Seat 2A

Date of flight: February 4, 2015
Route flown: Seattle to Albuquerque
Time of Departure: 10:40am
Class of service: First
Length of flight: 2:16
Meal served: Luncheon
PDB Offered: Water bottle at seat
Main Course: Chicken Caesar Salad
Dessert: Seattle Chocolates Champagne
Comments: I've had the Caesar Salad before and it's a decent salad. Today I skipped it and tried out Tom Douglas' Cascade Chili instead. That'll be reviewed in a separate post. Seatmate had the salad though and it came with a good amount of grilled chicken with the croutons presented on the side in a plastic cup.

Seat 2A

Date of flight: February 4, 2015
Route flown: Seattle to Albuquerque
Time of Departure: 10:40am
Class of service: Coach
Length of flight: 2:16
Meal served: Tom Douglas' Cascade Chili
PDB Offered: Water bottle at seat

Comments: I've had the Caesar Salad before so today, in the interests of variety, I skipped it and instead tried out the $8.00 buy on board option being offered back in Coach - Tom Douglas' Cascade Chili. First of all, let me just say that I really like chili. It's been a part of American culinary lore since the late 1800s. I've been to a few chili cook offs and at one my entry came in 2nd. I think I have a pretty good idea of what a decent chili should taste like.

What I was served today aboard Alaska's flight to Albuquerque (of all places!!!) was unlike any chili I've ever had. Noticeably lacking was any spice whatsoever. Most chili is flavored with varying amounts of chili peppers and cumin in addition to other spices. In terms of flavor I detected neither cumin nor any peppery spice at all. It was more like a bland beef stew. I took a bite of the pepper all by itself and as was noted by another poster, it had no real flavor at all. I added a complete packet of salt to compensate for the bland nature of this "Chili".

That said, this dish was by no means inedible. With the addition of a complete packet of salt I thought it wasn't at all bad, especially if viewed as a mild beef and potato stew.

It'd be interesting to pay a visit to where Tom Douglas cooks and try out his chili there. If - as his write up mentions - he is a three-time James Beard award-winning chef, I should imagine he would produce a much better bowl of chili. I suspect however that in this case his chili recipe has been "dumbed down" in an unfortunate attempt to satisfy everybody on board Alaska's flights, including elderly hospice patients from places like Iceland and northern Canada as well as those with stomach ulcers and chronic IBS.

If future dishes will be required to be similarly bland, I've little doubt that Tom Douglas will rue the day he ever decided to get into the kitchen with an airline.

Seat 2A

Date of flight: February 5, 2015
Route flown: Seattle to Philadelphia
Time of Departure: 8:35am
Class of service: First
Length of flight: 4:30
Meal served: Breakfast
PDB Offered: Water bottle at seat, Coffee by request
Appetizer: Citrus Fruit Plate with Danish or Muffin
Main Course #1: Lemon Curd French Toast
Main Course #2: Scrambled Eggs with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Comments: No menus were offered, so I'm not sure that the title of the French Toast wasn't actually Lemon Curd Stuffed French Toast. I'm sure somebody will provide clarification within the next couple of weeks. In any event, service was slow to commence - I didn't see my first cup of coffee until 46 minutes into the flight - and another FA ended up coming up from coach to pass out the hot entrée trays. I suspect the young gal working up front was pretty green.

The citrus appetizer consisted of mostly grapefruit sections plus a couple of orange rounds. Two raspberries provided color and accent. It was a decent amount of fruit and overall a good start to the breakfast.

I ordered the French Toast and was served a plate bearing two half slices of toast, two pieces of bacon and some scrambled eggs. The French Toast appeared to have been lightly grilled and dusted, though quite obviously not completely cooked as evidenced by the fact that a good portion of the inside of each piece was raw, heated though uncooked white bread. My guess is that rather than properly soaking each slice of bread in an egg based lemon curd infused mixture, the "chefs" had instead brushed the mixture on to the outside of each piece. This would of course be much more cost effective and also explain why the middle of each piece was totally unaffected.

That said, the toast did have a decent hint of lemon flavor and, with the addition of syrup and gulps of hot coffee, it didn't taste all that bad. In fact it tasted half way decent. The bacon was thick and flavorful and the eggs were okay. Would I order the French Toast again? Probably not, but if someday it were all that were left for me in row four, I wouldn't be overly disappointed.

Keep in mind that your experience may vary from mine. Who knows how many of these breakfasts are produced each day in the flight kitchen and how fast they're prepared? Certainly some degree of carelessness or budget inspired cutbacks was evidenced in the portion I was served this morning. Seatmate drank Scotch all flight (4 glasses, then fell asleep for some reason without eating, thus depriving me of a chance to comment on his entree) and while the people across from me had the French Toast, it was too dark inside the cabin to discern the comparative aridity of their servings.

philemer

Date the flight was taken: 2/5/15
Route flown: OGG-PDX redeye
Class of service: F
Length of flight: 4hrs, 30 min.
Meal served: Snack (11:15pm departure)
A brief description of the meal: Cheese plate with walnuts, crackers & grapes

Just the right amount of food for a late-night snack. Decent red wine and a cheerful FA.

