Originally Posted by dat4life
Seat 2A, it’s great to see you back, and what a way to end my own little FT sabbatical. I enjoyed every bit of your report, and hopefully you’re cooking up another other soon!
Thanks,
Dat! It's good to see you back as well
There's nothing I'd like better than to be living a life that allowed me to cook up one intensive trip-report worthy adventure after another, but alas, trips of that magnitude only come along only once, maybe twice a year these days. If I'm able to snag JAL First to and/or from Indonesia in March, I could see writing a bit around that. Wish me luck! So far, I'm stuck in Singapore's Business Class...
Originally Posted by
percysmith
Eating the kaiseki in JL F was an item on my bucket list. I eat my fair share of Rockpool and Morton’s and Wolfgang, but I have a thing for Japanese food. Since I have F sectors on BA where western fare will be the norm, I went all in kaiseki on my JAL sectors.
Some things you might have missed on the drinks list - Juyondai sake is like the Dom of sake - I skulled that as much as Salon. Then I caused a certain amount of envy with my mates on the ground when the Today’s Whiskey turned out to be Chichibu Whiskey - let’s say JAL drinks list is mandatory hangover on both legs.
I reckon I was born missing whatever gene relates to eating and enjoying cold fish and other sea creatures. Take me to a Red Lobster for a good cooked Red Snapper or Grouper any day, and I'm all in on tempura, too. As for sake, I've tried it on two occasions now and it just doesn't do it for me. Outside of alcohol, I generally like most all other South and Central Asian foods. Cooked Korean food is good, too.
Regarding western fare on JAL, I get where you’re coming from. My last pre-pandemic birthday was at Karuizawa which was a Japanese village with a French theme. So were the dinners. I actually quite like that spin on French fare, but I know I’m not eating in Paris/Bordeaux/Nice/Mulhouse. YMMV on that Japanese spin on French fare.
On my three previous flights with JAL, I quite enjoyed the Western fare - from soup to nuts, as it were. But again, looking at the Western menu for my HND-ORD flight, it sure doesn't seem very Western to me. JAL's chef's have demonstrated over the years that they're quite capable of rising to the challenge of preparing quality Western fare. I think I just got a chef who just didn't quite get it. I'm surprised a supervisor actually signed off on that meal.