Airline Food Fans Unite

[Flying Fox]

Well after flying within the USA in Y, I swore that I would never complain about QF Y.

So not only do I enjoy the QF food but I count myself lucky that I don't fly within the USA often.

 

[skeeo]

really enjoyed the muffin sized pink cupcake i had a few months back on qantas, haven't had another since :/

 

[SnowYeti]

Well after flying within the USA in Y, I swore that I would never complain about QF Y.

So not only do I enjoy the QF food but I count myself lucky that I don't fly within the USA often.

NA food is weird, you either get something small, or a packet of chips and a chocolate bar! How great is that if you're health conscious!

 

[tuapekastar]

I generally eat most of what is put in front of me on QF (no comments from the peanut gallery thanks)! I do tend to avoid the pasta dishes as a rule...just something about them.

 

[jingles]

really enjoyed the muffin sized pink cupcake i had a few months back on qantas, haven't had another since :/

I know the one.

It wasnt bad, I have a feeling there was more sugar than muffin though..

 

[moa999]

Only disasters I have had.

JQ *Class - SYD-HNL - Bacon and Egg roll - looked like it had been fetched out of a bin out the back of Maccas.

IB J - MAD-DME - Fish or Quail as the only option. Pass

Qantas Y, generally pretty good, although Air Nostrum (IB Regional) takes the cake for short flights.

 

[SnowYeti]

The best ever food (well I wouldn't call it food) was on a Mount Hotham (MHU) to SYD. Sure it's only a short flight, tad longer than SYD-CBR, but there was about 4 people and the FA kept giving everyone crackers and cheese and kept re-filling our wine glasses.... everyone was happy. I remember enjoying the crackers so much lol

 

[Bundy Bear]

QF whY rissoles with potato and other veggies .

Another one who also enjoys that meal.

Like a few others I have never had a bad airline meal; yes some have been unusual like the green cold noodles I had on Finnair last year but generally most parts of the meal have been eatable.

 

[newflyer]

Some good (and interesting) replies here - thanks!

My highlight for this week was a J dinner service, Adelaide to Sydney. Lamb cutlets with carmelised onion, mashed potato and roast capsicum - it was so good I had to ask if seconds were available (and yes, they were)!

Completely agree with ejb's comments re dinner on red-eye flights from PER or DRW -kinda wonder why they bother, esp. when FA told me that the majority of folks don't want them ("so sure, I could have seconds, thirds or fourths, if I really wanted"!). Again, thanks to Force 10 metabolism and a nice new road bike, I did, thanks very much!

 

[jingles]

yes some have been unusual like the green cold noodles I had on Finnair last year

That reminds me of a muffin i had on a Garuda flight some time ago.

It was a muffin with some apple pieces on top however they had gone to the extent of using food dye to colour the entire muffin green!

It tasted fine, but i dont think the colouring was necessary.

 

[Ms Lucy]

Bit of a fan of airline food myself. Fond memories of enjoying a particularly delicious lime icecream while watching Harry Potter in QF J class SYDCNS or DRWCNS in 2007!

(In fact ALL of the food on my J class adventure MELSYD / SYDCNS / CNSDRW - travelling on Award booking and the ONLY time I've travelled up the pointy end - was very nice, and the red wines fabulous.)

 

[v8Statesman]

I have to say the garlic bread in CX J is the yummiest! The cabin smells so good when food service is on because of it!

 

[dede]

After sampling some appaling food in Economy on AA NRT-JFK last year I wasn't sure what to expect in First on some domestic flights I recently took. I was surprised to find they give you a metal knife to eat with! One of the meals was a lovely breaded chicken with steamed sweet potato, bread roll and a dessert.
Top notch!
I'm still not sure that the Yanks would know a good red wine if they fell over one though! The red wine was passable so Vodka Cranberry became my drink of choice (when in Rome!)

 

[medhead]

I'm sure the food in J is great.

