KLflyerRalph

Experienced the new service on HKG-AMS. Pictures can be found here. After a late night departure, supper was served. I had the grilled chicken dish with couscous. Taste wise it was quite good but I found the portion to be (very) small. Also no choice from a bread basket but only one roll and no salt and pepper on the trady? When the FA came around for the main meal and drink I ordered the side salad which was on request and was told 'The meal automatically comes with a salad'. When my tray was served no salad was provided. Upon asking the crew was still able to give me the salad otherwise the meal would be very skimpy.
After clearing the tray I was asked what I would like to drink and I figured crew would come around with dessert pro-actively after that. I was surprised that wasn't the case so after half an hour I requested a dessert myself.
For breakfast I ordered the omelet which came with bacon and spinach, a croissant and a fruit plate. Again, the taste was good but (the option for) a more extensive bread basket or an extra tub of yoghurt would be nice. After the light were turned on and my table was covered I had to wait for half an hour for the food. I'd rather have a quicker service and a pre-plated meal than twiddle my thumbs and wait for the supposedly nicer presentation.
It was my first CX J experience and I found the food quality to be pretty good, however the portion size and service (flow) were disappointing.

Flying Viking

I've been a CX-fan for years, all the way back to the old fishbone cabin in J (yes, I loved that one and it seemed quite easy for crew to deal with as well). They upgraded their hard-product a few years back, and it is a perfectly OK J-seat. Then they lost an arm and a leg hedging fuel, and decided to take it out on the passengers instead of the management that got them into the mess.

Now they launch an "upgraded" meal service. I'm a BIG fan of airlines who show their roots in their menus onboard. I love the full Thai-meal on TG, I love the "hawker fare" on SQ and the Korean on Asiana - not to mention the washoku on ANA!

At first sight, the newspaper menu with articles highlighting HK-cuisine came across as a breath of fresh air. The little card that fell out of it I didn't even notice.

But a menu is just paper. What about the food? The mushroom salad with quinoa was good. Very good even. Earthy, rustic and fresh. Yum! I was optimistic. Next was wok-fried cod, and it was an utter let-down. The menu said Kailan as the greens, which wasn't there. It said corn, which wasn't there. Instead, two grey-green pieces of choi sum rested limpidly on the plate, next to an overcooked piece of fish, smothered in some kind of sauce. Hunger is the best chef, as my grandma used to say. Good thing I was starving. But the whole dish came across as "lost on a plate".

The little breakfast card reminds me of room-service breakfast. I know it has its fans, but I'm not part of that crowd.

The saddest part: The crew were EXCELLENT all the way through. From boarding to disembarking, they could not be more friendly, helpful and attentive. When will CX seniors give them a soft product to be proud of and put a spring in their step?

QR and ANA will see more of me. I've yet to experience a genuinely sad meal on their J-class. I will still fly CX once in a while, hoping to see traces of a renaissance, but my optimism is waning. Maybe, just maybe, their new hard product to be unveiled later this year will coincide with a better soft one?

CommittedLurker

Carfield

"Osmanthus jelly with wolfberries" 杞子桂花糕 is a pretty standard dessert in Hong Kong.

I even have it here in the American dim sum restaurants. It is pretty light and refreshing.

Carfield

daniellam

I personally find it not sweet enough just as most Asian desserts are.

When I think of dessert in my mind, I need something that is sweeter and contains dairy and/or chocolate as one of the ingredients. Something that would go well with a cup of black coffee or plain tea.

QRC3288

I think it's a good point they need to load more ice cream.

But "standard" is in the eye of the beholder. Frankly, there are a lot more Chinese people than Americans to whom this dessert would be more "standard" than, say a brownie or hot fudge sundae. I will add, I've been traveling with European clients in the US who explicitly complain about American desserts. Meanwhile, to some local palates a cheesecake or something of that nature would not be "standard" at all. I really have no idea what's standard!

Count me as one Westerner in Hong Kong who likes this Chinese dessert. But anyway, it's an Asian airline.

CX used to serve great Western options, but as we know cost cutting has taken its toll. But that's separate from the fact they're offering normal HK desserts. Rap CX all you want for cost cutting and everything else (they well deserve it); but not their decision to service a typical Hong Kong dessert on Hong Kong's flagship airline! AA serves a hot fudge sundae because it's "American Airlines". I think it's fair to expect standard American desserts on American airlines, just like I'd be understanding if a Japanese dessert was the only option on JAL, or a HK dessert on CX. Granted we're usually spoilt for choice, but cost cutting has taken its toll at CX so now the NUMBER of options we have suck even further. But definitely the "standard" dessert for locals is this, not something Western.

