The best inflight meal I had on a CX flight was when I went to Tasty Congee at the food court 45 mins prior the flight, ordered roast goose and fried rice with dried scallops to go and took it on board and replated them onto J Class chinaware.

Didn't CX serve Yung Kee roast goose in First at some time in the distant past?

That was a long time ago i think, but I never tried it...

I don't care who they collaborate with. If they don't shell out the money to improve the inflight catering, you may as well have Fairwood do the catering.

Honestly, CPCS isn't all that bad. They do the catering for JL, TG, SQ, EK, etc. When I flew JL, the catering was quite good and it came from CPCS. Bottom line, it's all the money.

+1.

Does anyone have pictures of the new Hyatt menu selections in F?

seeing your post made me laugh.

the "Hyatt menu selections"....I've never, ever thought of Hyatt as a brand known for good food. Sure, there are some nice Park Hyatts around the world and like all nice hotels they have decent restaurants, but come on. At least Mandarin is a niche operator and has a history of superb restaurants in some of its hotels, particularly those in Asia. I could say the same for Peninsula. Even ignoring the fact there is extreme disconnect between the brand and what gets served at 33k feet, at least I understand where CX was coming from with Mandarin. Personally, I just liked the fact that in F while that promotion was going on, we had more choices!

Perhaps next CX will launch the Courtyard by Marriott-branded meals....

I just don't get it! It strikes me as terribly bizarre. A mass market, cookie cutter American hotelier is the brand partner for the food on CX? Huh? And not even a hotelier really known for good food? Who on earth is making these decisions?

I wish they'd ditch these stupid gimmicks and just focus on making on board F&B actually better. We'll notice.

The abalone on the press release is a F class meal.

http://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_H...aboration.html

While Hyatt as a brand in general may not be thought of at the level of Mandarin Oriental or Peninsula, I wonder if you have been to One Harbour Road, the Chinese restaurant of Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. I read that the first few months of the promotion will feature dishes from One Harbour Road. I would argue that One Harbour Road would be rated up there at the same level as the Chinese restaurants of the other hotels like MO, Peninsula, or Ritz-Carlton in Hong Kong. Obviously I haven't tried these on-board menus yet, but I have to say that I was a little excited when I read that One Harbour Road is the first one featured, since I'll be flying CX in August.

that's a fair point. excellent food there, and GH Hong Kong is one of the better properties in town here, and the property is beloved by many of the Cantonese and mainland tycoons in town. Champagne Bar is great too.

I guess my bigger issue is this: CX is like a 3 year old who doesn't know how to draw yet. Instead of hiring the expensive art teacher, you may as well teach the kid how to hold the crayon first. The issue with CX food isn't that food isn't "elevated", the issue for CX is much of the food is borderline inedible. I don't think they need to go hawking some stupid marketing campaign when the food sucks to begin with. There's a lot of low hanging fruit here. For example:

There are already limited choices, but even the "different" choices feel the same. Maybe they've rotated the savory dips they've been serving for eons...maybe it used to be pink, or white, or beige colored, but they're all the same to me. Or the unhealthy slop they serve as J class Chinese and Western mains, which all seems to blend together into one medley of sauce and meat + starch + veggies. They've got a few renditions on it, you know rice v noodles for Chinese (+ potatoes if western), pork vs lamb vs beef vs chicken, red sauce vs black sauce, spicy or not spicy, lob in some vegetables somewhere, mix and match enough you've had them all.

Few of them are particularly appetizing, but even when they do taste good, I find myself finishing the meal with that foggy haze you get after devouring a Big Mac. The bites are tasty, but something just isn't quite right about it all. IMO, it's obvious not a whole lot of care and TLC has gone into the process combined with a cheapo budget and a general "I don't care much" attitude by whomever is designing it. Someone high enough up clearly doesn't give a rats backside about putting out a bad product as long as it saves a few dimes.

I'm just thinking in general....Hyatt as the brand sponsor for food?! I think CX is really off its mark and has no clue how bad the food is.

All this whinging aside, the hard product remains solid and the lounges excellent. I continue to fly CX. But admittedly it's hard not for me to notice when I'm getting consistently better meals on US carriers (AA and DL, specifically, lately), not to mention the other Asian / ME competitors.

I'm looking forward to when they have a dining collaboration with the Peninsula ;) Maybe Spring Moon will sign on if HSH ever gives the go ahead :D

TLH @ the Ritz or LKH @ Four Seasons might be reasonable choices if CX is looking for brand recognition

I had a face to face lunch meeting with a senior management a few weeks ago as he wanted to hear my candid feedback on different aspects of CX. I told him how disappointing I am with their current inflight catering. He then mentioned to me that cost wasn't the issue on catering side. At that point, I was speechless for a few seconds and asked him then what is the issue? :confused: I elaborated and told him the food looks bad, tastes bad and often run out of choices very quickly in premium cabin - it's unacceptable. Same as the wine list - the same bottle of wine for eons on many of the routes (esp intra Asia).

I summed up and told him that CX J catering is someone else's Y. I think he heard me loud and clear. So...I think you're right...they really have absolutely no ideas how bad their food is! :mad:

great you told him that.

it's a boldfaced lie him saying cost isn't an issue. Management at one of CX's primary regional competitors told me point blank that CX is spending less per head on F&B in J class than they are. The airlines all know their price per Y, J etc. meal. It's not a mystery.

Or, you don't even have to talk to another airline. You can just google the wine CX puts on their menu. The internet allows perfect price discovery. Now indeed, price isn't everything with wine, but when you're paying $10 or less per bottle, it gets hard to find hidden gem after hidden gem...in reality, you're just serving bad wine more often than not.

As DM I'm quite surprised that they ran out of choices for you, I normally sit on K side but I normally sit up front so they don't normally ask me for advance selection however there were times when I noticed that people are getting the same main course, it was the one that triggered a member of the crew to go to me and ask if i wanted to reserve an entree.

I'm not really picky with taste, most airplane food would have been peppered 24-48hrs before the flight, and at 37,000 feet, your tastebuds are also not the same, so I guess i'm more forgiving when it comes to taste. What I hate about CX catering is it looks sloppy! the sides of the casserole dish have sauce all over, once the famous cheesecake swirl has crumbs all over it and was falling apart on the edges...I seriously wish they would revisit the manner by which the present the food...because sometimes its just disgusting.

I have always gotten my main choice as a DM however on longhaul flights like to JFK they usually only load 10 noodles in J on a full flight (53 pax). If you take a day flight say CX830 and don't reserve snacks in advance it will run out! I am not saying they need to load 53 noodles but honestly can they not do the math properly and go figure it's a day flight pax will ask for food especially their actual meals are 1) of poor quality and 2) small portion anyways!

Perhaps I should take your advice from your comment on another thread - go buy my own food at the food court and bring them on the plane! But wait...am I flying a LCC or a so called premium airline? :D