaghetti?  Well, how can you mess that up?  But my wife did note that it was a bit saltier than she'd prefer.  My lasagna was great.  Nice textures and flavor from the cheese... perfect.  Haven't had the take home meals yet, but I can just imagine it will be fine.  It comes to you cold, so you have to heat it up yourself at home.  No big deal.

The brownies were soft and very chocolatey.  The ice cream helped with that.  But adding the hot fudge didn't help cut the chocolate sweetness!  Still, I had to have it.

Overall, an excellent meal and a good value since we got to take home more food after the lunch.  Total bill was  around $56 for all the food, tax, and tip.

Recommended.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

My wife made these chocolate covered strawberries for a wedding reception of my niece.  She made similar ones for my daughter's wedding as well.

Relatively easy to do... melt some chocolate, dip and then decorate with the pink frosting.  Nice!