World Dream The Palace Restaurant Review including Palace Happy Hour

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World Dream The Palace Luxury Cruise To Nowhere

The Palace Restaurant is an exclusive restaurant only available to Palace guests, located within The Palace at Deck 17 Forward. While regular guests get unlimited meals from Dream Dining Room and The Lido, Palace guests get unlimited meals here at Palace Restaurant, on top of inclusive specialty restaurants which are provided for each lunch and dinner.

Palace Restaurant and Palace Lounge are located opposite each other, and operate as a single location if there’s a big crowd, or on your preference if there is a thin crowd.

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Palace Restaurant Breakfast

Up at The Palace, there is no specialty breakfast restaurant, so all Palace guests will head to Palace Restaurant for breakfast. If the location is overflowing, either Prime steakhouse or Blue Lagoon will open for Palace guests, serving up the same Palace breakfast menu.

Here’s the typical Palace breakfast menu.

The Palace drinks menu is on the left. This can be ordered throughout the cruise in The Palace areas.

On the right is the standard Palace breakfast menu with a bakery selection, yoghurt, fruits, cereal, western egg selection, a Chinese congee, dim sum, warm soya milk with dough fritters, and “specials” which will be recited by the waiter or waitress.

This time, I was seated at the Palace Lounge for breakfast with the crowd in the Palace Restaurant already.

I ordered a poached eggs plate. This was nicely and freshly poached with the yolk still runny, as compared with Dream dining Room where the yolk is hard sometimes.

One of the Chef’s Special of the Day was a Seafood Omelette, which I thought might be interesting since breakfast omelettes are mostly consisting of small pieces of red meat and mushrooms and cheese or something.

This turned out to be a bit Chinese-y with bits of salmon and spring onions inside a flat omelette, rather than being a fluffy roll.

The other Chef’s Special of the Day was a Nasi Lemak with Sambal Prawns.

The next day, I had a Warm Soya Milk and Dough Fritters (豆浆油条/豆漿油條).

The Eggs Benedict were… strange. At first I thought that my plate was left below a plate heater before serving which resulted in this burnt sauce, but after looking at other plates flying by me with other orders, it’s almost as if the Hollandaise Sauce had been intentionally flambéd before serving, which resulted in a strangely crispy/powdery feel instead of smooth and creamy.

The Chef’s Special of the Day on disembarkation day was a waffle.

Palace Restaurant Lunch

Unknown to many, myself included, the Palace Restaurant serves up a coursed lunch and dinner as well, in both Asian and Western menus.

Just like Dream Dining Room, although this is laid out in a set, any course can be ordered as many times as you like and can be mixed and matched from both sides of the menu.

The appetizer of the western lunch menu was a Thai Chicken Salad. On first look, it didn’t look Thai but the juices in the chicken were sour-ish and distinct.

Next was a French Onion Soup. This was quite light, similar to a Chinese soup, with very little cheese.

My main was a Grilled Sirloin Steak with Black Pepper Sauce, Summer Vegetables, and Homemade Fries.

The onion and cheese was not described in the menu, and I had a bad feeling about it because cheese, onions, and black pepper sauce all have very strong tastes, and are all placed on top of the steak.

True enough, I think the steak wasn’t as fresh, with my medium rare steak becoming a medium well to well done steak instead, with most of the beef taste being masked.

Stick with Prime Steakhouse by Mark Best for steaks.

Dessert was an Elder Berry Mousse with Crème Anglaise and Vanilla Short Crust. This was good, or perhaps I have a sweet tooth.

Palace Restaurant High Tea

On high seas day, High Tea is served from 3pm to 5pm at Palace Restaurant.

The menu has been refreshed, for better or worse, but I still like all the offerings anyway. Must be a sweet tooth.

Palace High Tea is also free-flow, and you can ask for extra servings of the whole set if you like, or just a select few.

My favourite is still the simple English Scone with Clotted Cream and Strawberry Jam.

