Pink Agave is the Mexican themed restaurant onboard Valiant Lady. We had decided pre-cruise to try as many of the restaurants onboard as we could fit. Some, such as Pink Agave, were repeated twice during this eight day cruise. Both evenings will be covered in this post.
On embarkation day, our dinner plans found us at Pink Agave. We had made all of our dinner reservations for 6PM each night. As it turned out, we felt like we had the place to ourselves as the restaurant was nearly empty when we started our meal. Our waitress this evening was Rafaela and she was delightful! Not only was she friendly, knowledgeable, and prompt with service but she took the time to explain the menu, offer her recommendations, and give us tips on future dining options for the rest of the sailing. When Dad asked about avoiding spicy food, Rafaela guided us through menu choices and offered changes to make things less spicy.
The way Pink Agave's menu is designed is to encourage sharing of dishes. You start out with Botanas (small plates) and Rafaela encouraged us to order a couple things to share from this menu. We went with Esquites and Guacamole.
The Guacamole is described as pomegranate seeds, jalapeno, and totopos. I'd seen pictures of this before but I must say, I didn't realize how small this "small plate" was. Basically a heaping tablespoon of the guacamole mixture sprinkled with a few pomegranate seeds and four fried tortilla chips stuck upright in the guacamole. Reminded me of a stegosaurus if they were made out of guacamole. The difference in texture between the guacamole and the seeds was interesting but gave a sort of fruity aftertaste to the bite. I've never been a fan of extra crunchy things like kettle chips so I didn't love these fried tortilla chips. On the plus side, I got Dad to try pomegranate seeds without protest. Mostly because he didn't notice they were there until I asked what he thought of them. He swiped the last chip to get a swig of guacamole with the seeds so he could try it in the name of research.
The next course is called Entradas or Medium Plates. To share once again, I chose the Enchilada De Pollo and Dad chose the Papas con Chorizo. Rafaela assured him it wasn't spicy as long as he didn't eat the red pepper rings.
The Enchilada De Pollo is described as roasted chicken, salsa verde, and crema. This dish was pretty good and I found it much kinder on the spice level. Dad wasn't keen on trying it from looks alone until he heard me refer to it as a chicken enchilada. "What? Where's the chicken enchiladas?" "Umm, right in front of you on this pink plate - ya know the most straightforward named thing on the menu?" Two timidly tried bites later and the rest of the dish was gifted to me to finish.
The Papas Con Chorizos is described as yukon gold potatoes, onions, and garlic. We guessed that the crumble sprinkled throughout was ground up chorizo. Dish had good flavor and liked by both.
The next course is called Fuertes or Large Plates. These are the main dishes that most people order to eat on their own. Dad chose the Cochinita Pibil and I went with the Bistec Marinero En Escabeche.
The Bistec Marinero En Escabeche was highly recommended by Rafaela as the one dish we must try. It is described as ribeye steak, oaxaca cheese, and chile ancho. Let's face it, if you're a meat eater, how can you not love a tender steak covered in melted cheese and sauce? Unless you're lactose intolerant like my cabin neighbor probably was. This picture doesn't even do it justice as to how big this steak was. The sauce had a mild barbecue smoky flavor. The meat was so tender that I got to enjoy many bites that had the perfect combination of sauce, cheese, and steak. By now, all those littler plates were catching up to us but I wasn't about to leave any of this steak behind! I did give Dad a piece or two so he could taste it and he raved about it as well. I know a lot of past cruisers say the steak at Razzle Dazzle is not to be missed but don't miss out on the Bistec at Pink Agave!
Our final course, Postres (or desserts), was the first course where we both ordered the same thing - Tacos De Chocolate. Tacos De Chocolate is described as Mexican chocolate, canela, and dulce de leche. I like tacos. I like chocolate in moderate amounts. All I pictured when I saw this dish on the menu was the old choco taco ice cream sandwiches made by Klondike. What came to the table was quite a bit more understated. The chocolate taco shells reminded me of imitation Oreo cookie wafers. I ate more of the inner filling than I did those wafers. Which wasn't much either since I've never been a big dulce de leche or caramel fan. I was glad that dessert didn't have me feeling the same need to clear my plate. Dad, on the other hand, aka the chocolate fiend thought this dessert was amazing and wished he had a whole separate dessert made up of the mousse inside the shells.
We had planned to save our second dessert choice of the Tamal De Chocolate for our second visit later in the week but that didn't work out. As I close out my take on our first dining experience in Pink Agave, I would like to thank and commend Rafaela for such wonderful service. Yes, I also praised her in the post cruise survey and on social media at the time. Between her delightful engagement with all of her tables and the super fast service, we thought we'd managed to finish dinner in 15 minutes. Quite the surprise to look at the time and realize that we'd been there for over an hour! It is so nice to have a meal you enjoyed so much that you don't even notice an hour has flown by.
Our second planned dinner at Pink Agave came on the second to last night. By this point, we'd tried every restaurant but The Test Kitchen at least once and have been noticing a steady decline in service (and in some cases food quality) as the cruise went on. It didn't seem to matter what restaurant we visited (except for one of the two we only tried once). I can't speak to whether it was a lack of available crew as the cruise went on or something else causing the delays like more passengers choosing to dine and making the crew juggle a larger amount of tables. Either way, we went from having superb service to having one of the worst service experiences and food issues.
