Asiana Club - Amazing economy meal: Ssambab

I just flew ICN-SFO this past Sunday and experienced Ssambab. It was amazing for a meal in Y! Is it typical to get this over bimbimbab? The Y meal quality ex-ICN is un-believable!

I've got it last year on ICN-LAX while LAX-ICN had only bibimbap. I took SFO-ICN-SFO last month, expected ssambap on ICN departure flight, but both had only bibimbap! Thought they stopped it, but good to hear that OZ still offers ssambap.

By the way, there was a thread about ssambap long ago here.

Add me to the list of people that prefer the ssambap over the bibimbap, although I could do without all the weird vegetation. Just give me a pile of romaine leaves :D

One word of warning. If you're flying in business class and want the ssambap (if it's offered), especially on a plane with a very limited number of business class seats, be sure to ask for it early and not when the FA comes to take your order. I prefer the last row of business class on these planes and I normally like the Korean selection. Several times they've run out of the Korean dish if there's several other Koreans onboard as they load a very limited number of them compared to the western dishes. The last time this happened to me the FA told me to order next time when I board, which I do now. On my last trip there were only three of us in C, me and two other Koreans. I sat behind them but ordered my bibimbap when I entered. When the FA came around to take the orders, the two Koreans both wanted bibimbap but the FA told them sorry but there wasn't enough for them. :) I find it surprising that they load more western dishes than Korean dishes, but guess that's probably because normally the western dishes are in more demand. Not sure if they'd allow you to request to hold a dish for you in economy or not, as I've never tried it.

One word of warning. If you're flying in business class and want the ssambap (if it's offered), especially on a plane with a very limited number of business class seats, be sure to ask for it early and not when the FA comes to take your order. I prefer the last row of business class on these planes and I normally like the Korean selection. Several times they've run out of the Korean dish if there's several other Koreans onboard as they load a very limited number of them compared to the western dishes [...]

Interesting .. I will need to remember that, thanks! :)

I just flew ICN-SFO this past Sunday and experienced Ssambab. It was amazing for a meal in Y! Is it typical to get this over bimbimbab? The Y meal quality ex-ICN is un-believable!

In Y, is there usually enough to go around or should I preorder the Korean selection? TIA.

LAX

When I flew in Oct, I was very few pax in Business Class that ordered Ssambap (ICN-LAX portion). It tasted pretty good ^. From observing other paxs, they opted for Western style dinner. It's their loss :).

Also, I think if you fly 747, you will have better chance to get Ssambap than 777 flights. My mom flew few days later on 777, she only had Bibimbap as the Korean meal choice.

For the record, I was on A320/A321 aircraft when the problems with not enough C meals occured. There's only 8 business class seats on the A320 and 12 on the A321. On one occasion I asked and they only loaded 2 Korean meals when there were 8 passengers in C. The other times I didn't ask how many Korean meals were loaded. Another time C was full (12 seats) with the other passengers all being Korean except for one who was Japanese. All the Koreans wanted the Korean meal. Other times I've seen all the Koreans wanting the Western meal. So it's real hit-and-miss I'd say.

I just had luck reserving ssambap as a special request, see my post I just made in the "Meals in business" thread.

Appropriate for this thread though, about the ssambap itself - I find the steamed rice to be a little too dry always for my liking. Probably it has to do with the way it needs to be prepared on the plane and they can't do much about it. But I found what is a very good solution for me. They also serve a type of soup with the meal, called "den jang kuk" (forgive my poor attempt to romanize the spelling). What I did was take several spoonfuls of the soup and pour it into the rice, then mix it up. Not only does it help with the problem of it being too dry, but it also adds a very delicious flavor to the rice, at least for my tastes. If you try this though, it might be best to not put the rice onto the lettuce/greens, but to pop the lettuce/bulgogi into your mouth, followed by a spoonful of rice, to avoid the rice leaking or falling out due to it not sticking together as much.