Wonderland is another specialty restaurant onboard most of Royal Caribbean’s cruise ships. As its name suggests, Wonderland is a fairytale-inspired restaurant that serves up creative cuisine in the form of a ‘show’. The unique plating and presentation of food will not just satisfy your tastebuds but will also delight your senses. So bring along your camera or phone and snap away as you eat!
By the way, this is the last post for my Royal Caribbean cruise to nowhere. If you’ve missed the earlier ones, you can read them here:
- Royal Caribbean Cruise to Nowhere (Part 1 of 2)
- Royal Caribbean Cruise to Nowhere (Part 2 of 2)
- Chops Grille | Royal Caribbean Signature Steakhouse
- Jamie’s Italian on Royal Caribbean Cruise
Now, let us begin our Wonderland journey.
Ambience
The ambience of Wonderland is inspired by the well-loved tale of Alice in Wonderland. When you step into the restaurant, it feels as if you’ve been transported to some land of fantasy with whimsical decor, fanciful chandeliers, throne-like chairs and the like.
Very unique indeed as you don’t see this in regular restaurants.
Service
As with other specialty restaurants onboard Quantum of the Seas, we also had a dedicated server at Wonderland who would walk us through every course, almost in a story-telling mode. That made dining here a fun and somewhat interactive experience.
Our server, Jingling was very thorough and attentive. As it was our first time at Wonderland, she suggested serving up a mix of popular starters for us to try while we could still pick our preferred mains. And if there was any dish that we particularly liked, we could ask her for seconds if we wanted. Her service was topnotch.
Menu
We were presented with a blank menu and a brush. All we had to do was to dip the brush in water and swipe across the menu board. Words would then appear ‘magically’.
All the dishes were categorised by five elements:
- Sun – radiant vegetables playfully reinvented
- Ice – chilled to exhilarate the palate
- Fire – emanating wonderful warmth
- Earth – dishes grounded in whimsy
- Sea – oceanic inspirations from the tide of the imagination
Click here for Wonderland’s sample menu.
Starters
Tomato Water (on left)
Pepper spherification and bread foam. The test tube made it look like some kind of Science or Chemistry experiment, lol. The liquid might be colourless but it did have some tomato flavour in it. Very interesting.
Crispy Crab Cones (on right)
Cilantro, avocado mousse and ohba leaf. Loved the cone as it had a lovely fragrant sesame taste. The filling was nice and creamy too.
Oceanic Citrus
Spicy tuna and yuzu granite. The yuzu granite was like sorbet. Super refreshing. The spicy tuna went so well with the parmesan crisp. Delicious combination.
Liquid Lobster
With bone marrow and caviar. This was like a bite of lobster meat in a thick and rich lobster bisque. I liked it!
Buffalo Chicken Eggs
With a little smoke effect. How grand, lol.
The yolks were mixed with some blue cheese and hot sauce. Tasted ordinary but the presentation with the bird’s nest was lovely.
Shrimp Kataifi
Crispy crumb and scotch bonnet. This was my favourite starter. The prawn was amazing. Crispy on the outside, crunchy on the inside. I believe it was wrapped with the same ‘noodles’ as the bird’s nest from the Buffalo Chicken Eggs dish. I thought the shrimp went really well with the cream sauce in the mini cup as it had a bit of heat and a spicy kick.
Mains
Berkshire Pork Belly
This pork belly with a crispy crackling on top was cooked for 4 hours. The top part was moist and tender but the bottom layer was pretty tough.
Terroir Beef
Mind-blowing dish. Loved this most.
The beef was cooked for 8 hours till fork-tender. Not dry at all. Meat was very flavourful.
Branzino in Crispy Bread
With a tamarind spice emulsion. Branzino is a type of sea bass. Very mild-tasting. Fresh and not fishy at all. I liked the crispy bread on top as it gave a good contrasting texture to the dish.
Found it a bit too plain to eat with rice that was on the bottom. Maybe would be better to serve with some vegetables instead.
Desserts
Forbidden Apple
Raspberry cremeux, brown butter crumble and yogurt ice cream.
What a pretty apple! Pity, it didn’t taste as good as it looked.
The raspberry cremeux was like a very dense mousse. And the red-coloured jelly exterior was quite thick and hard. Meh.
The World
Ooh, a dark chocolate sphere. We poured a hot caramel sauce over so as to reveal what was inside the ball.
Peanut butter ganache, Valrhona chocolate mousse, salted caramel ice cream. Every element worked together. Though this was very sweet, it was very satisfying. While digging into this, I was somehow reminded of Almond Roca, lol.
Mystical Mushroom Garden
Made with pistachio, white chocolate mousse, red velvet and chocolate soil, soft-centered meringue, mango sorbet and berries. Looked so cute.
Again, this dessert wasn’t as good as it looked. All the elements somewhat clashed. They just didn’t complement one another. The pistachio mousse was nice though when eaten on its own. Funny thing was, the pink coloured mushroom top meringue had a spicy flavour that really killed our tastebuds. Totally weird.
Final Thoughts
All in all, I thought the dining experience at Wonderland was an unique one. I mean, you don’t really see such restaurants all the time so in terms of creativity and innovation, the idea is definitely there. Food quality wise, it wasn’t as spectacular as Chops Grille or Jamie’s Italian. But for the effort in creating and plating the dishes and for the overall entertainment value, Wonderland deserves a perfect 10. It’s a restaurant that all Royal Caribbean cruise-goers should visit at least once, just for a completely different experience. Don’t set high expectations for the food but go with an open mind and enjoy the show.