We arrived for our reservation on this night and were asked to sit in the few tables by the bar inside the restaurant since they weren't ready to open yet. No big deal - Dad and I had spent the afternoon doing different things so we sat and caught up with each other. They asked the same of 2 other groups that had come in before starting to let people check in with no waiting. The host did make a point of escorting the bar seaters before starting to take the line passengers in to their seats.
Our waiter was courteous and polite. He brought us a small bowl of what he described as sort of a chili lime peanut and seeds mix. He seemed surprised when we mentioned not getting this the first visit. I don't eat nuts or seeds so this was all for Dad. He loves things like bar mix and trail mix so he happily devoured the bowl. 
We both decided to order the Esquites and Guacamole again for our small plates. This time, I did not find the dish too spicy and happily finished off what was left over. My two corn pictures look very similar in terms of amount but I recall thinking at the time how much smaller the portions were from the first time. I didn't get a second picture of the guacamole but I noticed it had less fried tortilla chips than our previous serving. Not a big deal by any stretch of the imagination and I doubt anyone who wasn't doing a food review would have noticed.
To change things up from last time, I chose the Camaron Amarillo option for my medium plate. Dad will not eat seafood so I had to bite the proverbial bullet...err..shrimp for research purposes. This dish is described as seared shrimp, mole amarillo, and new potatoes. Shrimp themselves were well cooked and seasoned. The new potatoes were perhaps a little too new since most were still tough. The sauce had a little bit of a kick to it. I had to research what goes into mole amarillo sauce and I get now why it had such an red orange color. Five of the listed ingredients could fall into the "taste buds, what taste buds? Mine are all burned off now" category. I'm curious as to why they call it Amarillo and not Rojo.
Dad went with the Enchilada De Pollo for his medium plate. I don't have a picture of that dish but it was noticeably half the length of what I had the first visit. Gave the impression that instead of two narrow rolled enchiladas that ran most of the length of the plate, they made only one and cut it in half to sit next to each other on the plate.
By this time in the cruise, we knew that we'd have a good bit of on board credit (or sailor loot) to use or lose. Dad ordered the Bistec for his large plate happy to have the chance to enjoy it as much as I did. I took the opportunity to order one of the few food dishes that cost extra on Virgin Voyages - The Pescado Zarandeado. This dish (and honestly I'm amazed that spell check isn't protesting the words in half of this post) is described as achiote halibut, lobster, grilled giant prawn, bay scallops. It's listed in its own little box on the bottom of the menu with a notation about it costing $30. Our waiter did seem a bit taken aback by my order and had me confirm it was what I really wanted. He first pointed out the extra cost. Yes, I understand, that's fine. Then he told me about how the bay scallops portion was really a cold ceviche. Umm, okay, I might have been dissuaded at this point if I wasn't using house money. Yes, that's fine, I'll stick with my order. Off he goes. And we wait, and we wait. We watch other tables who showed up after us getting through their meals. And we wait. Eventually, our waiter comes by to apologize and explain that it is taking so long because they are taking extra care to make sure it's fully cooked. And we wait. Another table drive by with the waiter assuring us that he keeps going back to check so he can get it to us the second it's ready. Note that through all this, they also aren't bringing Dad his dish.
After over 40 minutes of waiting between medium and large plates courses, we are beginning to grow concerned about missing our evening activity. Another drive by promise that the waiter is checking on it but it needs more time. We mention that it's getting so close to our other plans that we wouldn't have time to eat once it arrived. The waiter offers to bring something else but at that point, by the time the new entree finished cooking, we wouldn't have time to eat that either. I point out that if he had said upfront that the dish took an hour to cook, than we would have certainly reconsidered ordering it. The waiter rushes off to check on the dish once again. A manager joins him when he returns and apologizes as well. She too offers to bring a different dish. Same answer. She assures us that the $30 charge will be taken off my account. She continues to ask over and over what can they do to make this better but we couldn't think of a thing to tell her. During this exchange, the waiter admits that this item is so rarely ordered that they had to retrieve the items from storage and cook it from frozen!
Finally, both our dishes are brought out with under 10 minutes to spare before our evening activity started. Dad tried his Bistec and felt it was very tough and nowhere near as good as mine the first night. I gave the cold scallop ceviche the two bite test and abandoned it. I ate the bulk of the lobster tail though it certainly didn't taste like a typical lobster tail. I moved on to the biggest item on the plate, the achiote halibut. I don't normally eat a lot of fish simply because I'm not skilled in cooking it. Perhaps clouded by the frustration it took to get to the taste test, I was put off by the taste of the halibut both in texture and spice. The waiter cautiously came back to check on how I was liking the dish. He assured me that it was supposed to have a lot of spice. After a couple bites of the halibut, I decided to give up on eating anything more from this dish.
The manager came back over when she saw me stop eating. She once again offered something else. At this point we would have to get in our fitness class by speed walking to the evening activity across the ship. She did ask if it was a show we had planned, eluding to the possibility of letting the venue know we might be late. Unfortunately, it was another activity that required being there on time if not early. When her next suggestion was to move on to dessert, we told her that there was no time left. She suggested we come back and have the dessert after our activity insisting that we wouldn't need to make another reservation or wait if there wasn't space. We turned that down and just barely made it to our activity. Thankfully, the crew member running the event made the best of the larger than usual crowd who had showed up to participate and arranged seats from the nearby bar for us and the rest of the last arriving participants.
The evening ended on a much nicer note being on the winning team and stopping for pizza after enjoying the late performance of Duel Reality.
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