Traveling with the Jones

Last September, when I sailed on Holland America Line’s Oosterdam cruise ship to Alaska, the line was testing a new “sharing menu” in the Canaletto Restaurant.

The Canaletto is an Italian alternative dining option that costs $10 per guest per night.

The Canaletto Restaurant, named after a 18th century Venetian artist, is open for evening meals only, and is a designated section of the Lido Restaurant dining area.

While the Canaletto hasn’t been Mr. Jones or my favorite dining venue in the past, some new friends and I decided to try out the new menu last September.  We learned that the new trial menu was based on the concept of Spartire, which is an Italian word for sharing.

Updated Canaletto Spartire Sharing Menu is now Fleet-wide

By taking a look at the Canaletto sample menu on the Holland America’s website, it appears most everything my group tried on the “test”  sharing menu last September are now a part of the fleet wide Canaletto menu.

Note: the menu suggests that each table order two small plates, one pasta and one large plate for every two people in the dining party. We were a group of three, and we couldn’t agree on what to order.

Our solution: we ordered everything that we each wanted and agreed to share tastes with each other.

We started with these four small plates:

Vermouth Braised Clams with spicy chorizo, garlic and basil. (This dish was a favorite of all of my dining companions.)

Salumi: prosciutto, coppa, grissini, shaved pecorino, and assorted olives. (This small plate was appealing, especially the prosciutto.)

Veal and Sage Polpettine with glazed cippolini onions in a rustic tomato sauce. (The meatballs were delicious, but onions beside the meatballs were a little strange.)

Duck and Chicken Liver Pate with spiced duck preserve, rustic toast and kumquat marmalade. (Not for me, but one of my friends loved it.)

Moving on to the pasta, once again we couldn’t choose just one, so we ordered two of the pastas.

Pappardelle Pasta with shrimp, artichokes, and lemon-herb emulsion.  (We all thought this was an excellent pasta choice; but it is a heavy dish.)

Rigatoni Pasta with Italian sausage and Kalamata olives in a spicy tomato sauce. (This was okay; it didn’t wow but there was nothing to complain about regarding this dish.)

For the Large Plates, once again we couldn’t agree on just one or two. So, we ordered three. 

Sautéed Veal Piccata with lemon angel hair pasta, capers and kale crisps. (It tasted better than it looked, but Mr. Jones would never get past all that kale.)

Roasted Pork Loin Saltimbocca, with seared escarole, cannellini beans, and marsala glace. (Although our test menu had this same description, as you can see, the dish contained something red not listed – tomatoes? Or, red peppers? This was a miss our night during the “test” menu phase.)

Grill Lemon-Thyme White Sea Bass, with roasted fingerling potatoes, shaved fennel, and orange-olive salad. (This was the favorite entree of the group, although the fish was a little overcooked.)

For dessert, we shared the Trio of Tiramisu with espresso, lemon and amaretto.

This was way too much food for three people. However, after sampling all of these dishes, the three of us still would not have agreed on what to order if we cut our choices down. If returning, I’d probably focus on the small plates and a pasta, and depending on the group, either skip the large plates or only order one.

While the food quality on this new Canaletto menu is a step above the prior menu, the restaurant’s ambience remains a challenge.

For Mr. Jones and me, if we are paying an extra charge for a specialty restaurant, then we think the atmosphere and the service should be a notch above the main dining room.

Unfortunately, the new menu at the Canaletto does not change the fact that the restaurant is a part of the Lido buffet restaurant, or that it is staffed by the Lido restaurant servers.

By 9:30 pm, our 8:30 reservation group was being hurried; by 9:45 pm, the staff was sweeping the floors directly around us, and reminding us that they needed to still reset our table for breakfast the next morning.

Not exactly a leisurely Italian meal.

It was a test menu. Now that the new menu has been adopted fleet-wide for awhile, I’m confident that some of the challenges have been solved.

