lsed

Those PJs in grey are new? I've only seen the Van Laack light blue and navy ones.


I almost choked at your comment on the fancy seat controls on AA. The LH one must have been mindblowing then!

iceman77_7

The LH ones were straightforward by comparison.

SkyTeam777

The new LH service does not use the three-tiered appetizer stand any more, now they are plated individually. This was implemented earlier this year, but I have never heard of asking for caviar. It is a specific course, and it sounds like the FA was too lazy to prepare the cart for just 1 pax.

jcm9000

Enjoying the report so far! Surprised no one has mentioned yet but that aa 767 is a 767-300 (the aa 200 is a 3 class plane with an old 1st and business class seats from the old 737 interior basically). Sorry for being pedantic and looking forward to more of the report!

iceman77_7

Darn, sorry I missed the appetizer stand. Thought it always looked pretty classy.

Oops, you're right. I actually agonized over whether to get onto the 3-class F or 2-class J and ultimately went for 2-class J. Fixed in my report!

iceman77_7

After my LH F experience ended much too soon, I was greeted by a TG representative to escort me to the lounge and my next flight. I was particularly impressed by this as I was coming off a non-TG carrier and was unable to get my TG boarding pass at JFK.

I consider myself very airport savvy and at first thought it was totally unnecessary that I was getting an escort. However, as we wound our way through the bowels of FRA, I was quite glad to have someone guiding me along. FRA is huge! It took at least 30 minutes to get from my LH gate until I hit the door of the lounge. I'm used to awkward conversations and silences, but this one took the cake. Definitely could have used a golf cart.


Love the great tarmac views along the way


So many widebodies

Eventually we made it to the LH Senator's lounge. I was quite disappointed that my escort didn't take me to the FCL, but didn't want to argue as with the delayed arrival into FRA and the long walk, there was only about 30-45 minutes before I needed to start boarding. The Senator lounges in FRA have been covered ad infinitum on here and I don't think anyone cares about any non-FCL or FCT in FRA anymore unfortunately. Wasn't terribly impressed with the Senator's lounge, quite crowded and strange architecture with the random English words built into the walls.

I had never flown the A380 prior to this trip so I made it to the gate a little early to take pictures.


Whale seems like an appropriate description



TG 921
May 10, 2013
2:45 PM-6:25 AM
Seat 3A
Airbus A380

I boarded and was escorted the 6 feet to my seat. I was one of the first on-board and proceeded to take many cabin shots. However, I kept being interrupted by the various cabin crew bowing to me every single time they walked by. Being Asian, I understand the whole bowing and respect thing, but this seemed a bit excessive. Not really sure what I'm supposed to do either. Bow back?







I will spare you all the multiple shots of champagne that I took. See one glass of champagne, see them all. Rimowa amenity kits were distributed. Definitely like the hard case style.



Menus were distributed as well, though I already pre-ordered my lobster entree.







Pajamas were distributed and followed my theme of PJs representing the airline or country the airline is from.


I was very much looking forward to the food on this flight. I've read mixed reviews on the TG forum, so I had relatively low expectations going in. I should have had them lower. Unfortunately the dinner on this flight was the worst in-flight meal I've ever had, premium or economy cabin.


Disgusting appetizer


Tough to mess up caviar, but they did.


Another disgusting appetizer. The beef tasted rotten, the fish was inedible.


I wish I could say the lobster made up for everything, but it didn't. I had two bites of it and it tasted spoiled. I've never not finished lobster before until then. So bummed by it. :-(


Fruit. Hard to mess that up.

iceman77_7

Having finished up that disappointing meal, I wanted to explore the cabin a little bit, including the huge lavatory and lounge area.


Spacious lavatory


Separate seating area in the lavatory


Cloth hand towels with orchids. No paper towels for us F passengers!


F lounge area. Like with all other TG A380 F trip reports, it remained unused for the entire flight.


Lounge area part 2


Snack area

I asked for my seat to be converted into a bed. It was comfortable to be sure, but not nearly as good as the separate LH F bed. I also don't understand what the purpose of that video screen to the left of the seat is.


After sleeping for another solid 6 hours or so, I decided to have a snack. None of the breakfast items really excited me so I had the snack items instead. I was really hoping TG would redeem themselves after that dinner debacle and fortunately they did.


A delicious fruit smoothie. They offered refills several times and I took them up on it.


Tasty fruit bowl


The noodles with roasted pork. Another surprisingly tasty dish.


Assorted dim sum. Not bad for an airplane, but I have pretty high standards for dim sum.

As we neared BKK, all the cabin crew came around to thank us and bow one more time. They also handed everyone their own orchid.


