Had the same catering MXP-EWR a couple weeks ago. I had both pastas and the salmon and can't agree more regarding the quality of the food on that flight. The only real disappointment was no good parmigano cheese on the cheese plate, which we did get on YYZ-MXP.

I also noticed a few other peculiarities on the different service and can't figure out if they are due to the difference of originating at an out station (YYZ) or if it is because of the market (YYZ v EWR/JFK). On the YYZ flight, "hot towel" service was a paper towel with a few drops of hot water on it. It was actually mostly dry. On the EWR flight it was a large, heavy terrycloth hand towel well moistened. The food was dramatically better on the EWR run, with the exception of one chees on the YYZ flight. And the FAs swent out of their way to be nice on the EWR flight and weren't particularly bad, but certainly not memorable on the YYZ flight. I understand serving a slow and comfortable meal, and I know there is the execcutive meal option, but they took 3 hours to serve dinner on the YYZ-MXP, and the cabin lights were on the whole time. Even with the little blinders it wasn't great.

S.