SEA_Tigger

Since anyone inbound from SYD right now is in 2007, it's time for a new thread on UA meal service in premium cabins, since no self-respecting FTer would ever be caught in international or p.s. economy.

General consensus from year's past was that folks preferred a seperate thread for each cabin, to make it easier to search. So this one if for Domestic and International First Class meals.

The one for Domestic and International Business Class meals can be found at http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?p=6928522

So with that, "Let's Eat!"

warreng24

Updated 21 September 2007

Let's start out with a reminder of domestic mealtimes (for reference).

Generally speaking, flights with food can be broken down into these types:
1) P.S. flights
2) Mainline & Business1 flights over 3.0 hours.
3) Mainline flights under 3.0 hours, but over 2.0 hours.
4) Business1 flights under 3.0 hours.
5) All other flights with an F cabin.


1) P.S. flights: F-Cabin can expect a delicious meal to be served for all non-redeye flights. Redeye flights can expect a fruit & cheese plate.


2) Mainline & Business1 flights over 3.0 hours: F-Cabin can expect meals according to the following scheduled flight departure times.
0500 - 0959 Breakfast
1000 - 1559 Lunch
1600 - 1930 Dinner
1930 - 0459 Snack Plate (aka the fruit and cheese plate)


3) Mainline flights (not Business1) under 3.0 hours but over 2.0 hours:
0500 - 0959 Breakfast
1000 - 1300 Lunch (ie cold sandwich or salad)
1301 - 1600 Nothing!
1601 - 1930 Dinner (ie cold sandwich or salad)
1931 - 0459 Nothing!


4) Business1 flights under 3.0 hours:
0500 - 1059 Continental style "semi-hot" breakfast (ie ham & cheese)
1100 - 1559 Light lunch (ie hot wrap or salad).
1600 - 1930 Light dinner (ie hot wrap or salad).
1930 - 0459 Snack Plate (aka the fruit and cheese plate).

Note, no meal is served on the following Business1 flights:
ORD-MSP
MSP-ORD
ORD-DCA
DCA-ORD
These flights will be served the "gold bag" of pre-packaged mixed nuts.

For information on Business1:
http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,51258,00.html


5) All other domestic flights with an F cabin:

So, what do you get on the other types of flights?
Mainline (non PS, non Business1) flights under 2.0 hours in length will receive the "gold bag" of pre-packaged mixed nuts.

For non-mainline F-Cabin over 2.0 hours length you should get a prepackaged "light" snack. This is usually a United Express SnackBox which varies based on the flight's operator.


Bottom line:
Call UA reservations and ask if you're getting a "snack," "snack plate," or "meal."
Snack - the gold bag of nut mix.
Snack Plate - the fruit and cheese plate.
Meal - a wrap, sandwich, or salad.

rch4u has posted some GREAT tips on how to find out what meal is served in F by using ITA. Unfortunately this only works if the flight is also sold as a codeshare.

IMPORTANT NOTES!
Some have reported that the fruit and cheese plate can be avoided by placing an order for a special meal. Good results have been posted regarding the "Low Fat" meal.


All about the sometimes dreadful Ex-Shuttle F-Cabin meal:
The 737-300's and 737-500's formerly used for the "Shuttle by United" service do not have ovens, refrigeration, or service carts. Therefore, meals are served from black plastic tv-dinner style compartment trays. Meals are kept chilled via dry ice. Therefore, your meal will be ice cold or room temperature. Trays have three compartments, one for the main course (sandwich or salad), and two others usually reserved for fruit and cheese. You'll get a prepackaged dessert and either a room temperature or ice cold roll.

For example at MHT, arriving aircraft all come from ORD and return back to ORD. All meals are loaded at ORD. So, for the MHT-ORD leg, the dry ice will have evaporated already and you will get a nice room temperature meal.

The Ex-Shuttle meals on the black plastic trays have also appeared on the other mainline aircraft types as well, on certain routes such as MHT-ORD and ORD-MHT. In this case, the route was scheduled to be operated by a 757-200. Meals came on the shuttle style black trays. Food was served cold, but rolls were warm and there were fresh baked cookies. Please post your encounters with these meals, so we can compile a list of routes where these meals are offered (regardless of aircraft type).

How to identify Ex-Shuttle 737's looking at the seat maps:
1) United identifies a Ex-Shuttle 737-300 as "North America Configuration 2." On this configuration, row 10 is the over-wing exit row and rows 22 & 23 exist.
2) The Ex-Shuttle 737-500 is identified as "North America Configuration 2" as well. On this configuration, Seats 9A & 9F do not exist and rows 20 & 21 do exist.

Also, all Ex-Shuttle aircraft have a total of two lavatories. Standard 737's have three lavatories.

MSN_Flyer

(To start we were served cold nuts and I had a walnut shell in my dish.)