Overall: The on-board product was mediocre. The service is your typical Asian service, if you're into that kind of stuff. The new hard product is nice, but not as comfortable as CX, LH or SQ F. Dinner was inedible. However, the ground services were top notch, as you'll soon read about it in my next installment. I would only fly TG again if in F, and out of BKK to get the full ground experience.

BA5E

Loving your TR so far, and must say what a great way to travel with LH having a seat to have your meal in and then just roll over onto the bed, no having to ask the crew to make up your seat into bed mode as it is already done for you. Food looked good and liked the look of the steak. What a shame that the lounge did not come up to expectations, very bad no-one to greet you in, and it appears only when the German couple came in well after you that someone appeared, certainly not good service. Looking forward to the next episode of the TR

BA5E

Sorry to hear that the TG soft product not good, not what you would expect from a F prospective. Must admit the food did not look at all appertizing. Anyway now look forward to the next instalment in due course.

SFO777

Nice to have the greeter, but I would have asked/told the rep that I'd like to go to the LH First lounge instead.

What a shame. I flew NRT-BKK on Monday and the food was outstanding.

Was that supposed to be the Lobster Thermidor?
Mine from Monday was excellent and plated a lot differently.

iceman77_7

Agreed, LH F with separate bed is my favorite hard product. It's so comfortable and convenient to not have to ask the FA to make up a bed.

It was my first time in FRA and I had no idea where the FCL was compared to where we're going. I thought about asking the rep to go to the FCL after we got to the Senator's lounge, but it looked pretty far away and with such a short layover, I decided that it ultimately wasn't worth it. Just means I gotta go to FRA in LH F again.

I read your report and was surprised at how much better your food was than mine. I did indeed pre-order the "lobster thermidor" and definitely looks a lot different.

iceman77_7

As I waited to get off the airplane, I struck up a conversation with a fellow F passenger who also happened to be connecting to another destination. Turns out we were both looking forward to the F lounge and spa experience. As we walked off the jetway, the famous golf cart was waiting for us.



And thus began a speedy, weaving through BKK.



Being on the golf cart, I didn't really get an appreciation for the size of BKK. Everything seemed to be wizzing by and I was just trying to enjoy the thrill of it. My lack of attention to the size of the airport would come into play later on in this installment.

We arrived at the BKK F lounge and I noticed that I was directed to the opening part of the lounge while the other guy on my plane was directed to a semi-private living room, without asking. I also found that he was proactively offered a full hour F massage while I had to ask for one myself. We were both connecting to TG C so there should not have been a difference there. My experience seems to go against that of the TRs I've read in the past. Throwing out a random, possibly controversial hypothesis: do white passengers get better treatment in Asia than Asians?

An iPad with various available menu items was brought to me. After my experience with everyone bowing on the TG flight, I found the fact that everyone went to their knees when they came to talk to me or bring/collect my food even more superfluous. I had a massage scheduled in about 90 minutes so I took it easy on the food and just ordered some dim sum.


I still haven't learned my lesson about ordering dim sum outside of high-end dim sum restaurants. Just going to be disappointed.

I passed the time by catching up on emails and news. They had given me a designated time for my hour long massage and that time came and passed without anyone getting me. I finally went up to the group of lounge staff congregating near the front and asked about my massage. They then escorted me over to the F spa.

We've all seen photos of the F spa. *insert comment about fishnet underwear leaving nothing to the imagination* That said, my masseuse was very respectful of holding the towel in front of her face when I came out of the changing area to lay on the massage table.

The full body massage was wonderful, pretty similar to the Swedish ones I get in the US, though with less pressure than I like. 55 minutes later (not 60), the massage was complete.

I escorted myself back to the F lounge and with 2 hours left until my flight, decided to be proactive and asked to move into one of the living rooms, which I did without issue.


I could not figure out how to turn on the TV for the life of me.





Having finished my massage, I decided to have a proper breakfast (yes, another one).

I started out with watermelon juice, which was so delicious that I decided to have more than one... or two.



Followed by a Chinese donut.


I also walked around the lounge a bit and saw the various sample items for display in the buffet area. None of it looked particularly appetizing and decided to not order anything from there. I didn't find the dayrooms that sfo777 found, but I did see the empty dining room. The lounge was pretty quiet on a Saturday morning, but are these things ever in use?

Having been brought to the lounge in a golf cart, I was expecting a ride to my connecting flight, or at least a notification from the staff that I should start walking to my flight. As my boarding time approached and went (seems to be a recurring theme here) and no one came to get me, I packed up my things and started walking. On my way past the gaggle of staff standing near the front, one very helpfully said, "walk all the way to the end of the terminal and turn left!" Great.

