SATIN NAPKINS, celadon plates, in a dining room separated by a stretch of sea, well away from everything you dislike about living on land. Surely, a cruise ship might be an answer to something.

The Superstar Virgo by the Star Cruises line docked in Manila earlier this week as a stop on its present route. This stop was also a way for the cruise line to present its new destinations: Naha and Ishigaki in Okinawa, Japan, and Keelung in Taiwan. This summer itinerary, to be launched on March 5, will also call Manila its home port, for the second time in the ship’s history, with its first Manila deployment beginning last year.

Fantasies of being a first-class passenger on the Titanic (You’ve got to dream big, after all) were immediately ignited once guests from the media boarded the ship on Jan. 15.

We were led to the Star Dining Room, the ship’s main galley. While certainly the ship has other restaurants (it has about nine more, two serving Chinese, the others serving Pan-Asian, Japanese, Mediterranean, Italian, Indian, and “Western” cuisine), this is where most passengers can get a meal as included in their fee. We were most surprised to find out that this bare minimum, well, let me summarize it, gets you a tenderloin fillet and a lobster thermidor and smoked salmon topped with caviar.

More than 20 kitchens and storage areas feed these restaurants, and the ship can comfortably handle about 2,000 passengers. Overseeing the massive operation, employing more than a hundred chefs is executive chef Chuah Chong Hooi, who hails from Malaysia.

Apparently, on a cruise ship, adjustments depend on the location. “We cannot please everybody,” he said. Tastes differs by country, and so adjustments to preferences are made depending on where they are.

Supplies, meanwhile, are replenished every week, with most fresh seafood and vegetables brought onboard from either Shanghai or Japan. They do run out, sometimes, which is why menus have to be planned accordingly.

As for cooking, Mr. Chuah says that open-flame cooking isn’t favored too much on board as it could be a fire hazard. Instead, induction cookers and hotplates are employed for the purpose.

With new passengers coming aboard at every stop, he mentioned that each meal (five meals a day by his count) has to be planned accordingly depending on who comes on board: for example, for this stop in Manila, Filipino passengers apparently prefer sit-down meals, while the Chinese passengers brought over from Shanghai prefer buffet-style service.

“Eating patterns are different,” he said. — J. L. Garcia

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