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Cruising With Celebs / Cruises / Crystal Cruises / Food Travel / Chefs / → All Tags

Despite What Arthur Frommer Thinks, Nobu Goes On a Cruise

Arthur Frommer may have dissed cruising this week by stating his horror at "the transformation of the cruise ship to an amusement park," and John Mayer has just disembarked from his ownbooze cruise, but gimmick cruises will soldier on. Who will be next to pack in the fans and pack on the pounds? Leave it to classy Crystal Cruises to appeal to a higher palate by sending celebrity chef Nobuyuki "Nobu" Matushisa out to sea for 12 days and 7 specially-prepared dinners.

For a starting price of $6,640 per person on the Crystal Serenity's July 12 "Byzantine Accolades" sailing, amateur gourmands will be treated to these seven "Omakase," or chef's choice, meals personally prepared by the man himself in his ship-board restaurant Silk Road. Don't forget to haul your Nobu cookbooks aboard either, as Matsuhisa will be signing at sea and giving cooking demonstrations so that when you return to dry land, your sushi skills don't dry up.

Although we don't exactly think of five-star Asian cuisine when we see an itinerary like this one, which hops around Italy, Greece and Turkey, we wouldn't mind not having to worry about the bill as we eat our fill. So long as the sea is calm, we're down with shoveling down the priciest sashimi regardless.

Related Stories:
· Nobu Crystal Cruise Itinerary [Official Site]
· Travel Guru Arthur Frommer: 'I'm horrified by what cruise ships are becoming' [USA Today]
· 'Vom'd the First Night' :: Mayercraft 2 is a Success [Jaunted]
· Cruises Coverage [Jaunted]

[Crystal Serenity Photo: Trondheim Havn; Nobu photo: Daylife/Getty]

Restaurants / Chefs / → All Tags

Stage Restaurant: Hot Design, Lukewarm Review

(Alex Salkever is the editor / founder of Hawaii travel blog Hawaiirama.)

Honolulu has enjoyed a spate of new restaurant openings in the past month and among the most anticipated is Stage, a team effort from alumni of the highly regarded Alan Wong's (home to the best Asian fusion food in the country, bar none). The new restaurant is set in a nifty design center / furniture store that's all black-and-white and high design oriented in a way that Honolulu has never really had. No tropical decor here.

Alas, in the first review I've read, from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Chef Jon Matsubara perhaps gets a bit too distracted with the high art details of his food and goes a little bit too Wylie Dufresne / WD-50 for his own good. Escolar topped with Meyer lemon gelee cubes? Um, weird is fine, but maybe this one goes over our heads. At any rate, we'll see how the full review onslaught bears out for this one, but Stage appears to be still in dress rehearsal.

Related Stories:
· Stage set for promising future [Honolulu Star-Bulletin]
· Honolulu Restaurants: Stage Restaurant Makes Two [Hawaiirama]