CW: Chicken or Beef?
 

Apologies if I've missed something, but after going through the dashboard several times I can find a thread for everything imaginable except CW food.

Taking my 2nd CW trip, this time in both directions, home from GVA to YUL for Christmas. The advanced food booking option has opened up and I have a simple question - chicken or beef?

I like my cow with its heart still beating if possible, but not too offended if its still at least pink all the way through. The only pic I've found was... not promising. On AC, I could ask them to take it out of the oven about 1/2 way through the normal time and it has always been pretty good. Can I do the same on BA?

My only other experience in CW was in Sleeper Service and after my 2-3 hours in the lounge I don't remember much of it... In other words it was perfect. But no food. This time around I'm doing both ways in CW.

While I'm here, I'm in ET on GVA-LHR, CW on LHR-YUL and vice versa (UuA by a very wonderful friend from WT+) and am wondering about lounge access ... Pretty sure I made it in to the Galleries lounge @LHR on the way back the last time despite continuing on in ET, but any chance I can use the lounge in GVA? I'm pretty sure not but thought I'd ask the question. I know baggage allowance will be that of CW despite the ET first sector, but I imagine lounge access doesn't follow.

You clearly did not come across this one...

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...aks-plane.html
My last beef dish on BA was mooing as the plane was taxing. I prefer my steak to be well done. Not really that impressed.

You will have lounge access in GVA, because of a oneworld rule that permits lounge access before longhauls.

If you go to the Dashboard you'll find a thread on meal photos. You should have more choice than chicken or beef. I have a flight to Montréal coming up and chicken is the chilled salad option. Beef is always on the menu but best avoided unless going to JFK. You should have a fish dish and a vegetarian option too. If it's fish pie then that's probably the best option.

Brilliant! As a star person, that's just pretty damn cool. Thank you for the heads up.

This is the menu offered for my LHR-YUL on 11 december:

Braised British beef in a red wine sauce with roasted herb new potatoes, sautéed mushrooms, baby onions and fine green beans


Roast corn fed chicken breast with braised cabbage, pancetta, roast potatoes and thyme jus


Fusilli pasta with chargrilled yellow peppers, slow roast cherry tomatoes and a creamy plum tomato and pesto sauce


Chilled Main Course Salad of seared ras el hanout prawns, carrot and courgette salad, lemon cous cous and Espelette dressing

A lot of it on this: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...ce-thread.html

I suspect that you are not ever going to get rare or medium rare on an airline for reasons of health and safety and public liablity. Having said as much, the beef meals loaded on my route from GIG (Rio) is consistently excellent. Melts in the mouth! I suspect this may be due to the general high quality and reasonsble price of meat served in ths part of the world.

i admit I dived into this thread but it seemed pretty F leaning... Obviously the two are different and thought it deserved separation. Like I tried to communicate with my original post the wealth of information on this forum compared to my previous long-time program was mind-blowing. I just thought it odd that there were threads for F service, WT+ service, WT service, but CW catering was conspicuously absent.

I'm going a fortnight before you, so on a different menu. The beef there is braised, so the best of a bad deal in a way, but it will be thoroughly cooked. The chilled salad sounds OK, but perhaps not one for a cold day. So personally I'd choose the roast chicken, or perhaps the salad to leave some space, and then head off to la Queue de Cheval to sort out the beef issue.

I'm assuming you're talking about a great restaurant in YUL - I'm heading on to YOW by car where I can easily make a great steak appear for a fraction of the price in GVA. :) So I guess I'll go with the chicken then. It's too bad that I can't grab the beef - the sides speak to me. But I'd rather a decent chicken than an overdone beef. That's the advice I was looking for and thanks for providing it.

Hmm... it shouldn't/isn't intended to be. I'll admit that I have never counted globally but in the last page, it shows 3 F menus, 3 CW menus and 1 WT+ menu. To be honest, having followed the thread regularly, I think it has included every month's ex-LHR CW menus and quite a lot of the ex-LGW and CWLCY (obvious weakness is that inbound are not included as they cannot be pre-ordered).

I think that there is a bias on this forum with a lot more people flying F than average, and quite a lot more flying CW too. In my view, WT is by far the poorest parent (as someone who still flies it for part of my trips).

The Air Canada food has reached the point where it is pretty much inedible in flight... I'd rather pay $20 for a burger and fries at YUL (unfortunately a normal price on the street in GVA) pre-departure and just take the starter tray in Y with lots of booze.

A plane is not a restaurant so regardless of service class I think custom orders are neither possible nor should they be requested.

I'm not sure how they do it but even tho the meat is not pink it is no where near overdone, so taste / texture cannot be predicted by color on the plane

they have some trick so get the nice beef

Etihad: “Your culinary expert

Our Inflight Chefs are fully-qualified, internationally trained chefs. They will use their culinary expertise to invent an individual dining experience for you at 35,000ft.

Our Inflight Chefs have a passion for cooking. Your exclusive dining experience could include a dish from our extensive a la carte menu, a steak cooked as you like from The Grill menu, or something special using fresh ingredients from the pantry.“

See also SAS, Garuda, Turkish, et al.

Thanks for sharing this. I have no experience with these service levels.