BA115
LHR-JFK
August 2024

A pre-departure drink of pre-poured water, orange juice or champagne was offered from a tray. As usual, I requested sparkling water which the friendly crew were happy to source. Menus were handed out prior to pushback, and post-takeoff drinks orders were taken (a glass of the Balfour rosé champagne for me today).







Lunch orders were taken after takeoff, and hot towels made an appearance at this time too (for the only time this flight, as is the BA standard sadly). Due to a passenger with a severe nut allergy being onboard (a seemingly all too common occurance), nuts were absent from the post-takeoff bar service, although (packaged) pretzels were available on request.

I opted to have both the chicken Caesar salad and the roasted artichoke soup as starters, which were served together on a tray hand run from the galley. I liked that the crew had slotted in an extra spoon for my soup to the napkin wrap. Both dishes were very good, although the Niçoise side salad was pretty sad, as was the awfully gimmicky three-in-one bread. I wish BA would provide proper salt and pepper cellars instead of the small cheap packet within the napkin wrap.



The grilled Scottish salmon was my choice of main course, which although poorly presented was piping hot and tasty without being overly memorable.



Continuing my theme of testing out BA's menus to the max, I sampled both the vanilla panna cotta and sticky toffee pudding for dessert. The former was well balanced, whilst the latter could have done with some cream or ice cream; the crew kindly checked to see if there was any ice cream available in First, but there wasn't. Both desserts were served together.





As the crew were clearing away the meal service, I decided to conclude lunch with the selection of artisan cheese - in case you're wondering, the cheddar was hiding under the crackers (of which there are never enough for the quantity of cheese).



The second meal service looked meagre on paper and terrible in real life, but was surprisingly tasty - the prosciutto and mozzarella pesto focaccia was my interestingly titled 'main course' of choice. The less said about the plastic pot of dressing for the salad the better.



BA188
EWR-LHR
August 2024

Everyone boarding through Door 1L didn't make for the most relaxing of starts to this flight (even less so for those in the First cabin), but the crew still managed a pre-departure drink service of just orange juice or champagne (I assume those wanting still water were directed to their bottles). Sparkling water was delivered on request.

Menus were handed out and dinner orders taken on the ground, with hot towels making the rounds straight after takeoff. With a 21:15 departure time, had I flown this flight just a couple of months later I would have experienced the paired-back supper menu, but as it was August still featured a full dinner menu.







BA now use dnata for their catering out of EWR, as opposed to Do&Co for their JFK (and LHR) catering. Let's just say that the difference in quality shows. My starter of smoked salmon was pretty terrible from a quality perspective, and aside from the salmon itself was not at all to my taste. The Faro side salad to my salad was quite pleasant, although the Bailey's may have had a hand in this perception.



Things didn't get much better with the steamed salmon fillet which was drowning in the ratatouille and hiding under an overcooked cardboard-like quinoa cake which had an odd flavour.



The apple tarte tatin was lacking in flavour, and initially entirely devoid of the promised salted caramel anglaise - I checked with the crew who took it back to the galley to add it after I'd taken this photo.



As usual, I skipped most of breakfast, opting instead for just the yogurt, which was served sans muesli on the same mini tray as my breakfast tea.



In summary, a reasonably decent experience ex-LHR, let down on the return by notably lower quality dnata catering.