It might seem a little cutting teeth here but I think the problem is # of choices, not the choice they select. If they only choose one some people will be happy, others not. "Standard" is totally subjective on culture. CX has a choice problem and sadly, the trend hasn't been improving at all for years.

FlyPointyEnd

Just did HKG-ORD last week to try the PSJ, the crew was excellent but the catering was pathetic at best. The menu cover talked about paying homage to dim sum, but there's not a single dim sum offering on the whole menu. Both hot snack options were beef, burger and the braised beef brisket with rice noodles in beef broth, so if like me you don't eat beef, you're basically out of luck. Thankfully the SP served the breakfast 7 hours into the flight but I was basically left with no food before landing.

While the new Business class service was a step to the right direction, I felt it lost a lot of the ompf since it first rolled out. I remember reading a lot of the earlier reviews, where meals start with an actual bowl of soup, followed by appetizer and main course…it actually felt like First Class meals but now it feels more like the same old Business Class meals served in better plates.

wenbin85

jckl

great to see it's slowly reverting back to the old foods tipped onto new plates with fewer options and varieties.

remember a few months ago when it first started, there were appetiser choices and food options were new?

all these food can be found on old service flights, except on old service you get bread choices, breakfast cereals, yogurts and marginally faster service albeit hospital trolley style.

sxc

Yes that "souffle" in the picture is clearly the same as the casserole breakfast that is served on other flights.

FlyPointyEnd

Looks like they forgot the salsa verde also.....

CommittedLurker

Cambo

Doing some brainstorming about the "why" of the mixed experiences of the new J class service, let me give some thoughts:

- The whole organization of the service is not automated (starting with the lack of handheld devices to "take your order"), which makes it error prone, slow and very labor intensive.

- Because the whole handling is very labor intensive, the cabin crew simply does not have time for one of the major goals of the new service: More interaction with the passengers. Think about the ISM and SP going through the cabin, right after or maybe just before take-off, chatting with the passengers and registering their wishes on a Pad. Including first drink service, etc.

- And the Pad does transmit the passengers' choices to the galley, where the drinks + appetizers are prepared and served right away.

- A lack of automation makes it nearly impossible and very labor intensive to have "multiple" choices. There is no way, the crew does know if and when they will run out of a choice. So crew (and passengers) do complain towards CX and CX does reduces the choices to avoid disappointing passengers with their choice no longer available.

- There does not seem to be much alignment between the origin of the passengers and the availability of choices. Why have a lot of congee, when the passengers are mostly western nationality ?

- The cabin crew seems to be extremely busy in the galley, just to prepare a drinks round, etc. This suggests, the storage of all the items to be served seems to be highly optimized for space, but not for being readily available for serving. When all bottles, glassware and other items are brought on the airplane organized in such a way, it can be used right away, that would save a lot of time for the cabin crew.

- The higher FF passengers get disappointed with the lack of choices available for them.

- The extra text on the menu does not seem to have much relation with the effective menu on offer, which disappoints the passengers.

- The available choices do seem to be (sometimes ?) focused around one major option, for example largely only beef related, instead of a spread like the standard Y choices "beef, chicken, fish, vegetarian".

- The hot parts of the meal are served on cold plating, with the consequence that, if it's not JIT delivery, the meal gets cold and even with JIT, you have to eat "fast" to avoid cold food. Hot food becoming cold, is a major distraction on taste perception. The JIT again gives time pressure towards the cabin crew.

- The meals are considered bland. Yep, it is. What is lacking is sauces. Every chef will tell you "give me sauce". Sauce takes care a meal gets a flavor on top of the basic taste of the solid ingredients. A flavor not mixed throughout the whole food portion, but varying with the solid parts of the meal in varying quantities. Maybe HKG locals can tell, whether this is due to the Asian habit to have all meal parts served at the same time, and soup is becoming the sauce for the other meal parts.

- And a major flaw I think, is the absent for advanced meal selection. When properly implemented, this would be a major cost saving for CX and would give passengers the option to choose upfront a "light" meal, or even skip the whole meal because they want to sleep right away. It also gives another option for positive passenger interaction.

Feel free to "add"

Avishai Cohen

Any update on this?

londonexpert