Palace Restaurant Happy Hour

With the cessation of the Palace Premium Beverage Menu which was absolutely amazing and the highlight of my previous Palace experience (I promise I’m not an alcoholic), the inclusive alcohol in The Palace is now reduced to just the Palace Happy Hour from 5pm to 7pm on high seas day.

Here’s the Palace Happy Hour menu:

All basic non-alcoholic drinks on board are pretty much provided. There are 5 types of bottled beer to choose from too, Heineken, Tiger, Guinness, Corona, and Asahi.

Non-alcoholic beer, White Wine, Red Wine, Sparkling Wine are also available, although they were out of Rawson’s Retreat wines for every single one of my cruise so far.

Spirits such as Rum, Tequila, Gin, Vodka, Whisky, and Cognac are available.

And the menu ends with coffee, tea, and chocolate drinks.

HEY, where’s my cocktails?????

So basically, the Palace Happy Hour menu is a mashup of the Classic Beverage Package and the Premium Beverage Package, with selected spirits, selected beers, house wines, coffees and teas, chilled juices, soft drinks, and bottled water provided, and with fresh juices, aperitifs, cordials, a lot of other whiskeys, cocktails, and mocktails now nerfed.

Not cool.

I was looking forward to an Espresso Martini, but this was not to be. Still, I tried mixing my own with an espresso shot, vodka, and some sugar syrup in place of Kahlúa coffee liqueur. It was still nice, but not as nice as an actual properly mixed Espresso Martini.

Palace Restaurant Dinner

While having my Happy Hour and poor man’s cocktail, dinner started, and I asked for the menu for fun. The western menu looked damn good, and all courses sounded like what I would happily eat.

An equally nice sounding Chinese menu was available too, but nah.

As I had a booked Seafood Grill dinner, I didn’t order much, but started off just wanting a Cheese Platter to go with some alcohol from the Palace Happy Hour for an atas life.

Hmm, this isn’t a snack.

The temptation of a free Filet Mignon staring in my face was too great, and I ordered one steak as a pre-dinner. This is served with Green Peppercorn Sauce, Herb Butter, Potato Gratin, and Spring Vegetable.

Sliced the steak though, and I was sorely disappointed. My medium rare was once again a grey steak, and this time, it was also dry. I did feedback to the waitress about this issue but I declined a replacement that was immediately offered to me since I was heading for my actual dinner at Seafood Grill soon.

Case closed. Stick with Prime Steakhouse by Mark Best for steaks.

Palace Restaurant Supper (Comfort Menu)

Perhaps the star of the show at Palace Restaurant is the comfort menu offered at all odd non-meal times of the day (morning snack, afternoon tea, and supper), with local offerings.

My favourite from the Palace Restaurant comfort menu is definitely the Fried Kway Teow, Penang style. It’s the closest thing to going to Malaysia now with Malaysian food on a Malaysian parent company ship, potentially cooked by a Malaysian chef. Serving it with a side of chilli padi and light soya sauce also adds a local touch that Dream Cruises definitely understands their clientele and their chilli needs.

Another Malaysian food that’s really good here is the Penang Style Prawn Noodle Soup with a very flavourful prawn broth that made me order another bowl with just the soup only.

Now I feel like I’m in Little Penang Kafé in KLCC or Mid Valley with this aircon, plated atmosphere.

Back to having western, the Club Sandwich came as a triple decker, with a lot of bacon loaded into it.

Conclusion

My verdict for lunch and dinner at the Palace Restaurant may not be fair as I only ordered steaks which didn’t come from a steakhouse.

However, from my experience so far, the Palace Restaurant does well with breakfast and supper, the two most important meals that need to be offered, since specialty restaurants won’t be open for those timings. The taste and quality is also definitely better than Dream Dining Room and The Lido on all counts, with a super extensive menu on both cuisines, and not just bulk processed foods, especially at The Lido Outdoor Snack Corner.

You do indeed get what you pay for at The Palace.

Book your World Dream The Palace Luxury Cruise To Nowhere here!

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