iluvdoco

Sounds like a much-needed catering upgrade!

https://www.businesstraveller.com/bu...-kong-flights/

Very happy to hear this as the food on my flight a few weeks ago ex-HKG was not great. Also F has been running the same menu items over the years. Am curious what in-flight plating will look like.

chitink

So no vegetarian options?

SeeBuyFly

What makes you think it is an upgrade? The quality will be poor as always.

iluvdoco

The marketing photos look promising...

Dr. HFH

Chose one from the following:

a) They're supposed to.
b) They always do.

You may now proceed to the next question.

sxc

This is not a criticism of Cathay - if these dishes are done well, could definitely be an improvement. There was discussion on this forum where some people genuinely would have preferred "cafe de coral" style food onboard, and it seems like this is a move towards that:

HKGglobaltrotter

My weekly flying on CX tells me one thing for sure, that is if you have no expectation you will have no disappointment. And yes, F menu has been featuring the same few items for years. I wish they can reintroduce those collaboration menus such as with The MO group like a few years ago. At least it will be something different and refreshing.

kaka

what?
it wasnt too long ago where they had collaborations with 3* restaurants in 5* hotels, yung kee, maxims...

it comes back every few years in all sort of different forms. usually where those eateries would have claimed to have designed the menu - but the food will still be made at the same kitchen in CLK under a grossly similar budget.

QRC3288

To be fair to HKGglobaltrotter 's point, while I can't speak to the budget of those other dishes (I'm sure they were prepared in the same catering facility), they added much greater variety and abundance.

One of my biggest problems with CX isn't so much the dishes are the same for years, but there aren't many options at all. Compared to other F carriers I fly, at least. I have read over on the FT Emirates forum that actually, many of the things I've eaten in F are J class items. I wasn't too aware of this, but what I appreciate is the enormous abundance of options. It isn't uncommon to have 15-20 savory items on the menu including appetizers and mains from two meals and snacks, whereas CX on a longhaul flight you are lucky to have 7-8. Especially if you count the Chinese meal, which they present as 3 items, as one thing only...and obviously don't count "ice cream" as a snack. Lol. Cathay prints everything on the menu because they don't offer squat.

They also had different plating and presentation for the Mandarin menu. I do suspect it cost more because they were putting fancy colorful things on the dishes, you know microgreens and the like. I don't know who paid though. Maybe MO kicked in.

Back to what I care about more, the abundance of options. JAL does that too (also apparently via the J class menu), but it is really nice to have a lot of choices. Even if not all of them are exclusive to F or have a base component that's the same as J. I can live with that! But many of the items are exclusive so you get the best of both worlds. (CX on the other hand, just flat out serves J class breakfast on morning F flights, on F plating). Whereas CX F, the options are very limited and you really feel it in a full 6/6 flight.

That MO menu provided an extra 30-50pct more food items for you to mix and match a la carte.

SQTraveller

The quality on CX has definitely come down over the past few years but I still think my experiences both long haul and short have been quite reasonable. Compared with BA, I think CX food is still good.

christep

If you had ever spent any time in Hong Kong you would understand that the term "vegetarian" is incompatible with "Hong Kong Flavours".

chitink

Agreed, but will they offer any vegetarian foods at all or just the "flavours"?

TravelLawyer

CX always offers special meals to accommodate different lifestyles. It's not a standard option, but one that would need to be chosen ahead of the flight and specially loaded.

chitink

Yea I have had those, they are worse than Y meals.

kaka

my last BA J meal HKGLHR was better than most of my CX J meals....

It's an additional to the menu? that would be good.... in the past i think they just get mixed in (so it's the same 3 or so options)