Royal Caribbean’s popular signature steakhouse, featuring grade-A premium cuts of steak cooked to your specifications, plus fresh seafood, hearty side dishes and signature desserts in an upscale, contemporary setting.

When our waiter first arrived, he came with bread and garlic butter which was all somehow unbelievably good for bread. Princess picked the forest mushroom soup served with white truffle oil which tuned out to taste even better than it sounds! It’s full of flavour. I picked the three cheese (melted gruyere, asiago and parmesan) roasted onion soup which I find a bit too oily for a start.

Signature Appetisers

Next up, our trio of appetisers. The Dungeness crab and shrimp cake with remoulade sauce came with one big piece of crab cake which is enough to share if you ordered three appetisers like us. The charred beef carpaccio,, parmesan cheese, shaved asparagus, truffle mustard dressing was not what I expected – the beef tasted like smoked beef, but I think we need to be safe than sorry on a cruise.

I love their pan-roasted jumbo scallops, bacon, onion, apple, hot mustard jus – perfectly cooked with a crisp brown crust but remains tender and creamy on the inside.

Mains

The steak options are what Chops Grille is known for, so we had to try them. For the steaks, their filet mignons are the best-sellers, hand-cut, hand-seasoned and carefully prepared. I was going to get the 6oz filet mignon for Princess, but our waiter insisted that I should have the 9oz since it’s all included in the price. So I caved and went with that. For myself I prefer the more beefy NY strip steak done medium rare.

 

The server decided to take the sides order on his own hands – he basically brought one of everything to the table. The roasted mushrooms and creamed spinach were the stand outs, but the grilled jumbo asparagus and shoestring fries (not on the menu, specially brought out for Princess) were great too.

Seafood

What’s a fish doing in a steakhouse? As a standby for your companion that doesn’t take beef. My sister decided to skip the beef and went for the grilled branzino that came with garlicky spinach, olive oil, lemon, flake sea salt. It was pan fried to a crisp on the skin while the flesh remained flaky and moist.

Desserts

Red velvet cake with sweet cream cheese frosting is the signature dessert at Chops Grille and is well-balanced. It’s relatively dense but not too sweet giving it a smooth texture with a beautiful flavour. The layers combined perfectly to make it one of the best red velvet cakes I’ve tasted.

Princess chose the liquid centre chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and caramelised banana. It was a very moist cake, and definitely yum, but we both thought it was not a stand-out like the red velvet cake. Sister just asked for two scoops of ice cream.

What I could not fathom was that they charge extra for the specialty coffee and is not included in the drinks package. Well, I guess you are still on a cruise and they have to make money.

Afterwards

Certainly, a memorable dining experience, make sure you allow yourself at least 2 hours for all 3 courses to come so you can enjoy them. Known for the wide range of meats, from seafood to steak, Chops certainly exceeded expectations with a great cut of Japanese beef and some incredible seafood soups. It has a very dark ambience, so its ideal for something more intimate and romantic and not so much for families. We had to rush our meal but to the staffs’ credit, they handled us really well. This place is certainly not for vegetarians and only open for dinner.

Cruise Date : Nov 2017