DL 2431
DTW-LAS 4/22/2018
VGML special meal - F
(FAs called it "lunch" - even though the flight took off at 8:30pm)


(salad and fruit on left)

All on one tray:
Entrée: Noodles with julienned carrots, ten little cubes of breaded fried tofu, side vegetable dish (two green pepper slices, four zucchini cubes, about 10 miniscule diced carrots)
Salad: Iceberg and radicchio lettuce, two cherry tomato halves, four small cubes of cucumber, two Kalamata olives. Small bottle of balsamic vinaigrette dressing
Fruit salad: Three strawberry halves, three blackberries, one cube of pineapple
Plastic wrapped soft roll (cold) accompanied by package of Land-O-Lakes Whipped Spread (CONTAINED MILK)

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw this. I could actually recognize specific foods. No blobby mush of something unrecognizable.

However, the entrée looked much better than it tasted. It was very oily. The noodles kept slipping off the fork that is how oily they were. In addition to the oiliness, they were far past the al dente point - almost to the glue stage. So I had gluey globs of oily noodles sliding off the fork every time I tried to eat it. The breading had separated from the tofu and was all in one layer underneath the cubes. The tofu itself had been marinated (because it was not arctic white in color) and had a rather Indianish taste (not quite curry or masala). Breading had the same taste. The vegetables had been boiled far longer than necessary and fell apart using the fork. I wound up using the spoon to scoop everything up.

Salad was ok. Did not touch the fruit since I'm allergic to strawberries. Did not eat the roll since there were no ingredients listed AND the spread was not vegan. As usual, VGML meal was not entirely VGML.

On a scale of 1-10, I would give it a 5. Considering how bad earlier VGML meals were (I would rate those at -1,884,258,157,725,856), this was practically five-star Michelin dining.

I am taking the same flight again in two weeks. Will see then if this meal was an aberration or DTW catering has found a vegan cookbook

Drinks flowed throughout the flight, starting as soon as one sat down. FA for F was one of the most courteous, professional and friendliest FA I've seen in a long time. My seatmate had finished off the little bottled water before taking off. I offered him mine as I wasn't planning on drinking it. The FA overhead this, leaned over and jokingly said "You're in F. You don't have to share. We have LOTS of water available for each of our guests". I laughed and told him that "We're on our way to Las Vegas. That little bottle of water could water my garden for a week!". He just cracked up.