AKDan

2/7/15
AS 771 DCA - PDX
17:10 departure
5 hr 45 min flight
FA offered full PDB service
Meal:

Farro Salad with Warm Dinner Roll

Choice of Entrees:
Blackened Chicken with Creamy Polenta and Creamed Spinach or

Trident Hot Smoked Wild Alaskan Salmon Mac and Cheese with Steamed Broccoli

Dessert: Chuckanut Huckleberry Cheesecake

OO-SLC-CR9

Date: 7Feb
Flight: AS743 SLC-SFO.
Time: 08:00 AM MST, 1:42
Class: First Class, 50% full
PDB: Bottled Water - flight attendants commenting to each other how its so much easier now that they just offer water now, though during long time between door closure and push-back, Orange Juice and Coffee were offered.
Meal: "Snack" - Bagel and "hearty cream cheese" - tasted like salmon.

The bagel was great, it appeared to be whole wheat, with a cream cheese that had a salmon like taste. Also came with about 1/2 dozen blueberries, one blackberry and three mini pieces of cantaloupe.


Date: 7Feb
Flight: AS744 SFO-SLC.
Time: 21:00 PST, 1:14 (go go tailwinds)
Class: First Class, 100% full
PDB: Bottled water. Drink orders were taken after door closure for once we were up in the air.
Meal: "None" - Cookies and Cocktails

These are the same cookies I have had in the past in F, they are great, but you can't even hold them because they fall apart they are so gooey, but very very good.

LIH Prem

Date: 8 Feb 2015
Flight: AS885 SJC-OGG
Time: 08:40AM
Length: Block time was close to 6 hours. Actual time closer to 5:30
Class: First Class, full
PDB: Bottled Water
Meal: Breakfast

I was seated in 4F, when the FA taking orders got to our row, there was only 1 of the scrambled eggs left. I let my seatmate order first and told the FA I didn't care which one I got. Both actually sounded good to me, but I confess I wanted to try the scrambled eggs with shrimp. Later the FA came back and said he actually did have a choice for me and I told him what I wanted. In both cases, he thanked me for being an MVPG75.

Sorry, I forgot to take the pic of the main before I peppered it and tasted it It was all really good.

Nuts delivered later on in flight. Great service, good food nice presentation.

I liked the breakfast better than the dinner in the other direction.

FAs were offering Mimosas with guava juice and/or OJ .. very nice. I didn't imbibe on this flight.











-David

AKCuisine

Date: 2/9/15
Flight and Route: AS #172 ANC-PHX
Time of Departure: 9:45 AM
Length of flight: 5 hours 45 minutes
Class of service: First

Pre-Departure Beverage: Water bottles were at the seats upon boarding. FA later came around with a tray offering coffee or orange juice but no other beverages.


Meal served: Lunch

The flight attendant introduced herself and announced the menu while we were on the tarmac: "We have cod or tortellini." At that point there was no printed menu and no other details were provided. She took orders for the meal and beverages, and also asked each passenger how they'd like to be addressed.

A printed menu only appeared after we had already placed our orders and were in the air ...

Lunch Menu:
(spoiler alert - this is also the dinner menu for #171 PHX-ANC)




Despite orders being taken on ground, it took 45 minutes before warm towels arrived, then another 5 to 10 minutes before (slightly warm) mixed nuts our first beverages were delivered - to row 2. Not sure how long it took for folks in row 4 to receive anything. By the time my Sprite Zero arrived, the soda was flat and most of ice had already melted. It was obvious it - and the other drinks with ice - had been sitting in the galley quite a while.

A flight attendant from coach came forward and provided assistance to the F FA. As we approached the 1 1/2 hour mark, we finally had salads in row 2. The rolls were cold and hard - matching the butter.

I was not a fan of the bitter arugula salad with a hint of bitter dressing at bottom of plate, served with cold, hard pear wedges. The blue cheese and walnuts added little. Perhaps it would have been a bit better if the walnuts had been candied?

Arugula Salad with Grilled Pear:




Entrees didn't begin to appear until almost an hour after the salads. I opted for the Trident Parmesan crusted Alaskan cod with scalloped potatoes and sauteed chard.

The fish was moist and flaky, but both it and the scalloped potatoes were so over-seasoned they were almost like a salt licks. The "sauteed" Swiss chard was merely wilted. It seems that catering has a thing for bitter greens this month ...

