Dining at Dragon Lady on P&O Cruises



This post may contain affiliate links that I earn a small commission from at no cost to you. Please see my disclosure page for information.

The Dragon Lady is one of the complimentary speciality dining options onboard P&O Australia’s entire fleet of cruise ships. It is an inspired ala carte dining option with dishes from all over Asia including Japan, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and India. Most recently, we’ve eaten here onboard P&O Pacific Explorer, and it is arguably some of the best food on board.

Dragon Lady Restaurant Sign

The Dragon Lady Menu

You can check the current ‘sample’ menu via P&O’s website here, however, the sample menu (at least at the time of writing) is the same as the menu on Pacific Explorer.

You have a choice, you can choose your own selection, or go with the chef’s set menu. When you make your own menu selections, the portion sizes are adjusted to be entree and main sizes, or if you go with the set menu then the dish sizes are reduced so you can try more options.

If there are things you don’t want on the standard set menu, you can replace them with other dishes from the menu by letting your waiter or waitress know.

You might also like:

Chopsticks at Dragon Lady

We opted to go with the chef’s set menu, but as we don’t eat pork or prawns, and my wife has coeliac disease, we replaced a couple of the dishes. So our customised menu looked like this:

To Awake (aka Starters)

Seasonal Pear Orange and Ginger Shooters

Pear Orange and Ginger Shots at the Dragon Lady on P&O Pacific Explorer

These are non-alcoholic and are deliciously refreshing. For those that aren’t big on ginger, it is noticeable but it is very well balanced so as not to be overpowering.

Crisp Fried Kumara, Beetroot and Plaintain Chips

Kumera, Beetroot and Plantain Chips at Dragon Lady on P&O Pacific Explorer

These chips are pretty similar to the veggie chips you can find in the health-food aisles of most supermarkets these days, with the exception of the plantain chips that I’ve never seen before. They are served to the table for sharing along with a selection of three dipping sauces.

Table sauce at Dragon Lady restaurant on P&O

Sauce number one is a mildly burning but delectable jalapeño-wasabi sauce.

Sauce number two is gentle on the palette and perhaps the nicest sweet chilli sauce I’ve tasted.

Sauce number three is the one for those warm-blooded people that want absolutely no warmth at all in their sauce, a sesame-soy sauce. This sauce is also the only one that is not gluten-free. Gluten-free soy sauce is available though for those that would like it instead.

To Embrace (aka Entrees)

Tempura Crusted Uramaki Sushi
Ocean trout, cream cheese, and avocado with wasabi mayonnaise.

Tempura Crusted Uramaki Sushi

I quite enjoyed this sushi. The flavours are yum, and the crispy tempura crust adds some great textural variation, but it would be fair to say it is not very true to what sushi is. The rice is not sushi rice and seems to have been processed into a finer texture. It’s almost more like a savoury rice pudding in roll form.

Gluten-Free Uramaki Sushi
Ocean trout, cream cheese, and avocado with wasabi mayonnaise. The gluten-free version doesn’t have the tempura crust or wasabi mayonnaise, and for some reason is also missing the seaweed salad.

Gluten-free Uramaki Sushi

Coriander and Turmeric Beef Satays
Carrot salad, green onions and yoghurt. This dish is already gluten-free.

Coriander Turmeric Beef Satays at Dragon Lady

Yuuuuum! The carrot salad is pickled so it might not be for everyone, but the Malaysian inspired beef satay skewers are absolutely delicious! This was definitely the stand-out entree for us.

The Essentials (aka Mains)

Szechuan Blackened Salmon
Wasabi pea puree, beetroot, minted cucumber and chicharon.

Szechuan Blackened Salmon at Dragon Lady

The salmon is tasty and goes very well with the pea puree, beetroot relish, and minted cucumber. I didn’t think to ask what chicharon is at the time, but it turns out it is usually either fried chicken or pork skin. So I don’t know what kind it is, and I don’t recall even noticing it at the time, but you can see it in the picture above.

