I returned from Dubai, overnight, during the week in Club.

Here’s the menu card and the ‘new Club World service concept’ gumpf:




Here are the featured sandwiches:




Why the bread roll? What am I supposed to do with that - have a bit of bread and butter in anticipation of more of the same but with a filling?

I’d skipped the food in the lounge because it looked like slop and I’d not eaten since late afternoon, about 9 hours earlier. That’s my fault and I appreciate the sleeper service nature of this flight but I was fairly unimpressed with this offering. I asked if there was any soup spare but was told it was one or the other. I was directed to the Club Kitchen for some of those ‘indulgent treats’ - crisps, shortbread and bite sized chocolates. Great.

For comparison here’s the snack offering between meals on a recent Etihad flight:




That’s a proper snack. It puts the BA main meal to shame. Etihad even have the imagination and flair to serve it with a few crisps...

Palmer

It is obvious why the roll is there. You make a strawberry jelly sandwich with it!

Bread is cheap and fills quickly up?

I was in the DXB lounge last week (first time ever) and I was very unimpressed by the food offering.
I decided to skip the meal on the plane to maximize sleep, and since I had a bit upset intestine I hoped to find something non too "saucy", maybe some sandwiches... but no. No sandwiches and the only hot food not coated in sauce were roasted potatoes. So I took the potatoes and a couple of bread rolls... only to find out they tasted like leftover rolls from the day before (the kind so rubbery they could bounce back when thrown on the floor)

So if at least on board the bread was fresh, I would not complain that much for having it together with the sandwiches.

You don't want the bread? Don't eat it. Most likely some people will want it, just like some will eat and appreciate the strawberries, and others would rather chocolate. EY have "flair" to offer crisps.....you even said in the OP that the BA crew said there were crisps available! I imagine if there was no bread (or basket) people would say the tray was too empty and BA were being mean by not even offering bread!

I didn’t and it was wasted. It’s an odd choice alongside the sandwiches and, when the meal is this size, you’d think Ba would fill the space with something a little more creative.

It was my first time with BA from Dubai in Club. Having travelled with Etihad a few weeks before, I shouldn’t really have made the assumption that there would be something similar onboard. I should know better.

I’ve not travelled Etihad in economy but here’s an article that I read this week. It doesn’t look bad but it could be more nonsense:

Behind The Scenes: Etihad’s New Economy Class Service

Yes. Here is the Etihad offering:

Soup (main meal on BA, starter on Etihad):




Beef:




Chocolate mousse:




Delicious.

Palmer

I think you may have missed the point - that is EY’s snack offering (ie between meals - as detailed in the OP’s later post) The BA option IS the meal.

Sorry OP, bit of a fatuous post IMHO. Don’t want the bread? Don’t eat it. Doesn’t need a dedicated thread, or the shoehorned comparison to EY’s catering.

That article is straight from EY PR dept. Look for an actual trip report, and you'll see that the main service is just a hot TV dinner, bread roll, and a small cake (served separately), even on a longhual flight. The rest of the tray (starter, cheese etc) has been enhanced, and replaced with BoB snacks.

It’s the second meal on a short flight.

I am assuming this is the BA106 which departs Dubai (ie pushes from the gate) at 0130 local and arrives in London at 0630 local after a c 6 1/2 ish hours of flying.

The ‘main’ meal on this flight is breakfast (served before landing) - unless it’s changed recently, even in the days of the sleeper service it was always something v small after takeoff. In Traveller, I think it’s a boxed meal such as a sandwich then a hot breakfast.

I do appreciate what you had expected (as most flights in the world serve the main meal as the ‘first’ service), but given it really is in the middle of the night, I don’t think BA is wrong that the majority of customers will want to go to sleep. This is where F dine on demand could come in as if you were starving you could have asked for breakfast immediately after takeoff and then had another one in the arrivals lounge! (I’ve not done F ex Dubai but I assume it’s a very limited dinner selection).

LH and AF do not serve a hot meal on their similarly timed flights either.

A good reminder though for those taking this flight. I actively avoid it if at all possible.

Extra bread with sandwiches falls into the same category as chips with pasta: only for greasy spoon catering and, it seems, BA.