Trident Parmesan Crusted Alaskan Cod:




I had a glass of wine with lunch. That was apparently the last of the white wine, as the FA told the folks in row 3 they had run out. (I later was told catering only stocked 2 bottles instead of the usual 4 on that route.)

I asked when dessert would be served (so I could get out my computer and do some prep for work). Second FA told us it would be 10 minutes. We waited. And waited. About 35-40 minutes later the apple pie finally arrived. The cinnamon-sugar topping clumped in spots so some bites were cloyingly sweet while other bites were sour. It really needed ice cream.

Slightly Warn Apple Pie:




I was told the Shepherd's Pie was the offering in coach.

AKCuisine

Flight and Route: AS #171 PHX-ANC
Time of Departure: 6:30 PM
Length of flight: 6 hours
Class of service: First

Pre-Departure Beverage: Water bottles were at the seats upon boarding. No other PDB was offered, yet there were no problems with boarding or any other reason why a beverage could not be offered.

On most of my longer flights this year the FAs began taking beverage and meal orders while we were still on the tarmac. During this flight beverage & entree orders taken once we were in the air. Warm towels (also known as damp gauze 4x4s ... ) were then passed out.

Meal served: Dinner

The meal was the same as the lunch service on #172 ANC-PHX.

Dinner Menu:




I asked the FA to skip my salad course because I'm not fond of that much arugula. (And the batch served on the way down to PHX seemed extra bitter.)

My entree was supposed to be cheese tortellini with cherry tomato sauce and Italian sausage. What I received for dinner looked nothing like the dish that my seatmate was served for lunch on the ANC-PHX segment.

The pasta dish was the ugliest mess I've seen in quite a while. The arugula - that I'd specifically turned down due to it's bitterness - was dumped on top of wide ribbons of tough parmesan. Buried somewhere under those layers were a few pieces of tortellini.


Tortellini with Cherry Tomato Sauce and Italian Sausage:

Topped with the arugula from the salad that I had declined:




Tortellini with the arugula removed:




The tortellini were mushy and could have used salt (but no packets were available). I tried to eat a bit of the sausage but it was dry and not to my liking.

I skipped over the apple pie dessert course. It's too bad they aren't catering more of the little individual Chuckanut Cheesecakes - those are fabulous.

inf1nite

Date the flight was taken: 2/9
Route flown: DCA-SEA
Class of service: F
Length of flight: 5:50
Meal served: Breakfast
A brief description of the meal: Mexican style fruit and bacon & leek quiche


Date the flight was taken: 2/12
Route flown: SJC-PDX
Class of service: F
Length of flight: 1:45
Meal served: Snack
A brief description of the meal: Warm whole grain bagel w/smoked salmon cream cheese and a little paper cup of fruit


Date the flight was taken: 2/12
Route flown: PDX-DCA
Class of service: F
Length of flight: 5:00
Meal served: Lunch
A brief description of the meal: Arugula/grilled pear salad and cheese tortellini

chrisremo

Date the flight was taken: 2/16
Route flown: SEA-SFO
Class of service: F
Length of flight: 2:00
Departure time: 6:05am
Meal served: Snack
A brief description of the meal: Warm whole grain bagel w/ smoked salmon cream cheese and assorted fruit

This was the same meal inf1nite was served so I won't bother posting my own photo. The only difference was that the fruit on mine was served on the plate rather than in a cup, and it appears there was more of it.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty good given the length of the flight. I wish the bagel had been a little warmer but the salmon spread was nice.

No PDB was offered, which was a bit surprising since boarding was on time and efficient, and the crew was otherwise extremely courteous and enthusiastic. My coat was proactively taken and returned. Good flight all told.

djp98374

b]Date the flight was taken:[/b] 2/15
Route flown: SEA-MCI
Class of service: F
Length of flight: ~3 hrs
Departure time: 10:15am
Meal served: lunch
A brief description of the meal: Something described as a chicket pot pie. also included was one piece of seatle chocolates. It was more like croissant style dough used for the bottom and top.

tusphotog

2/16 PHX-SEA 8a departure: everyone's favorite: polenta! I wasn't upgraded but I got to experience the smells wafting back to row 6. The sauce actually smells pretty good IMO.

2/18 SEA-PHX 1230p departure: chicken cesar salad & "extreme dark" Seattle's chocolate. It was pretty good, actually. The lettuce wasn't black, brown or slimy for once.

cblaisd

Ditto, except

SEA-STL
2/19/15
11:45am, 3+hours

It was truly unappetizing, verging on United quality.

tusphotog

2/23 LAX-PDX 1030a departure: quiche with a side salad and chocolate.

2/26 SEA-PHX 645p departure: chicken parm, side salad and chocolate. This was actually pretty good, despite the chicken being "Ethiopian famine portioned."