I spedwalked pretty much across the entire BKK airport to get to my gate and the boarding area was completely empty by the time I arrived, approximately 10 minutes prior to scheduled pushback. I made it on board without issue though and noticed a couple stragglers board after me. Nevertheless, lesson learned. No TG escort to the gate when you're flying in business class.

TG 413 BKK-SIN
May 11, 2013
11:15 AM-2:30 PM
Seat 12A
Airbus A330-300 (swapped from Boeing 777-300)

With my rush to the gate, I was unable to take a good look at the plane prior to boarding. It wasn't until I set foot on the plane did I realize that my 773 got swapped for an A333. No big deal as the configuration is the same and it's still angled lay-flat.



Menus were distributed prior to departure, but I had already pre-ordered my meal online so they did not hand me one. Sorry, FTers. I also noticed that the headphones weren't working and after swapping them out for another pair, I realized it was the jack that was the issue. I managed to get one ear with audio by jerry-rigging the cable so that it was twisted in just the right way to make the proper contact. Definitely annoying, to be sure.

I managed to watch A Good Day to Die Hard while eating lunch (hey, a lot of the movies on my flights were all the same and I was starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel after already watching Silver Linings Playbook, Lincoln, SKyfall, and a couple others I can't recall now). This meal was definitely the highlight of my TG food experience.


A surprisingly tasty shrimp/prawn and beef with asparagus appetizer (though I would be reminded of this meal a few times over the next few hours, if you catch my drift...)


The duck breast with asian vegetable was superb. I'm big fan of duck, having grown up eating it (my mom's peking duck actually won a cooking contest) and this was just the meal I needed to cleanse my pallet. HIGHLY recommend it if given the option on a future TG flight.


Tough to mess up a chocolate cake dessert

Overall: TG as a whole is such an enigma. They do certain things well--the F lounge and spa as a whole, my pre-ordered duck, the A380 hard product; and they do other things that just make you scratch your head--horrific FRA-BKK meal, poorly maintained IFE, inconsistency of service. As someone who likes to fly on premium cabin awards, TG is appealing with their good award availability. With all the positive TRs over the years, I'm willing to give TG another chance in the future, but avoid going in with too high expectations.

iceman77_7

I arrived in SIN in the mid-afternoon, my first time arriving in Asia during daylight hours. I cleared immigration quickly and soon found myself on the MRT headed towards the Conrad. I had done my research prior to arrival and knew that I had to make a transfer to another line. As I got out at that transfer station, it hit me. The heat and humidity was horrendous. I knew the weather forecast was in the 90s Fahrenheit and near 100% humidity, but you can't prepare for that. You could feel the air. I don't think I'd really experienced that before, even with the summers I spent in Taiwan.

I got off at the Promenade station and wandered my way into the Conrad. There was a small group/family checking in before me and I waited for at least 10 minutes while various discussions about the distribution of the multiple rooms went on. I was finally assisted by a great staff member and was informed I had been upgraded to an Executive level room. I redeemed my two free Hilton weekend nights from the Reserve CC and was a gold member. In addition to the "upgrade", I would also get free breakfast on the pool level each day. After check-in was complete, the staff member offered to escort me to the elevator, to which I said was unnecessary, and she came clean and told me that she needed to make sure the key actually worked. Thought that was amusing.

I found my room on the 16th floor.


The keys to the room were actual physical keys that appeared to be electronically encoded. Pretty cool.

Got placed in a double bed room, though I had requested a king.



Bathroom with separate shower and tub (shower to the left of the tub in the photo)


The Singaporean cousin to the LH FCT duck


And the famous Conrad bear, with my welcome fruit plate behind him. There was also a complimentary bottle of water, which was very useful given the heat.

I met up with an old college friend and we walked around the many malls right around the area as well as the promenade and Marina Bay Sands hotel. I had read up on the sky park prior to coming and ultimately decided it would not be worth it to pay admission to go up. I know I could have gone up to the bar for drinks, but didn't have time in the end.


The boat in the sky

After walking around the area, we debated where to eat dinner. I had a list of things I wanted to try while in Singapore: chili crab, Singaporean chicken rice, iced milo. We decided to get some chili crab and he drove me to Mellben Seafood in Toa Payoh. The place was in a small-ish Hawker center and was open air. It was packed! We waited about an hour for a table of two. Well worth the wait.


Pork spareribs


Asian vegetable with garlic


Claypot crab bee hoon. Probably the most amazing dish I had all trip long. It's Mellben seafood's signature dish.


Chili crab. Amazing in itself, but not as good as the crab bee hoon.

