moondog

As others have said, waiting 10 minutes is the key to cracking this case.

carrotjuice

For those who keep 'defending' that it's not big of a deal... the point has been missed completely.

Notwithstanding that it could be a big deal for some... I personally found that to be an annoyance as I very much like to enjoy my ice-cream at the time that it's served - whether at home, or at an ice-cream parlour, or a plane. Honestly I've not heard of anyone who, given the choice, actually prefer to watch their ice-cream warm up before they eat it.

The point is if other airlines can get it right, CX should take a lesson off their book. That's how the whole customer experience improves.

alphaod

The problem is other airlines don't get it right. Sure it's at the right temperature when they serve it, but at the end it's all water.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

I don't know of too many airlines serving ice-cream, en masse, in tubs to passengers in place of 'real' puddings? I guess there must be, but I can't think off the top of my head.

AA used to have pre-plated sundaes on select domestic flights some years ago... they came out rock solid too.

Matthew_22

QF often do ice creams on a stick in short haul. They have exactly the same issue - the thing usually comes out solid as a rock.

Also, last week I was on a QR flight in J and ordered an ice cream sundae-type desert, after a bit of stalling the FA came over to me, apologized, and said the ice cream was still far too hard for them to be able to even make it.

Seems like serving ice cream on a plane is just hard to do.

forumpersona999

That point might have been missed because it is difficult to come to terms with the idea that there may be people with such a lack of self-discipline that they find it uncomfortable to look at an ice cream and having to wait 10 mins before they can dig in.

Scenario A:
They can bring the ice cream out at 12:55 and it's edible at 13:05. Mr Doe likes his ice cream firm and has the choice to chisel away at it at 13:00. Ms. Doe likes her ice cream soggy and has it just right at 13:05. Both are happy.

Scenario B:
They can tray it in the galley and hide it from view at 12:55 and bring it out at 13:05 ready to eat. Mr. Doe is writing a stern letter to whoever replaces Linda Sim and says he is pulling his 300k EQM and shifting to SQ because clearly CX's service sucks and they're trying to give him salmonella.

The only difference with the status quo is that one is deprived of instant gratification unless one likes to chisel away at a rock. Maybe that's for the Paleo diet folks... You gotta kill it before you can eat it.


It is fascinating that there is a three page thread on this.

I noticed that the CX ice cream have the "wait 8-10 mins" cartoon in the lid whereas the same size tubs retail in Hong Kong without the cartoon in the lid. It's some kind of special edition

Dr. HFH

Exactly. you eat it at the same time either way.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

Well... thinking about it... are the two scenarios the same? If you hand out the ice-cream to passengers at 12:55 it may well be edible at 13:05. The individual container is sitting by itself on an individual's tray, better able to 'warm up'

If they take them out and leave them all in the galley... presumably in close proximity to each other (unless they can spread 50 containers sufficiently far apart form each other)... wouldn't that theoretically mean a colder environment and longer warming time?

So scenario A actually leads to enjoyment of ice-cream before scenario B?

forumpersona999

Interesting! A valid scientific observation. The cluster of ice cream tubs on a tray in the galley may take longer than 10 minutes to be smooth than an individual tub that is not in proximity of other cold tubs.

Further study is needed to better understand this important issue.

chris19992

Hmm, I wonder how well a USB cup warmer would do if you sit the ice cream on that?

stevensonleehk

Absolutely agree with this observation. Keeping all the tubs en-mass will mean that it will take a lot longer to warm up.

But again, I can't believe there is a 3 page thread on this.

Lastly - come on, even when you buy an ice-cream cake from Haagen-Dazs, when you take it out of the fridge, it's still rock solid. I don't see people complaining to HD.

I hope everyone who has contributed to this thread knows that there is actually no refrigerator on-board, and that the ice-cream are all packed in a large styrofoam box with dry ice. My thoughts go to the FAs who have to handle more than 300 tubs of frozen ice-cream.

I have seen then having to repackage the leftover tubs back into the box and I must say CX has no concern for occupational safety of the FAs. I have seen FAs having to squat or kneel on the floor and sort through the various tubs of ice-cream, sometimes with their bare hands, although they appear to have been issued kitchen mittens for this as well.

cysyuen

Just to say the ice cream which I had on KIX-HKG was not frozen.

kaka

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 7_0_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/537.51.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0 Mobile/11A501 Safari/9537.53)

Melted, softcream style, just right, or rock hard did u mean

cysyuen

It actually wasn't that bad. It was just about right and with the metal spoon provided it wasn't a huge issues when eating.

In coming weeks I will make my comparasion on CX and another... BA.

QRC3288

Great anecdotes; I agree with all except to point out the rock hard ice cream would be easily fixed if you just let it sit for 5 mins.

On CX883 from LAX a few weeks ago, the passenger in front of me (a non-CX OWE) in J "lost it" for a few brief seconds over this. FA served him ice cream, she goes back to galley, he rings call button and is pissed, she comes back, he says ice cream is rock hard, and then proceeds to take the plastic spoon and furiously bang the ice cream container, sending off splinters of strawberry ice cream around his seat and the aisle. Then he tells the FA to take it back and "microwave it", whereby the FA tells him um sir, that might start a fire can't do it. She stands there, you can see wheels turning, apologizes profusely and says give me the ice cream I will fix it. Her solution ( I followed her up on the way to the bathroom): she just let it sit in the galley for 2-3 minutes opened. Delivered it back to the guy soft and he was back to normal. It was a totally bizarre, brief sequence where an otherwise totally normal looking businessman who is clearly a frequent flier absolutely lost it for a brief few seconds over ice cream. Not one of the most serious incidents I've seen on a plane, but indeed one of the stranger ones. Especially since he got strawberry ice cream around his seat.

The solution to the ice cream " problem" is easily rectified by CX FAs just delaying your service by a few minutes and letting it thaw when it's pulled from the freezer. For whatever reason, those freezers are just too cold for a good ice cream consistency. It needs to warn up slightly. Or, instructing passengers to let it sit for 5 mins before opening. But my bet is its best to just delay the service so pax dont ever see the hard ice cream. Problem solved.