To Begin

Join us in a sampling of appetizer:

Hot Camembert and pear filo parcels with basil, spinach and white wine sauce
(This is apparently something the flight attendant had never seen)

Smoked salmon and caper berry with citrus mayonnaise sauce
Pumpkin soup with bourbon and smoked bacon

Salad
Fresh seasonal greens
Bleu cheese or Asian sesame ginger dressing

Main Course

Pan-seared filet mignon with smoked bacon demi-glace

Roasted breast of chicken with apple and Calvados sauce

The above entrees include your choice of:
Red skin roasted potato wedges or Wild rice
Spinach and white onions or a Vegetable medley

Lam curry masala with red onion and coriander raita sauce
Jeera pulau rice, peas and yogurt masala

Vegetable lasagna
Spicy tomato and pepper sauce

Desert

To complete your dining experience:
Haagen-Dazs ice cream with sundae toppings
Cheese selection: Apricot Stilton, Mull of Kityre, Saint Nectaire
Fresh seasonal fruit with cranberry and orange coulis with yogurt

Prior to Arrival

Your selected entrée will be served with fresh fruit, assorted bread, clotted cream and fruit preserves

Afternoon Tea Service
Chicken tikka, seafood cocktail and egg chive with spinach sandwiches

Or

Cheese plate with fresh seasonal fruit
Blackstick, Butler’s Secret

(Both of these arrival items were bad. Like they found some stuff in the RCC and sent it aboard).

Cheers!

rar indeed

Glad to see the "asian" balsamic vinaigrette is gone.

PremiumSeat

SFO-BWI Lunch Flight on 757 in F:

Pre-flight beverage of choice offered. ^

After takeoff -

Bag of Pretzels (no ramekin of hot nuts ) and choice of beverage offered.

Hot towels offered before lunch.

For Lunch:

Stuffed Chicken with a red sauce served with Marinated Greens and Potatoes

Stuffed Shells (Pasta filled with ricotta cheese served in a red sauce)

Standard domestic F mixed Green salad and choice of Ranch or Vinaigrette dressing

Bread basket with selection of hot breads

Dessert:

Ice Cream Sundae (Chocolate & Vanilla ^ ) served from dessert cart with hot fudge and whipped cream toppings.

Dessert liquors, coffee and tea offered

RRags

Pre Departure Beverage served

After takeoff:

Nothing

Lunch:

Choice of either Asian Chicken Salad or Cold Turkey & Cheese sandwich.

Dessert:

Prepackaged Cookie.

Everything was served on the black plastic TV trays. FA told me this was a shuttle aircraft.

mattorb

UA 783, DEN-SFO 10:14 AM Jan 3, 2007

Posting only because I was a little surprised at the options offered on this flight, which I thought was nominally outside the lunch and breakfast meal windows. I was expecting a fruit plate, but got:

Pre-departure drinks offered (water & OJ on tray, but saw other requests accomodated). This was a jam-packed 757, btw.

Warm nuts served after takeoff.

Choice of salad with glazed chicken breast OR turkey sandwich with tomato soup. I chose the salad, which was actually quite nicely done -- the chicken was not too dry, and the glaze (sort of an asian sesame sauce) worked well. Both choices were served with a hot chocolate chip cookie (served -- unfortunately, imho -- at the same time as the main dish). Meal orders taken front-to-back, but orders prioritized by status (i.e., I noticed some pax being asked for their "1st choice," while I was simply asked which one I would like).

Hot towel service shortly before landing.

Overall, I was quite pleased by the service and food offerings on this short-ish flight.

jocojr

deleted: wrong thread

warreng24

Flight Details:
DEN-BOS UA 354
757-200 N???UA
03:50pm departure on 1/4
Scheduled flight time of 3 hours and 36 minutes.
Seat 4C

Predepature beverage of water (with ice) or orange juice in a plastic cup.
Other beverages available upon request in a glass.

Warm nuts provide in a ramekin.
Beverage of choice in a glass.

Choice of:
Chicken Sandwich with Seafood bisque
-or-
Asian Chicken Salad

Sandwich served with grapes on vine and a dill-mayonnaise sauce in a small ramekin. Deli sliced chicken on artisan bread (cheese baked into crust) with provolone cheese, cucumber slides, sun-dried tomatoes, and spinach leaves.

Sandwich was delicious! Seafood bisque was improved since I had it last time, but still "so-so."

The "Asian" chicken sandwich was basically a leafy green garden salad with a chopped chicken breast on top. It looks like it came with two packets of a raspberry vinegrette sauce. It also came with a warm roll.

Both meals came with a fresh baked soft warm chocolate chip cookie.

Typical silverware wrapped in a white cloth napkin (plastic knife).

Typical salt and pepper packet.

Additional beverage services provided throughout the flight.

Finally, about 30 min prior to landing, warm towels were offered.

Channel 9 was on. ^

denis in denver

UA 1202
Depart 3:39pm Arrival 6:56pm
First Class

Water and juice on a tray waiting for departure

Drink request after a little turbulence with gold packet of nuts.

Followed by a "snack" of 3 slices of cheese (1 cheddar, 1 swiss, 1 provolone) 2 small packets of crackers, cluster of grapes and some sliced melon. No cookie, bread or anything else. However they did keep the wine coming an Austalian Shiraz I think a Yellowtail.

Orders taken by row--"Do you want a snack?"

drobbva

Interesting as my dinner in C last week on a domestic 3-class didn't include a salad or bread! Based on reading some of the other meals in the Let's Eat Business Class, I may need to stop flying 3-class domestic and stick to F on a two class plane. Of my last few flights, the 2-class F service and meals far exceeded my recent domestic C experience.

lucky9876coins

What route did you fly?

Tennen

FWIW, my flights between 1900 and 2000 (or whatever the cutoff is) have been served full dinner. After that, however, I think it's been the snack.

rch4u

That's how United caters domestic flights, strangely enough: two-class F and three-class F are the same. As a result, three-class C has to fall somewhere in between F and Y. Normally, that means no side dish or no meal choice.

lucky9876coins

What routes are you talking about? IME, transcon and mid-con three class aircraft still have a salad in C, just no sundaes.