But Y food is a joke on the whole. Green curry today on DRW-ADL quite good, but the exception. But being a weekend flight I have to buy a beer! They serve free grog during the week but not on weekends!

most of my flights it is not a meal service but snack.

pfft snack. what an absolute insult, 2 biscuits that are a fusion of flavours picked by some half-wit who gives us rosemary and cheese shortbread or something stupid like that. As for enjoying the cereal, I stopped enjoying soggy bits of cardboard (cornflakes and milk) when I was about 11 years old.

But each to there own. Personally, I find airline food for the most part wholely uninspiring. of course swmbo is a great cook as well.

 

[JohnK]

I generally eat most of what is put in front of me on QF (no comments from the peanut gallery thanks)! I do tend to avoid the pasta dishes as a rule...just something about them.

Can't say I am a fan of airline food but most of the time I do eat what is put in front of me even if the pasta dishes are very bland.

I do not like cereal, muesli, bran or cornflakes so I just drink the milk and leave the rest alone.

Colourless, bland and tasteless, the meal had had any life frozen out of it.

I don't quite understand how airlines manage to do this to the food. My mother has frozen leftover food many times and most of the time the food has tasted better after it has been defrosted and heated.

Can't for the life of me understand why anyone would want to go to a restaurant and pay to eat airline food.

 

[Evan]

<..>

I don't quite understand how airlines manage to do this to the food. My mother has frozen leftover food many times and most of the time the food has tasted better after it has been defrosted and heated.
<..>

Funny i think the same, re-heated pizza the next morning is miost welcome

 

[simongr]

I have to say the garlic bread in CX J is the yummiest! The cabin smells so good when food service is on because of it!

I noticed a bit of a deterioration in the CX Garlic bread last year

I'm sure the food in J is great.

But Y food is a joke on the whole. Green curry today on DRW-ADL quite good, but the exception. But being a weekend flight I have to buy a beer! They serve free grog during the week but not on weekends!

pfft snack. what an absolute insult, 2 biscuits that are a fusion of flavours picked by some half-wit who gives us rosemary and cheese shortbread or something stupid like that. As for enjoying the cereal, I stopped enjoying soggy bits of cardboard (cornflakes and milk) when I was about 11 years old.

I turned down the whY breakfast on my last flight and couldnt work out whY I had done that - the cereal is actually the same as I have at work - some muesli nut cluster thing...

I dont really understand the "no free booze at weekends" thing. Surely the weekend IS the time to have a relaxing few beers?

 

[oz_mark]

I dont really understand the "no free booze at weekends" thing. Surely the weekend IS the time to have a relaxing few beers?

Less 'high yield' business passengers flying on the weekends. More leisure flyers.

 

[anat0l]

Some interesting posts here. And some very familiar foods around.

My two cents about QF food:

• Since I fly plenty of domestic, I tend to see the same snacks appear over and over again. Recently the National Breast Cancer pink cup cake seems to be featuring, this time not served in a packet but out of a box. The apricot tea cakes are very nice, and I wouldn't mind seeing the apple tea cake slices come back.
• • Breakfasts - I used to balk at the continental breakfast all the time but since losing weight I've come to appreciate it's value. At least the honey snaps are better than the Just Right (*flame shield on*); I had a LFML for breakfast once and got a packet of Cornflakes, which is healthier but they only supplied the shallow dish to eat it out of!
  • I'm glad they got rid of the McMuffins!
  • During my last SC run, on the first CBR-SYD flight of the day they served a cookie. A muffin or a cereal/museli bar would have been more appropriate.
  • I like the toasted museli and Bircher museli in the QPs; I'm also starting to develop a liking for the poached plumped apricots. I can never make a decent piece of toast in the QP...
• Lunch - I wish hot lunches on domestic came back (excluding PER flights - that's obvious). Although most of the sandwiches are tolerable - I just wish they put less butter, or no butter. I had a LFML lunch once and got a wholegrain bread sandwich with just - get this - lettuce, tomato and....butter! No more LFML lunches ever again!
• • Dinner - I can't count how many times I've been offered either Kung Pao Chicken or Beef Borigiouno (I can't spell it, it's essentially a stew of sorts). The chicken is OK, although I can't help but balk a bit every time I have it on board. Like many on this board, my favourite so far is the Meat Rissole served with polenta and beans. The lamb curry I had during my last trip was also quite tasty.
  • One time they served a tagatelle with meatballs, which wasn't bad. However at one stage they had a pasta with "beef and tomato ragu (sic)", and that was poor.
• J domestic meals - refreshments in J are always not, i.e. they are more substantial and usually quite tasty. Last most unusual one I had was a zucchini and boccocini soup on the last MEL-BNE flight, which was surprisingly delicious. J dinners can be a bit of a lark; the choice is always a salad or some dish involving rice (last times I think it was lamb stew and before that teriyaki salmon). J breakfasts are a nice change from the regular.