If you are worried about the wasabi pea puree, there is no need to be. We didn’t even notice the wasabi, it just tasted like pureed peas.

Aromatic Yellow Curry Duck Confit
New potatoes, broccoli and sugar snaps.

Yellow Curry Duck Confit at Dragon Lady

Ramen-Fried Chicken
Fragrant honey and pink pepper dipping sauce. Unfortunately, this dish could not be made gluten-free.

Ramen-Fried Chicken at Dragon Lady on P&O

Ooooh boy. Where to even start! KFC move over, this fried chicken is the bee’s knees.

With hints of honey and a dipping sauce with just a little bite to it, this was my top pick of the savoury dishes we tried. I almost never eat meat at home, but this is one of those moreish dishes you just want to keep coming back to. Or at least I did anyway.

To Cool and Calm (aka Dessert)

The dessert menu isn’t shown with the sample menu on P&O’s website, so I’ve included it below.

Dragon Lady Restaurant Dessert Menu

Having approximately six sweet teeth instead of one, and seeing as how all of the desserts are gluten-free, we naturally opted to try them all.

Flourless Five-Spice Chocolate Pudding
Coffee syrup and mango sherbet.

Flourless Five-Spice Chocolate Pudding at Dragon Lady Restaurant

The pudding is a cake on the outside with a soft gooey centre. Very chocolatey. The coffee syrup is just the smear on the plate, so it isn’t very noticeable if you aren’t into the coffee flavour. The mango sherbet is pretty amazing, especially with the mint leaf and is probably my favourite part of this dessert.

Peanut Butter Parfait
Soft chocolate, roasted peanuts and salted butterscotch.

Peanut Butter Parfait at Dragon Lady Restaurant

This one was wifey’s favourite dessert, and I’ve got to admit, it’s pretty inspired! The peanut flavour is subtle and it has a distinct peanut brittle flavour when combined with the salted butterscotch sauce. The soft chocolate ball on top is super rich and very dark. Normally a peanut and chocolate dish would take the cake for me, and this is up there with one of the best peanut and chocolate dishes I’ve had, buuuuut….

Carrot Halwa
Cardamom, pistachios and passionfruit ice cream.

Carrot Halwa at Dragon Lady Restaurant

I really, really, really enjoyed this carrot halwa. I’ve had it elsewhere before, but this was so yum. If I had to play favourites, I’d put this one down as my favourite solid dessert. I have to distinguish between solid and liquid dessert because…..

Dragon Lady’s Apple Caramel Milkshake
Watermelon granita.

Dragon Lady's Apple Caramel Milkshake

The Dragon Lady’s Apple Caramel Milkshake is unbelievable!

Like, wow.

:O

This is the one. This is it.

I’ve had apple with caramel before in the form of crumbles and pies, but in a milkshake is unusual. Add in the watermelon granita and this flavour combination is mind-blowing!

Or at least I thought so anyway. Wifey didn’t think it was so great. 🙂

What’s your favourite?

Well, that’s it. We haven’t tried every dish, but Dragon Lady would definitely be one of our favourite places to dine on P&O, and we love the fact that it is a complimentary speciality restaurant. In other words, you don’t pay any extra for it. So, what about you? Do you like the food and atmosphere at Dragon Lady? And of course, what are your favourite dishes here?

Cruising Tips and Tricks

Don’t know what to budget for a cruise?
Cruise costs can vary wildly depending on your travel style, length of the cruise, number of ports, and more. Learn more about what costs to expect and how much to budget.

Save money on your foreign currency purchases
Foreign currency transactions can cost you a lot in exchange fees. On a cruise, you can visit multiple countries using multiple currencies in a single trip and foreign cash purchases can be expensive.

I use and recommend TransferWise Borderless accounts with an attached multi-currency debit card. These accounts can save you loads on foreign exchange.