Plus, if you are dining in the Canaletto via the complimentary Explore 4 promotion, or as a gift from your travel agent, it should be a nice change of pace.

Have you tried the new Canaletto menu? What did you like about it? What would you avoid?

Check out these other posts involving food and beverages on cruise ships:

• A Peek at Holland America’s New Pinnacle Grill Menu
• An Evening at Le Cirque onboard the Veendam
• Martini Madness Onboard Holland America’s ms Veendam
• 7 Favorite “Naughty” Pleasures on the Seabourn Sojourn
• A Look at the Tamarind Restaurant Menu on Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam
• 11 Days of Menus from the Seabourn Sojourn World Cruise

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Recently we made weekend getaway trip to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, staying downtown in the Hilton Milwaukee City Center hotel.

It was our second stay in this historic Art Deco hotel opened for business in 1928 during the era when Al Capone resided in Milwaukee. 

At 265 feet, the hotel was Wisconsin’s tallest when it opened with 811 guest rooms.

This hotel underwent major renovations in 1972 and again in 1994. In 1995, Hilton Hotels acquired the famed property and renamed it the Hilton Milwaukee City Center.

Today we love the Hilton Milwaukee City Center’s elaborate and distinctive Art Deco design and furnishings, combined with a few modern conveniences.

We stayed on the 20th floor in Room 2029.

This room is comfortable and has some nice design touches like the round mirrors.

Like many historic hotels, the bathrooms are tiny.

So tiny, that it is impossible to capture with one photo.

This is the view from the window of Room 2020.  If you look closely at the right-hand side of the photo, you can see Lake Michigan in the distance. Perhaps the rooms on the 21st floor and higher have a better view?

This desk lamp is obviously new, but its design fits in nicely with the Art Deco theme.

The best original detailing shines in the hotel’s lobby and its Monarch Lounge.

The television distracts a bit from the charm of the original fixtures in the Monarch Lounge.

The cocktails are expertly crafted.

The Milwaukee Hilton City Center has a historic feature we love: a working mail drop on each floor.

On a prior weekend stay, we enjoyed the executive lounge. During our recent stay, the lounge was closed on weekends. Hilton Honors Diamond members are given breakfast certificates worth $12, which covers the cost of the Continental buffet or many other items off the menu in The Cafe. 

Casual Milwaukee pub favorites such as brats are served in the Miller Time Pub & Grill on the hotel’s street level.

Beer cheese soup is another local favorite at the Miller Time Pub & Grill. 

For the kids, and the kids-at-heart, the Milwaukee Hilton City Center hotel also features a 20,000-square-foot indoor water park.

Being in Wisconsin, this hotel is connected to its parking garage by skywalk. Self-parking in the garage is a steep $24 per day.

Our bottom line impressions of the Hilton Milwaukee City Center  

• The historic Art Deco hotel lobby and other furnishings take you back to an earlier, grand era.
• The Monarch Lounge in the lobby is a perfect spot for cocktails and people-watching. Except, perhaps, during the Kentucky Derby.
• The hotel’s rooms are comfortable, but the bathrooms are compact.
• The cafe offers an excellent breakfast buffet or menu items, while the Miller Time Pub & Grill is the place for local Wisconsin pub favorites. (Try the fried cheese curds.)

 What’s your favorite hotel in Milwaukee?

You may also want to take a quick look inside these other hotels:

• A Peek Inside the Prague Marriott Hotel
• A Peek Inside the Four Seasons Hotel-Denver
• A Peek inside the Stanford Court Renaissance Hotel – San Francisco
• A Peek Inside the Hilton New York Fashion District Hotel
• A Peek Inside Chicago’s Palmer House Hilton Hotel

Visiting Milwaukee? Check out these posts:

• In Search of Milwaukee’s Best Pizza on Milwaukee’s Pizza Bus Tour
• Postcards from Milwaukee
• Weekend Wanderings: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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Four years ago, we spent a weekend in Milwaukee, and discovered the city had a lot more to offer than beer and brats.

