Earlier this year, I visited the Eastern Caribbean on my 3rd Disney Cruise Line cruise aboard the Disney Fantasy. This was my first time on the Fantasy and the first time on a 7 night cruise. It was also my first time in the Eastern Caribbean. You could say it was a trip of firsts, for so many reasons, but one of those firsts was especially yummy. We dined in Palo one night for dinner.
Palo aboard the Disney Fantasy
It was not my first time dining at Palo. In 2011, we enjoyed a most delicious brunch in Palo aboard the Disney Dream. You can find a snippet of that here. However, it was our first time having dinner at Palo.
Palo is 1 of 2 adults-only restaurants aboard the Fantasy. It features upscale Northern Italian cuisine, and it is outstanding. It requires advance reservations and comes with an extra charge of $30 per person.
I’ll share more about this meal later but for now, I wanted to tell you about one of my favorite parts of the meal, the antipasto. Shortly after we were seated and our orders were taken, our waiter wheeled a cart to our table containing an assortment of Italian meats, cheeses, olives, roasted veggies and flavored olive oils.
This cart contained an assortment of Italian meats, cheeses, olives, roasted veggies and flavored olive oils.
He placed a generous amount of each on a plate for us to share and drizzled it all with aged balsamic vinegar and the flavored olive oil of our choice.
The waiter placed a generous amount of each item on a plate for us to share.
It was a great way to start the meal! One of my favorite things about it was the simplicity of it. It’s something that I can easily replicate at home and feel like I’m right back on board the Fantasy anytime I need a mini staycation.
A few weeks later, I was at our local farmer’s market and spotted a new vendor selling locally cured meats. One of the meats caught my eye. It was bresaola, which is an aged, cured beef. For my southern friends, think country ham, only beef. I was planning to attend an outdoor concert that evening with friends and needed to make snacks for us all to share. A light bulb went off in my head, and I decided to let that be the inspiration for my contribution to the night out. On the way home from the market, I picked up a nice chunk of parmesan cheese and some olives marinated in Italian herbs. I cut the cheese into chunks and since everything is better on a stick, I skewered all the components into my Palo-inspired antipasto bites.
My finished Palo-inspired antipasto bites
No outdoor concert is complete without wine or champagne so I also picked up a bottle of Italian Prosecco, which paired perfectly with my antipasto bites. One of my friends brought orange juice for mimosas, and we had a great evening.
Cheers to a lovely evening with great friends.
Have you ever made a vacation-inspired dish? Tell me about it in the comments.
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