Read more about how to save money on foreign currency purchases using TransferWise.

Book Your Before & After Accommodation
For smaller cruise terminals, like Sydney’s White Bay, your best bet is to book a nearby Airbnb. For most major international cruise terminals you can usually find hotels nearby. I use Agoda for most non-USA destinations as I find they typically return the cheapest prices. For the USA, I use Booking.com.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance
Travel insurance will help to protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. On cruises, this can be a very big deal. Airlifts at sea are not cheap. I never go on a trip without it.

Not sure what to take?
I’ve got an article coming up soon all about my essential cruise gear! Make sure you sign up to be notified when it is published.

Want More Information on Cruising?
Head over to my Cruise section for more planning tips!

If this article helped make your life a little bit easier, please consider booking or purchasing through one of our links. It won’t cost you anything but will help keep this site going!

Save money on your holiday

Travel Money & Currency Conversion: We use both Up Bank and Wise for the best currency conversion rates with support for Apple Pay and Android Pay plus excellent in-app customer support while you are travelling.

Flights: We check a few sites for different prices. Travelling from Australia, I always check Qantas directly for reward flights, but otherwise, I check and compare the cost of flights with SkyScanner. It’s always worth checking alternative routes and days, especially where there are multiple stopover options or nearby alternative airports.

Accommodation: We usually book through Agoda as we find their prices are the lowest and cancellation policies + loyalty benefits work out the best. We also use Airbnb from time to time.

Car Rental: We use AutoEurope to compare rental car prices with all the big international brands like Europcar, Budget, Hertz and Avis. We usually end up using Avis or Europcar as they offer the best deals (make sure to check their current offers for bonus discounts) and both maintain their vehicles well with relatively new fleets.

Tours & Activities: We generally try to book activities through one of these third-party sites ViatorGet Your Guide & Klook due to their flexible cancellation policies (saved us a lot of money trying to travel post-COVID) and price guarantees (often better prices than booking direct). We also book through Red Balloon on occasion for more unique Aussie and NZ activities.

4 thoughts on “Dining at Dragon Lady on P&O Cruises”

  1. Looking forward to our first P & O Cruise for our 55th Wedding Anniversary. We are departing on the 28/1/20 for Singapore. The Dragon Lady Restaurant looks great. Hope there is a great variety of dumplings (Chinese & Japanese style). Also love sushi with caviar & most of the other things on the Menu apart from chili.

    Reply
    • Enjoy Alex! I’m keen to do one of the Singapore repositioning routes one of these days so a little jealous there 🙂 We have been very impressed with the Dragon Lady restaurant. Hopefully, it won’t disappoint you, however, unless the menu is updated between now and your sailing there are no dumplings on the menu at all. There are Japanese inspired gyoza though. Even so, everything that we have had at the Dragon Lady has been great. It’s probably our favourite restaurant on the P&O fleet at the moment. On a side note, you might be able to pre-order dumplings if you ask at the time you make your restaurant booking. We’ve only pre-ordered gluten-free dishes, but they haven’t always been variations of what is on the menu. My wife has ordered completely custom gluten-free dishes at Angelo’s, so it MIGHT be possible to special order other things too. Worth asking anyway. Have an awesome cruise on P&O!

      Reply
    • It is soooo good! It’s probably my favourite restaurant on P&O Australia’s ships! If you get a chance, a cruise is so much fun! It’s my wife and I’s favourite way to travel, even if it is a bit slower 🙂

      Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Who Am I?

Matt in Noumea

Matt works sort-of full time running his digital marketing business, TerraMedia. In his spare time though, he loves to travel with his wife, so they usually end up doing a lot of it.
Home is Australia, and while they don’t spend all their time travelling the world, Matt and his wife like to take the time to really explore and get to know a place, even if that means spending a lot longer there than normal tourists might.

You can read more about Matt and his story HERE.

Currently reading

Sponsored

Subscribe Now For The Latest Updates