Swiss Tony

So I know BA's ability to serve beef is much maligned, and indeed I've been on the receiving end of many a bit of shoe leather, even at the pointy end.

I recall some time ago there was talk that the new planes would be fitted with steam ovens and the world would be a happier place. Did that ever happen. And has it made BA any better at cooking steak so it doesn't take most of teh flight to chew your way through it?

Can I help you

I would suggest you ask to be served a little later than the other customers and ask for your steak to served rare, all the ovens in First are now steam ovens so it should be fine.

gustavmahler

Even the 744s? Good tip about asking for it a bit later - thanks for that.

Can I help you

Yes, when NF is installed the ovens are changed.

where2travel

I asked for mine to be served as rare as possible coming back from KUL in F on Tuesday night with no success. I would have just assumed my request had been forgotten, except that the crew member bringing the steak commented as she put the dish down, saying "Hopefully this is OK, she [the other crew member] took it out of the oven as soon as possible." Not the worst I've had but certainly not great.

The catering was all a bit of a comedy of errors though, starting with the fact that they couldn't find any of the F white wines or champagnes. Apparently the crew had been looking everywhere for them until they conceded defeat and we had to settle for the Club World wine list, so out came the Castleneau!

Still, it was nice to try the 787 in F and, when I get chance, I'll write up a few general comments and thoughts about it.

Swiss Tony

Thanks all.

Will report back.

Nuster

It was totally cooked through. Not exactly leather but certainly overcooked. But I had plenty of time to kill as I was 6th in the queue for the bathroom

badoc

This is a pointless dish to order if you actually like rare meat. I wish airlines would just stop it. It doesn't work when there is a globally recognised cooking scale that is so wildly different. A shame really, as you don't need much to cook a good steak - but certainly not steam.

Swiss Tony

I disagree. If I'm not mistaken, BA largely serves grass fed beef. This has a far lower fat content than grain fed, so it means it has different cooking properties. Now, on the basis that even your average US carrier can turn out a decent steak in J, the only solution I can think of is to find a way to augment the cooking process.

It's not ideal but the steam should help open up the fibres of the meat, making it easier to cut and probably tastier, too. So the real solution is for BA to serve grain fed steak, but in the absence of it doing that - and we're not going to get smoking hot griddles at 40,000ft any time soon - a bit of steam is the best we can hope for.

Land-of-Miles

I find that the way to find out about whether you will have acceptably cooked beef is to check the flight number and if it has a BA in front of it then the beef will generally be bad.

It is nothing to do with the underlying quality of the meat and everything to do with the instructions the cabin crew are given re: cooking. Steaks are supplied to BA pre-seared and cooked medium rare. All that should be required is flash heating to make them warm and they are good to serve. BA insist that the internal temperature is at a level which means that the steak will end up horribly overcooked. They are not being cooked from raw so do not need a griddle.

Mr 1A

The pork was nice last week in F to PVG

entropy

Just had awful beef tenderloin LHR-YYZ a few days ago. It was slightly better than the last time, but unfortunately, they only had fishy or porky options which we can't eat. The best meal we had was a curry chicken, and at least we had it in the CCR before the flight this time.

Swiss Tony

If you re read what I wrote, you'l see I made no reference to the quality of the meat. Indeed grass fed is typically considered superior to grain fed, because of the lower fat content. But it doesn't cook as well.

More fat would make it easier to get the meat up to the required temperature without rendering it borderline inedible.

As it stands the main course options are down as beef (as noted), fish (have been disappointed by this before as overcooked), some vegetarian thing (cows eat grass so I don't have to) and a salad (ditto).

The beef still looks like the best of a bad lot to me.

srbrenna

I haven't even got steak as an option next month. Just beef stew. In First. At least overcooking that is a good thing.

CCayley

Beef stew, or curry, or some such is exactly what they should be offering in F even though it isn't exactly haute cuisine, because it can at least be done well at 36,000 feet. What is the point of BA having steak on (nearly) every F menu and then cremating it? It just cuts by one the number of viable options.