Another upvote for the veg chili. Occasionally they get an item right. The oatmeal with apples is also pretty decent.

Unfortunately even the occasional solid main dish usually gets let down by the accompanying items

I had one of the one drink announcements on my EWR-LHR flight last week. I was in J so didn't really matter - I got two drinks in relatively rapid succession and that was all I wanted. I don't really fly Y but would have assumed that there was a practice of not serving multiple drinks at the same time.

Had the same printed menu going IAH-GRU on July 2. Went with the short rib which was OK, bread served warm. However, your egg whites with spinach and kale looks entirely different than what I received.

Love the oatmeal too for breakfast.

BINGO!

I just took Melbourne to SFO yesterday (14+ hours), and I decided not show the pathetic meal photos.
It was as bad as it gets.

No PDB ( we were an hour late due to late coming flight from SFO), so it was understandable the crew tried to get the plane out to minimize further delay.
Choice of Beef, Chicken and a vegetarian options and I ordered the beef which was a low quality piece of meat that was too difficul to chew. Only half a bowl of salad was served with one of those impossible to open bottle of olive oil/vinaigrette dressing. After struggling to open it, it was too frozen to pour it.

Most of passengers were hungry half way during the 14+hour flight, and we were served Tim Tam and chips. No snackboxes that have been made available on SFO-SIN-SFO flights recently.

Only one breakfast option prior to landing, which was that green square egg based brick (shown earlier this thread). UA was too cheap to include a yorgut .

Does UA management care? I found it ironic and sad, that the biggest news was the return of lemon/lime wedges started July 1, and it even had a blog written about it.

I'll follow in UA_Flyer's footsteps and skip the photo. Just finished DEN > MUC and decided to try the Moroccan Vegetable Pastilla, thinking it must have flavor. The dough was undercooked (or soggy) and the dish lacked in flavor altogether. Accompanied by a meager side salad (thankfully not cauliflower/grape thing). Both the portion size and overall dish were underwhelming, even with low expectations. Would not order again.

Was there a dessert option with the first meal?

Yes, skipped my usual cheese plate (had great cheese in Australia during the trip) and had the ice cream instead. I would say it was the highlight if the 14+ hour flight.

The FA continue to say "fruit and cheese plate", but there has not been any fruit (usually grapes) since the reintroduction of cheese desert option.

Just an update on the fabulous cheese plate I have had at SFO, EWR and IAD Polaris Lounges:

Tried at LAX, not as good and had it at IAH yesterday, and it was below LAX.

Your Polaris cheese plate tour reporting has me curious to try more of them myself, but I agree, LAX cheese plate is not special. It is not bad flavour generally, but as a cheese plate it is disappointing, with only one cheese, and the sweet components dominating the overall taste.

I like the photos, they never cease to amaze...

Flew MUC-DEN yesterday in Polaris (after a couple of back and forth aircraft switches).

• Finally had that cauliflower thing everyone seems to hate. Have to admit, when I looked at it, I wondered who had been smoking what. But you know what - it had actual flavour and textures. My plate was clean at the end - I'm all for keeping things interesting.
• No printed menus
• Options were - short rib, chicken, fish arrabbiata, and a veggie dish
• I had the fish - it was a miniscule portion, but is going to be my go-to dish until the Thai chicken makes a comeback. Pretty solid.
• The veggie dish, which my travel companion had, was an utter disgrace. A coupe of carrots, some dry kale, and mashed potato in a casserole dish. The purser was so aghast that of his own volition he went back to coach and brought up two veggie options (one with baked beans, and a lasagne) as an alternative. He urged us to provide negative feedback and was clearly embarrassed.
• The ice-cream was a disgusting goopy mess. The chocolate sauce tasted worse than Hershey's, if that's possible. The ice cream was slush.
• I was offered an egg-custard tart, which turned out to be some kind of a berry tart. Not great.

Quite the contrast from my SFO-IST outbound on TK, whose business class catering, absent the caviar, probably tops many airlines in F. (And I prefer the TK 777 seat for sleeping, but that's for another thread)

Flew CDG-EWR today in Polaris on the 9:45am:
- Choices were the short rib, halibut, chicken or veggie. Mrs. threecap and I both selected the short rib and it was bad.
- I can't call it inedible, because the cold cauliflower grape side dish and the carrot puree on the shortrib plate were actually, truly, inedible.
- Bread wasn't warm, but it wasn't cold either. It was not served inside plastic.
- The roasted pearl onions were the only thing in the main dish worth eating at all.
- This was Mrs. threecap's first time in international first class and she couldn't believe how bad the food was. Think about that. We both agreed we'd rather get a simple sandwich or something we could eat.
- We both passed on pre-arrival meals - choice was the grilled veggie couscous or the hamburger
- No PDB
- Bright side? Drink cart came around with a few different bottles of wine, and I thought the Pouilly Fume was actually really good. .

Photo of lunch below:

CDG-EWR Lunch 7/7/2022

UA knows exactly what they are serving compared to other airlines.

They have detailed information on all the airlines on routes they compete - from soft product - hard product - loyalty programs - and on and on.

They do not care.

Just off of UA972 (ORD-BRU). I came in with exceptionally low expectations based on this thread, but everything was pretty good.

Also a first for me on UA in a long time - asked for prosecco (since if you ask for champagne they sometimes are snippy) and was told they are out of prosecco but stocked one bottle of champagne (alas Gosset). Still I'm not complaining! No real read on service because I express dined. Sorry about the quality and half eaten meal 😬