International meals. Thankfully, most of my international travel so far has been in premium (i.e. JQ *C, J or F):

• • Continental breakfast on SYD-AKL J on my last run had a nice museli, but I would not recommend it one second for those without strong teeth - they'll be mauled (no pun intended). I had a croissant from the warm bakery that was partially burnt and very crispy to the point that instead of splitting it open I just put my spread on the crispy underside. My seat mate had the omelette, which he said was off target, so eggs seem like a hit and miss article.
    However, the frittata I had on AKL-SYD J wasn't that bad - ugly but quite tasty.
  • LA put up a pretty average warm breakfast of omelette and chicken loaf last time I flew the OMG o'clock AKL-SYD, but perhaps I was biased because I was absolutely buggered at that time of the morning.
  • BA CW breakfast is quite satisfactory (the early morning arriving flights into SYD are always a very small breakfast) - a nice bircher museli was offered - although they served this Japanese yoghurt which is super-duper-smooth but quite sweet. Bacon butties (sans sauce) made an appearance as well. Some fruit would have been nice.
• Trans-Tasman J dinner on QF aren't too bad, but they are almost always the same: Asian meal with rice or vegetarian tomato-based pasta (albeit tasty), side salad (Greek style, but various ingredients); dessert is cheese plate or passionfruit icecream with biscotti.
• I did SYD-KIX-SYD in January on JQ *C - all nice meals and refreshments. Very basic and Y-like, but tasty nonetheless. I can relate to the person who said they were well fed with cheesecake and Bailey's!
• • I had my first QF F meal in my last trip (dinner) and went with the degustation. All I can say for the uninitiated - pace yourself! Some very elegant and nice, tasty food there, though. This is not the kind of food you enjoy by scarfing it down as fast as you can... but if you so insist, at least there is plenty of other food you can have from the on-board kitchen...
  • BA CW dinner wasn't too bad (ex-SIN so shorter dinner than ex-LHR), but I wish I had ordered the chicken or steak rather than the pasta, which turned out to be satisfactory in taste but a disappointing choice all up. (The chicken was a "Roast Asian Chicken" which I auto-assumed to be pedestrian; I almost always never order steak outside of BNE...)

And finally, lounges:

• QF SYD and MEL FLs - 'nuff said, brilliant.
• Nice to see that QPs (and J Lounges) now have some hot food at dinner time.
• NZ KCs >>> QF QPs at dinner time. Had a very nice "fish pie" with spinach rice pilaf last time I was in the CHC KC.

 

[medhead]

Less 'high yield' business passengers flying on the weekends. More leisure flyers.

Actually, that isn't quite right. I was a high yield business passenger on that flight and there were many the same who had all been in Darwin for the same business reason (with 300 attendees) as me for the week and who'd missed the only direct flight on friday (due to lack of seats). Not to mention the large number of military passengers.