I decided to take a chance and booked myself on the earlier AMS-CPH flight again. After an interesting drive down the A9 and A4 in a Smart with a wannabe Schumacher at the wheel, I got to the gate just as boarding commenced. Priority boarding worked (hurrah!) and I was give a gate upgrade. Don't know why. I didn't check to carefully, but there were two empty seats in the first economy row for starters.
Now I know everything about gift horses and looking in mouths, but . . .
The lunchtime meal they serve in EB has become a serious embarrassment. KL really need to decide whether they want to have a shorthaul premium product or not. They abolished ES and decided to call it business class again, but ever since they have been busy downgrading the inflight product.
The lunch I was served consisted of:
"Mixed salad with sun-dried tomatoes and mustard sauce"
Tomatoes? Plural? What I got amounted to not even one-third of a small tomato, and the rest of the salad consisted of a spoonful of the cheapest lettuce available mixed with another spoonful of the same stuff. There was enough mustard dressing, however, to drench half a dozen of these mixed salads.
"Vegetarian club sandwich". (the other option was Italian Roll with 'GlobalG.A.P.' (sic) smoked salmon. Global what?)
I recall the huge sandwiches with Old Amsterdam cheese they used to serve in ES. The current offering is almost as good as the discounted day-old sandwich you can buy at a 7Eleven at 4 a.m.: dry,stale and without much flavor.
Dessert by the same Pātisserie that provided Henry III with his pudding:
"Rasberry and vanilla mousse with pistachio cake"
This was one of those plastic thimbles with three layers in different colors, all sickeningly sweet. This is the type of dessert one sees lined up in rows at three-star all-inclusive resort buffets: they look pretty, and are very cheap to make. At least resort guests can help themselves to two dozen if they like.
Add to this the cardboard box, a paper napkin so thin that it was translucent, cheap plastic cutlery in garish colors and not even a wet towel or toothpick, and you get the picture.
As an aside, the cabin was very cold (and this comes from somebody who is typing this post in a room where the temperture is 14.5°C, just the way I like it). When the aircraft started to descend, ice cold air started blowing out of every single crack in the ceiling, which caused angry man in 2A to have an outburst. He in turn was scolded by the lead FA, who admonished him for not complaining earlier. Angry man announced he would take the matter up with KLM management.
Johan