I had researched Singaporean restaurants quite extensively prior to arriving, but Mellben hadn't come up in my previous searches. Definitely a place that primarily locals go to and definitely better than the more chain type places. Tough to get to as it's not close to any MRT stations though. In retrospect, I did find a review for the place online that was a good resource in general: http://www.ladyironchef.com/2008/08/...od-chill-crab/

Exhausted from travel and jetlag by the end of dinner, I bid my friend farewell after he dropped me off back at the Conrad.

iceman77_7

The buffet the next morning was quite good. No photos, but extensive selection of western and Asian hot and cold breakfast items, including muesli (yay!), pastries, various fruits, smoked salmon and more. Definitely got my fill each morning.

Singapore seems to be all about food. I spent the day exploring and sampling various cuisines. My first stop would be at the famous Maxwell Food Centre, home of Tian Tian and its Singaporean Chicken Rice.




My unintentional submission to sfo777's "women of" collection.

Reviewed by Anthony Bordain on his TV show, the chicken rice came with very high expectations. After waiting in a decent length line, it finally my turn to order. I ordered a half plate.




Not much to look at it, but it was my second favorite dish of the trip. Incredible flavor. Still have cravings for it to this day and have searched high and low in the SF Bay Area for it without success. Please let me know if there are any places to get Singaporean chicken rice in the Bay Area!

I also decided to try my very first iced milo. It was good, but didn't live up to the hype. Essentially it's hot chocolate that is chilled. Tastes exactly as you'd expect. Refreshing, to be sure though, particularly on the hot humid day.

Now I have recently gotten really into shaved ice, particularly the Taiwanese kind that has the flavor frozen into the ice and is a very fine consistency, almost like fine pound cake. Decided to try one out here.

Disappointing. Fairly large, but relatively pricey (~US$5). Also embarassing to be given two spoons for something you plan to eat solo...

After exploring Chinatown and the Raffles area for a bit, I made my way back towards the Conrad for dinner at Din Tai Fung. Along the way, I passed by the just opened Tim Ho Wan.


Totally insane line. Singaporeans love good food and they're willing to queue (not line up) for hours for it.


Much more manageable queue at DTF.

After waiting about 15 minutes for a table at Din Tai Fung, I ordered:


Their world famous xiaolongbao. Never disappoints and the taste is consistent no matter where you go. Call it the In-n-out of xiaolongbao.


Pork chop noodle soup, another staple in my diet. A little different from traditional Taiwanese style pork chop noodle soup in that the pork chop is not deep fried and plated separately.

I also had to have milk tea to compare Singaporean milk tea to my standards. Read some decent reviews about Gong Cha tea, but eh. Just eh. That's all I can really say about it. I've grown to realize that outside Taiwan, the US actually has relatively decent milk tea/boba. Singapore's quality was below that of the US.

The next morning, I got up early, had an early breakfast, worked out and then got to Tim Ho Wan 30 minutes prior to opening to ensure a good place in line. I know it may seem like I didn't do much other than eat, drink and sleep in Singapore, but... oh wait, that just about sums up my trip.


I was fortunate to still be in the first wave of seatings.

To expedite the process, they handed out order forms to those in line so that I wouldn't have to do it after being seated.


I know DTF does it too and think it's an excellent idea.


Even longer line after it opened.

Now the restaurant originally had a to-go area, but apparently they were such a huge crush for BBQ pork buns that they simply could not keep up and decided to shut the to-go area down. I hope they upscale and open it eventually because they're rationing the BBQ buns now to 1 order per person. I was tempted to ask some of the larger groups if they could order an extra plate for me, they're so good.


Not much to look at from the outside, but pure heaven on the inside.


Best BBQ buns outside of the Tim Ho Wan in HK.

Now when I ordered from the THW in HK (as described here), I thought all of their food was excellent. I ordered similar dishes this time and was very disappointed. Aside from the BBQ buns, none of the other dishes were any good.


Mediocre siu mai


Nothing to write home about ha gao (though if I'm writing about it here, doesn't that mean it's something worth writing about?)


Pork spare ribs. Never thought they could be anything but good, but they were here.

Of course I decided to sample another milk tea shop, this time Koi Cafe, and by this time, was pretty much tired of milk tea and food (curse the thought!). The tea was again nothing special.

Overall, lesson learned from this trip is go where the locals go. Mellben and Tian Tian were amazing and exceeded already high expectations. DTF is consistently good as usual. Tim Ho Wan, don't go here if you go to the one in HK first, you'll only be disappointed. Just skip the milk tea.

As for the Conrad, it was an okay redemption of my two free Hilton nights. I could have gotten more bang for my buck at other places like Koh Samui or Maldives, but I didn't have any travel plans for there before the nights expired.

Tomcat2048

I would've found it absolutely insulting if they didn't offer Caviar considering LH has gone out of their way now to make it a separate course...

It shouldn't be the OP's problem that he was the only one that stayed awake for meal service. The service shouldn't be any worse on account of that.