Tuesday 1st May, PER-SYD 2pm departure “dinner” flight:
Thoroughly enjoyed the nice Domestic Business lounge with its pizza oven and a layout very similar to the equally nice Business lounge in Brissy. These new domestic lounges are a real winner for Qantas and the dirty old shed in Sydney pales in comparison. Boarding was announced about ten minutes earlier than expected and being a bigger A330 plane, priority boarding worked a treat through the separate finger leading to the front of the J cabin.
It took them a while to get into th swing of things but in the end the usual sparkling rose toilet water by Maggie Beer or still was offered. Having made that sparkling insult to my tastebuds once before, I settled for water this time around. The menu, already by the seat, read as follows:
Once up in the air, meal choices were taken. As on my outbound flight, choices were taken row by row rather than in order of FF status but at least both rows had one crew member each this time which meant the more forwards, the earlier your order (I was in 2A so very pleased with this). I usually love the soups on Qantas but have had that potato and leek one so often recently that I decided to be a bit more “adventurous” and decided for the duck. The main was a no brainer for me with the pork though it was served with one of the worst possible sides, spinach (yikes!). How anyone could think that serving mussles (!!!) on an airplane is a riddle to me but hey.
Pre-dinner drink service took ages to start and I asked for a Bloody Mary again. While it had been so lovely on th flight out, this one was hardly spicey at all and a big disappointment. Consistency anyone? Nope. Likewise, while we had pretzel and almond mix out of a bag last time, it was little plates of cold almonds instead this time around. They tasted stale and some even had that distinct “off” flavour of rotten almonds so hardly possible to eat as all. Give me the packaged pretzel and almond mix over this any time!
My mood lifted when I got served the starter- this cold duck salad was a revelation! The rather subtle taste of the duck was complimented by the pickled Wombok and the mustard dressing added even more of a flavour punch. Delicious, exotic, unexpected- by far the best dish I had on QF domestic in ages.
Relatively shortly after, the main was served. I never really get the cutlet thing as it’s really hard to cut on an airplane but it keeps the meat from being too dry I guess. The sides were both pretty horrid, I would have preferred normal mash to “parsnip mash” any day but with lots of pepper and salt (and wine) managed to swallow it down. Not so with the spinach which I removed from my plate straight away as such disgusting greens won’t make it into me EVER. Luckily, for now, no one had ordered the mussels so at least we all could enjoy our mains without a fishy stink throughout the cabin. Oh- and about the wine choice, it was disappointingly exactly the same ones as on the outbound flight which I found rather silly. Choice was two whites, the
Shaw+Smith Sav Blanc or the Dandelion Chardonnay and one red, the Eden Hall Cab Sav. All three show up in my mixed boxes from Epicure rather regularly so knew them only too well. As I had the Dandelion and the red on my way out, I opted for the S+S this time and wasn’t disappointed. While I’m usually not a fan of Sav Blancs, this particular one must be one of the best Aussies Sav Blancs around and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Finally, the desert was offered and needless to say, I went for the cheese. As on the way out, the selection of cheeses was excellent and I loved the dried apples as a side for a change. Unfortunately, right at this point in the flight a tiny Asian lady in row 5 decided it’s a good moment to order the mussels so the enjoyment of th cheese was hindered by the awful and strong smell of rotten seafood. I saw a few passengers making a face of disgust but hey, that one passenger enjoyed her mussels so I bet that’s worth inconveniencing the rest of Business Class!
