Denver Enzo

For those complaining about service issues: Have you tried the FA call button? I would think after a few folks in F started requesting beverages or to have empties/trash removed that they might put down the novel or crossword puzzle. Service can be trained by customers asking for what they want.

JVPhoto

Have you had the Asian chicken noodle salad? I have 0 complaints with them doing that.

FlightNurse

I believe the FAA has rules on this as all cabin staff be trained per their air certificate of the airline that is being flown. Just because the FA's would rather no follow the airlines procedure doesn't mean they haven't been trained correctly.

JerseyCityS

Just flew EWR ORD< and had the mushroom soup and the caprese sandwich. Soup was pretty good.

Sandwich was way too doughy - when you refrigerate thick bread like that, it gets chewey. I took the top off, and ate the bottom with knive/fork. I saw two others doing the same thing.

Connection ORD TPA was spicy corn soup which was delicious with a decent southwest chicken salad - not top of the line by any means, but a big step up from the previous salads of many many years.

IAH LAX on the 787-9 was onion soup which was good, and I had a roast beef blue cheese salad which was rather good. Other choice was the chicken sandwich directly from buy-on-board.

DCFlyer0306

Why is United serving a piece of bread (served directly on the tray, no less) with a sandwich?????

Also, the roast beef sandwich / piece of bread / cream of mushroom soup meal looks so unappetizing -- everything is light brown!

I get that this is better than the 711 Burrito, but still.

JVPhoto

If they took the roll away then 7 people here would complain that they didn't have anything to dip into the soup and it was all part of United trying to save $2billion by cutting the rolls (and grapes & limes)!

PV_Premier

were they literally pulling it off the BOB cart?

isn't some variation of the roast beef/bleu cheese also on the BOB menu?

JerseyCityS

I didnt' see them pull it off the cart, but it was clearly the same sandwich. The roast beef blue cheese salad is not anything from BOB that I have seen.

Again, it's nothing like CO served back in the day in domestic F, but it's a small upgrade from the absolutely disgusting offerings recent UA has been offering since the merger.

excon2007

Yes the extra bread doesn't make sense to me since there is a sandwich but as I explain below, JVPhoto hit the nail on the head. There is no presentation anymore, it's all pre plated or prepackaged.

Exactly correct. When I used to work in catering, some lunch and dinner flights used to feature a hot soup and sandwich or a hot entree with salad. Bread was only provisioned for the hot entree because, hello, the other is a sandwich. It required the flight attendant to heat and offer to the customer because we actually had service requirements in those days. Well when they would conduct focus groups on the elites, it was brought up consistently about not offering to all customers-especially by the COSTARS who demographically were of an age group that tends to eat bread with everything. Interestingly even though it was a one-step service on the same tray, customers used to view the soup as a separate course and thus expected bread. Psychology of an elite's appetite combined with nutritional expectations of different generations....

These are pre-plated on the winged casserole dish and heated so they don't actually pull them off the BOB cart, but don't give Jeff any ideas...

Pre-plating BTW was a huge no-no during the Bethune/Kellner era; theory being that if you plated, chilled then reheated all the food on the same dish the flavors mixed and you ended up with food that tasted like the dish.

1kBill

Well, maybe the solution would be to serve a proper meal in F rather than cheap sandwiches or salads. (Although as mentioned, I agree that the sandwich is better than that burrito thing.)

However, this is the new UA, so cost cuts are the way to go.

Far From Home

UA789 PDX-DEN 10/13

Good service all around. Plenty of drinks and refills, warm-but-not-overheated nuts (and not as many broken pieces as in the past), first chance to try the (tasty) steak salad...even the cookie was warmed up decently (most lately have been thoroughly overheated, almost to the point of mush). Only dislike is that the French onion soup is still awful.

PV_Premier

steak salad looks very small but the meat appears to be nicely cooked, i guess for a short PDX-DEN flight it is not bad.

JerseyCityS

I had that IAH LAX on Tuesday this week, the presentation was much better out of IAH. Wasn't 1/2 bad actually.

milepig

I just had the "bread plus bread" treatment on my "dinner" flight LGA-ORD. Soup was improved. Chicken noodle with still crunchy veggies. And not at all over salted. But why on earth a sandwich plus a bread roll?? Service was horrific but I've sort of given up on anything more. They spent most of the flight gossiping in the galley while scarfing down unused meals. They shut down service a full 45 minutes prior to landing with no turbulence. And they did the whole prelanding spiel 20 minutes before the seatbelt sign went on. The sandwich described as hot beef was beef and cheese, which is sort of important to know for many people. The cheese had leaked all over the plate in a very unappetizing way.

zoegksf

I am afraid the burrito/wrap thing isn't completely gone. Had it last Saturday on SFO-EWR red ey. It did seem an improvement over old 711 style grossness. Told it was a cilantro chicken wrap and was fine for a red eye and was heated. Came with bag of Cape Cod chips and a Ghirardelli chocolate on tray.