One of our favorite activities that weekend was a food walking tour through the Historic Third Ward, led by Theresa Nemetz, the founder of Milwaukee Food and City Tours.

We loved the idea of tasting our through a neighborhood with a knowledgeable guide, gaining insights on a destination’s history and culture through its food and beverages.

We liked our first Milwaukee Food Tour so much, in fact, that we started seeking out similar food walking tours in other cities we visited around the globe.

We’ve tasted our way through Budapest with Gabor, feasted our way through Singapore’s Chinatown with Leo and Mindy, and gained access to the mostly-locals-only foodie hot spots in San Juan, Puerto Rico with Paulina.

We’ve eaten our way through Chicago’s Near North neighborhoods and both the San Telmo and Palermo neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

When we visit Milwaukee, we try to take another food tour. The Brady Street tour, for example, is terrific.

During our most recent visit we tried the Milwaukee’s Pizza Bus Tour, riding on a bus rather than walking.

The bus allows the tour cover a much larger area of the city. We visited four pizza places in four parts of Milwaukee, each offering a different style of pizza.

At the first stop, we learned about the birth of pizza in Milwaukee when John CARAvella and Joe ToDARO combined parts of their names and opened the Caradaro Club in 1945 as World War II was ending and pizza was making its way to the U.S.

Caradaro Club pizza is still going strong. The Classic (pictured above) is a combination of sausage, mushrooms, onions and cheese with a light saucing of tomato on top of a crispy, cracker-style crust.

It’s simply divine.

Our group quickly devoured a number of these pizzas as we learned the history of the Caradaro Club, including how a giant coffee cup landed on the rooftop of the pizzeria’s current location.

Next, we headed to the Milwaukee Public Market to a food stall known for gourmet meats, produce and specialty foods, but not a place you’d expect to find gourmet pizza.

Nehring’s Family Market serves up wood-fired pizza at its Cutting Room Bar off to the side of the meat and produce counters.

Our slices of Va Bene pizza — made with San marzano sauces, gourmet Italian sausage, sautéed mushrooms, fresh mozzarella and basil — disappeared before we captured a photo.

Back on the Pizza bus, we headed to Milwaukee’s south side while learning about the various highways and bridges to nowhere. (And we thought that was only in Alaska.)

At the Classic Slice on Kinnickinnic Avenue (try saying that three times), we were served fold-and-eat slices from two gigantic pies.

These huge pizzas –way too big for any pan — were created especially for our Milwaukee Pizza Bus Tour. It’s New York style pizza at its finest.

While most of the participants were really full as this point, we got back on the bus and headed west; to Wauwatosa, Wisconsin (you know you are there when the street signs have a blue, rather than a green background.

Pizzeria Piccola features thin-crust Neapolitan pizzas baked in a brick wood-burning oven.

Everyone tried the sausage.

As well as the Pizza Margherita. Do you know the history of this pizza?

There was one more stop, for dessert.

This of course, had to be hand-crafted gelato.

Most folks on our tour group agreed on our favorite Milwaukee pizza, but we aren’t telling.

You will have to take the Milwaukee Pizza Bus Tour yourself, and make up your own mind.

Have you taken a food walking tour in Milwaukee or somewhere else? What did you enjoy most about the experience?

Check out these other food posts you might enjoy”;”;

• Fabulous Thin Crust Pizza in Chicago
• A Romantic Dinner on Honolulu’s Waikiki Beach at Azure
• Learning to Cook Cajun and Creole at The New Orleans School of Cooking
• Anthony Bourdain Knows What He’s Talking About: Unbelievably Good Food at the Singapore Grand Hyatt
• Enjoying Modern German Food at Affäre in Kansas City’s Crossroads
• Delicious Dumplings at Din Tai Fung in Singapore

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