A ship that sails across the bay/ Its diners feasting all the way. Poems are nice and sometimes rhyme/ But I prefer a meal sublime.
With apologies to the late American poet Joyce Kilmer, from whom I have borrowed the cadence, I'd like to take this occasion to celebrate April, National Poetry Month, maybe at the expense of the StarShip Dining Yacht.
We dined recently on StarShip's 2-year-old, $7-million yacht. We found it a fun way to celebrate an anniversary or a birthday, as it combines a long, slow cruise around the bay with cocktails, dinner, entertainment and dancing. It's such a leisurely trip that we even had time to write what might pass for verse between courses.
We found the cruise, the view and the experience more compelling than the food and drink, but would recommend it, anyway, because it provides an unusual, memorable evening out upon a lovely new ship built especially for dinner cruises.
The weekend dinner package we chose cost $59.95 per person, plus bar tab and gratuity; weekday dinner packages start at $49.95 and the least expensive lunch is $29.95.
The 180-foot yacht docks just west of the Channelside complex near downtown Tampa. While boarding, you get a gleaming view of the city. We waited in the heat for a few minutes, checking out the crowd, which leaned toward seniors and baby boomers, some even accompanied by kids. One young couple was resplendent in tux and glittering evening gown; a threesome arrived in shorts and sandals. But most of us were somewhere in between, more formally attired than we would be for dinner at Outback, but still casually comfortable.
Boarding was at 5 p.m., and we were glad to find a cool seat in one of four dining rooms, which accommodate up to 600 people in various configurations of buffet or seated dining. The yacht was lined with comfy leather banquettes.
As soon as we sat down at the linen-draped table, a server arrived for our drink order. There were lots of fancy concoctions, fruity things with umbrellas and whipped cream, big piña coladas, several types of margaritas. I fell for the Blue Hawaiian ($6.50), made with Blue Curaçao. I later wished I had opted for something else — it was watery and not very thirst quenching. My dining companion expressed a similar complaint with two thin martinis ($16.14).
Still, the languor-inducing hum of the engines below deck and the breathtaking view from roomy, cabin-length windows combined for such a lovely effect that we didn't much care. You watch the city drift away, dreamlike, then pass Davis Islands and putter around the spoil islands in the bay for two and a half hours before turning back toward shore.
The tables were far enough apart that the ship felt spacious. Well-removed from shipmates, our conversation remained private. The efficient server arrived with a respectable wine list offering bottled varieties and a few poured by the glass. I ordered a single glass of Caliterra Chardonnay ($5.50). The meal package we purchased included three courses — soup or salad, entree and dessert, tea and coffee.
Our appetizers cost extra — $9.95 each — but due to some confusion about our package we never ordered them. Given the meal's price, though, they should've been included. For the record, appetizers offered during our voyage included Fire Island shrimp, shrimp martini, andouille-stuffed baby portobello mushrooms and cornmeal-fried oyster shooters.
One reason we didn't miss the appetizers until we were already back ashore was a particularly delicious bread that had arrived at our table almost as soon as we sat down. It was in all likelihood the work of Jayson Polansky, the yacht's executive chef, whose excellent credentials include a stint at the Zazarac Restaurant and as a master baker at Bern's Steak House. We demolished the whole loaf at once and asked for more.
On the Saturday night Moonlight Cruise, the menu's first course offered a choice of organically grown baby greens salad with raspberry balsamic vinaigrette or gulf seafood chowder. We chose the salad, a satisfying plate of varied greenery topped with real raspberries, the vinaigrette sprinkled like pretty pink raindrops on a verdant garden.
The second course included chicken cordon bleu — breast of chicken stuffed with spinach, mushrooms, tasso and cheese, and served with wild rice and sauteed zucchini. The chicken was of good quality, the spinach fresh and spread in layers with the other ingredients. The breading held it all together in an oval shape that sat like a football atop scoops of wild rice. The dish tasted just fine, but it lacked pizzazz.
My dinner companion ordered bronzed fillet of cobia, with tasso green onion risotto and wilted spinach, served with butter sauce. It too was a respectable effort, the fish fresh perfectly grilled, the risotto creamily smooth. But, again, it didn't blow me out of the water.
Other entrees listed were peppercorn-crusted tenderloin of beef with a wild mushroom demi-reduction, served with potatoes and French green beans; or shrimp and andouille pasta with cheese-stuffed tortellini and garlic sauce.
Dessert offered Key lime cheesecake, a crustless, so-so slice, its pale filling in need of a flavor infusion to give it oomph. Layered chocolate ganache cake, which was the better of the two desserts, had strata of light cake interspersed with a delicate filling, so ethereal that you didn't feel you had consumed any calories at all.
Despite an overall lack of culinary effervescence, StarShip's fare and setting are a considerable improvement over similar enterprises — dirty gambling boats where the food is an afterthought, or 30-year-old ships originally designed for other purposes.
Afterwards, StarShip diners adjourned to the windswept top deck for dancing to '60s favorites performed by a live band, and the cruise ended where it had begun at the foot of downtown.
"We're not like a regular restaurant, we're a special-occasion venue," explained StarShip president and CEO Troy Manthey. "If you have someone you want to wow, if we get you twice a year, say for a birthday or an anniversary, we have succeeded."
This article appears in Apr 10-16, 2002.
