FlyerTalker7654

Hi all,

Wondered if anyone has flown first class recently and can share the difference between the 3 following means;

Vegetarian Vegan Meal
Vegetarian Oriental Meal
Vegetarian Hindu/Indian

My wife is a vegan, and I am part-time. When we flew SQ last year she went with the vegetarian oriental meal which wasn't that great.

I was thinking of trying the vegetarian Indian but won't if there is dairy in it.

Does anyone have any info as to what the type of meals is I would be grateful?

Kind regards and thanks in advance.

vj_rama

Good chance you get some type of paneer (cheese) in the veg hindu meal.

On a side note, can one truly be part-time (any dietary restriction)? For example, I would consider a part time vegetarian simply non-vegetarian.

FlyerTalker7654

Thanks for the info...

Depending on the day of the week and the position of the moon, I sometimes eat eggs.

soartoday

As a vegetarian, I've requested the special meal sometimes. When the special meal looks pretty awful, there was enough slack in the catering to provide one of the menu options. As a vegan, your wife will almost certainly need to rely on the special meal since the "vegetarian" menu option is often a pasta with cheese (e.g., gnocchi or other western noodles).

trooper

"Part time vegan"? is that a thing? I had no idea....I thought you were, or weren't. I have a Vegan meal occasionally at a restaurant...because some are very good.... but that's a taste preference. I thought "vegan" was a philosophical choice...


I am NOT criticising OR judging... I just find the "part time" concept..... a bit odd. I have a very low meat intake by local standards...but I wouldn't have thought I could call myself a "part time vegetarian".

Ahhh...apparently I could claim to be a "Flexitarian" (Vegetarians who - get this - occasionally eat meat and fish.) No...that's very silly.

bo1953

t - some of us are vegan for health reasons alone, though, and not philosophical which could be considered as such too, in some quarters.

Safe travels all..

trooper

Yes, sorry... I was including health reasons in that..(in my mind!) but did not make that clear.....

infinitium

champagne and wine should be vegan too, since they come from grapes j/k - safe travels

FlyerTalker7654

I apologize, that was my humor coming out as I wrote this. Although I have not eaten meat in a year I do at times eat eggs. I just don't pretend to be a die-heard vegan when I am not. Granted there will be some that will be judgmental on that but it is what it is.

Namaste my friends.

luv_flying

I have tried many vegan meals on different classes. They are all the same except the cutleries. Peace.

AK1

My partner flew on Cathay business class Syd to HKG and then on to JFK after a stopover. She selected "Vegetarian Vegan Meal" and it was a disaster for her. Every meal they served her contained dairy and to make matters work the flight crew was clueless assuming vegan = vegetarian. I even called Cathay prior to the flights to ensure that "Vegetarian Vegan Meal" was indeed vegan. It was a total meal failure.

oldchinahand

AK1 It would be interesting to know in what ways were the meals a disaster and what exactly was/is the expectation ?
Special meals are by definition not 'normal' meals in the broad sense and they obviously cannot offer the broad variety and choices that a 'normal' menu offers catering as they do for avery small minority of passengers .
'A total meal failure' sounds perhaps a little OTT. I have often seen the ex HK and UK meals and definitely there is no dairy in ether.
Perhaps in the above case the fault was that the wrong meals were delivered to the flight or wrongly ordered by the pax.
Who at Cathay did you call re the meal request,was it MPC? Did you have the CC make a report ?
A couple of vegetarians that I know sometimes BYO
At some major airports outlets offer 'take on board' vegetarian and I believe Vegan meals and these may offer a good option to the no-choice on board offerings. Better hotels in Asia I know are happy to pack take on board meals if requested and I am sure that goes also ex other major cities

Cathay special meals lists the following.
Vegetarian Vegan Meal Strict vegetarian food with high protein, rich iron and high calcium.(VGML)Vegetarian Raw MealCombination of raw fruits and vegetables along with pure fresh fruit / vegetable juices.
I have vegan business associate who has no problem at all with the 2 above meals (definitely 'no dairy)' ex HK but some outstations offerings she says are problematic particularly ex USA.

AK1

I'll restate part of my original post and elaborate:

1) I ordered "Vegetarian Vegan Meal" for both flights
2) Because the term "Vegetarian vegan:" is ambiguous and because the definition on Cathay's web site has little or no relevance to a "vegan meal", I called Cathay prior to the flight to make sure vegan = no dairy, no animal products of any kind - they assured me it was vegan as I had described
3) On her two flights she was served a salad with a dairy dressing (other J passengers bizarrely received vinaigrette), bread and butter, pasta with cream sauce, chocolate cheesecake and coffee with milk. She asked for vegan snacks e.g. fruit but they had none - the best they could offer was instant noodles and they cautioned her the sauce had lots of MSG (not super encouraging)
4) The cabin crew were clueless about the difference between vegan and vegetarian
5) After the first flight I called again to check on my expectations for "Vegetarian Vegan" and received assurances again the meal was meant to be vegan and perhaps the ground staff had mistakenly loaded vegetarian instead of vegan,. Her second flight was the same experience as her first

So yes, it was an epic vegan meal fail by Cathay. More than happy to self-cater in economy, but seriously, in business class? No way! My expectations of Cathay were much higher and they completely sucked on these two flights as far as vegan meals go.

Ausriver

I am not vegan, so I cannot comment on others, however, the coffee with milk is not true. Milk is always optional and crew asks 100% of the time your choice of sugar and milk. If you just want coffee, you get coffee.

QRC3288

If you're hoping for fine dining with a special meal, that's just the wrong expectation in J class. Especially on CX. Their catering is already poor to begin with and frankly biz class on any airline is sonewhat comfortable, but definitely not the height of luxury. Hell I self cater in J all the time on a number of carriers (or just eat befor), and I don't order special meals. The bottom line is real food tastes better than food reheated in an aluminum tube at 30k feet. Same applies for F as well frankly. I'm not a fan when food in J isn't good, but that's not my expectation on any airline. F I expect it, but even then a lot of times it isn't very good.

​​​​​​The milk and coffee thing is very bizarre, to ausriver 's point above. They don't just serve it mixed to anybody so this is quite strange. And if they add cream they usually do it right there in front of you, after asking how you'd like it.

It almost seems like your wife's special meal was either ordered or executed completely backwards, is there a meal that requires extra dairy in everything? Obviously that was screwed up completely. It sounds like dairy was on everything.