The Neopian Food Review: Golden Dubloon

The Golden Dubloon of Krawk Island is certainly an interesting place. It’s the only restaurant in Neopia where meals are paid for in Dubloons, not Neopoints. This eatery is approaching the level of fame that Kelp has attained, although it’s missing most of the fancy details that keeps Kelp on top. Foods here are undoubtedly gourmet, but unfortunately, in Neopia, “gourmet” only implies that the item is rare (and not necessarily delicious). Touted by many as possibly being “the next Kelp”, the Golden Dubloon has a lot to prove. I’ll treat this review the same way as I treated Kelp’s: there will be four sections (starter courses, main courses, desserts, and cocktails), and by the end, you’ll know exactly what to spend your dubloons on.

The Golden Dubloon sets their appetizers apart from Kelp simply by calling them “starters”. The starters are pretty split here: some good, some bad. As I said with Kelp, appetizers are always important. They really set the tone for the rest of the meal: if you hate a “starter”, you won’t be inclined to like the rest of the meal, even if what you’re eating is great.

So – what’s good? For me, the Tropical Breeze is really delicious. You can see the generous chunks of Chokato and Tigersquash. Along with the visible fruits, there’s a layer of Tchea fruits and Doughnutfruits. All the fruits go together well, and this starter can be a great start to your meal. I also enjoyed the Shiver Me Shrimp – fresh shrimp is placed simply on the rim of a cup filled with a spicy tyrannian Burnumup cocktail sauce. Very traditional, yet still very delicious.

The bad appetizers, for me, are the Tomato Cannonball and the Crusty Clam Surprise. The Tomato Cannonball has an interesting claim to fame: it’s the only dish I’ve ever seen around Neopia that was cooked by being shot out of a cannon. Unfortunately, being shot out of a cannon at high speeds has some nasty effects. The dish is just a squished tomato. If they could somehow shoot the tomato out of a cannon without the laws of physics acting on it, it would be a great dish. It’s too bad they can’t. Now, the Crusty Clam Surprise put me on edge right away (as does anything with the word “surprise” in it). The dish was certainly very surprising – in a bad way. It just tasted wrong. Are clams even supposed to be crusty?

On to the main dishes. This is the part of the meal that you’ll remember long after you’ve eaten it. It’s clearly the most important course, and the Golden Dubloon didn’t disappoint. Everything tasted fine, except for a couple of odd dishes. My favorites? I liked Barnacle Bill's Belt Busting Burger, Cap'n Threelegs' Cutlass Crusade, and Loretta Fontaine's Perfect Pizza. The burger was really big (hence the name) and was cooked to perfection. It’s also served with some really crispy onion rings. It got major points from me for the alliteration, too. The Cap'n Threelegs' Cutlass Crusade amazed me. It’s a juicy steak, served alongside a baked potato and some asparagus (the asparagus really made the dish great). It even came with a nifty little toy sword to play with after you’ve eaten. It’s also great for stealing your friends’ food when they’re not looking! As for Loretta Fontaine's Perfect Pizza, well, there’s really not much to say. It’s a perfect pizza.

The main-dish failures can be spotted from a mile away. I already mentioned my skepticism for any dish with the word “surprise” in it, and the word appears once again in the Slithering Squid Surprise – “the dish that wriggles as you eat”. I really don’t want anything wriggling as it’s in my mouth, thanks. I was also thoroughly disappointed with the Bilge Rat Madeira: it consists of a cooked rat (nasty) covered in Madeira sauce (and trust me, I had never heard of it – I had to look it up).

Ah, dessert. Every young pet wants to start with this course. At the Golden Dubloon, desserts seem to take priority over other courses: I only found one odd dessert here. I can safely say that you’d be perfectly fine ordering any of their fine desserts, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would definitely be the Forbidden Plunder. If you’re a fan of chocolate, this dessert has more of it than you’d ever want. It truly is more chocolate than you could possibly imagine.

The only bad dessert is quite obvious if you’ve ever seen the menu. The Squid On A Stick is just that – a squid on a stick. It’s frozen and covered in a similar cocktail sauce that was served with the Shiver Me Shrimp. Sadly, I just couldn’t finish this after eating the Slithering Squid Surprise earlier. I think it might be more suited to the Starters menu than the Dessert menu – there’s nothing sweet about it.

Now that dessert’s finally over, it’s time for cocktails. I enjoyed the Cannon Fodder, mostly because I’ll like anything that comes with a sparkler. The Keel Haul cocktail was also pretty good. The ErgyFruit Grog seems a bit out of place – isn’t that health food? You can’t be that concerned about health if you’re drinking pirate grog!

The main thing that annoyed me about the Cocktail menu was the inclusion of Grog Lite. Like I said before, why drink lite grog? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real pirate drinking Grog Lite, so why is it even offered? On the other end of the spectrum, there’s the Hogshead, filled to the top with the drink. Oh yes - now that’s how a pirate drinks their grog.

Overall, my meal at the Golden Dubloon was delicious. Dessert was especially good; only one dish was over-the-top. I can safely give the Golden Dubloon a 9 out of 10. If you remember, Kelp got a 9.5 from me. Although the meal was good, I couldn’t put the Golden Dubloon on the same level as Kelp. Keep trying, Golden Dubloon – if you keep pushing out good recipes and serve great food, you could be as great as the infamous Kelp one day.

Keep an eye out for my next review Spooky Food from the Deserted Fairground!