Hello from UA 1566 en route from IAD to MEX for the long weekend.

Full choice of PDB. "Turbulence" meant service didn't start until ~60 mins into the flight (complete w/ announcement about FAs being there for our safety).

Hot nuts, then choice of beef with rice and beans and plantains or chicken with peppers and rice.

Salad was boring but good, roll was hot, beef was a little fatty but OK. Chocolate cheesecake for dessert which was a nice surprise. I guess no more gelato?

Good service from two FAs who kept drink refills coming. My order was taken first out of everyone despite being in 3E (738) which while flattering was a policy violation. Suppose I can't complain too much though :o

Different dessert selection could be due to international/Latin American routing. IIRC, I saw something similar on a SJU flight.

UA418 - EWR-SFO (dinner)
 

Menus handed out before takeoff, orders taken shortly after we were in the air.

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Menu. I noted that the steak was the same I had on and SFO-EWR flight a couple months ago, so I went with chicken.

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Salad was good, but I completely missed the beets in a separate container - so salad was a bit more plain. I wish they would mix up salad dressings; everything has been with olive oil of late. Cheese was good, especially with the mango. Bread was served shortly after the salad was plated; my ciabatta roll was warm and chewy - very nice.

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Wife ordered the steak - still not the greatest flavor, IMO, but slightly better than last time.

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Chicken turned out to be very good - moist and succulent. I liked the lentils a lot as well. Good main course.

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Sundae with Tony Stark in the background

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Cookies served about 1h15m before landing...first time I have been offered milk with it. Pretty standard, although a bit less chewy than usual. FA came and gave us 2(!!) extra cookies. I put 1.5 of them away before realizing I probably shouldn't have done that.

Overall, solid service and decent food. This was on a 28J p.s. flight, if anyone cares.

Flat Iron Steak
 

The Flat iron steak w/ Chimichiri sauce was really good!

Also DFW-SFO had a jambalaya that was excellent, is something positive happening here?

Yes, I had the jambalaya on the IAH-PHX run I took last night. It was actually pretty good.

Flew DEN ANC last week (marked as lunch), blocked at 5:52, 2 options, no courses. Had the venerable "Indian chicken" as it was described. Way too little food. sCO crew was good to start but trailed off the last 2 hours of the flight. Flying SEA IAD lunch flight tomorrow, think I should expect 3 choices and the courses?

UA 1182 - LAX-EWR (dinner, sUA p.s.)
 

Hopped back from the Left Coast yesterday on an sUA plane. Interestingly enough, it happened to be the exact same bird I flew EWR-SFO a few days prior, so being back in 2B was quite familiar. FA service was very good overall - made sure I was hydrated, although I was disappointed they didn't wake me up for cookie service (just kidding...I was much more disappointed in myself!).

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PDB - Sam Adams Winter Lager! I had read here on FT about UA signing a deal with the company to provide seasonals, so I broke with the usual Goose IPA. Winter is my 2nd-favorite of their seasonals (Oktoberfest is still the best by a decent margin, but both are far better than the spring and summer seasonals) - enjoyed the change of pace.

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The menu. Another sighting of the flat iron steak :rolleyes: I ordered the cod, but because all the GS/1Ks on the plane wanted it, and my wife ordered the last one before me, I got stuck with the chicken instead.

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Nuts + back to basics.

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The smoked duck was actually really good - a little cold, but really good smoky flavor. I would take an entree full of that! I also liked the edamame salad, as it had more flavor to it than most of the salads I have had recently. Still was given olive oil to drizzle over it... :rolleyes:

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My wife's cod and noodles. I really liked this - good flavoring on the curry, perhaps a little heavy - and the size of the cod was a very generous portion. Noodles came out pretty solid as well.

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Chicken for me - turned out quite solidly as well - chicken was pretty succulent. Lots of carrots (a tad crunchy), and the leek mash was a nice variation on mashed potatoes.

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Sundae to finish, as always.

I have flown on a couple sCO p.s. flights, but in all honesty (and this is without getting into the broader sCO v. sUA FA debate), the sUA p.s. flights definitely seem to have more attentive service. Gotta pick those 28J birds! :)

Gosh the P.S. Service is far better than what customers flying between GUM and HNL are served. Yet UA still continues to market flights between GUM and HNL as International and as BusinessFirst are only GPU'able, yet you as a PS Customer get a menu and better food options. What a shame, UA!

Yep complete BS! Right after the merger the food service was very good but went downhill quickly....

1/15 PHL-SFO red eye: warm chicken and arugula sandwich with a grain salad on the side. It was quite good.

1/18 IAD-SFO PBD/warm nuts/garden salad. Main course choices were salmon/chicken osso buco/Shanghai noodles with dim sum. Had the chicken, served with polenta and broccolini. Vanilla gelato with chocolate sauce and whipped cream for dessert. The meal was surprisingly good, best domestic first food I have had in the last couple years.

Service was another thing. Worst I have experienced up front. It started with an abnormally long delay from takeoff until the FAs were out of their seats. I don't usually pay close attention to this but we were at cruising altitude before they got up. The FA serving the first class cabin was a disaster. by the time she took dinner orders and sorted out priority we were an hour into the flight with no drink service. The second FA had already heated up the nuts and no drinks made so they were cold by the time service started. We ordered cocktails and received a glass, a can of mixer and two mini bottles each tossed on the center console. By the time we mixed our own drinks the salads were served with wine service.

The rest of dinner was fine but as soon as it was over we got a 2+ hour break with no drink service in the cabin. We went up to the galley to get our own drinks multiple times. The pilots also decided to have social hour with the FAs and rotate out of the cockpit for bathroom breaks that lasted for 10-15 minutes with 1 min in the bathroom and the rest chatting in the galley. So both aren't doing their jobs and blocking the forward lavatory for an extended period of time.

All that said the flight only a little bit late (ground delay at SFO) and we arrived safely. The issue in my mind is the total unpredictability of the service level when you by the ticket.

1/27
UA 1722 A20
ORD-IAH dep 1735

Choice of chicken romanescu with brocolli "barb" or mushroom risotto

Choice of PDB, meal orders taken front to back, with 66 on the upgrade list I'm sure everyone up front was 1K or GS. Very friendly FA kept drinks flowing for the entire 2h15m flight and cookies served after dinner.

LAX-IAH
Jan 26 - Breakfast
757-300

PDB
Hot towel

Choice of: Scrambled eggs or oatmeal
Both served with fruit and Yogurt
Croissant or Cinnamon roll

IAH-BOG
26 Jan, Dinner
757-200

PDB
Hot towel
Nuts

SFOSTL
E175 operated by Skywest
DEP 411PM

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First time flying Express with the new meal offerings. FA came around with a tray of water before boarding, no PDB. Choice of chicken wrap or noodle salad with steak. Choose the salad and it was served with a fruit salad and a pretty good (for packaged it tasted pretty fresh )cookie.

I liked the salad and the beef was pretty good; my only gripe was the portion was relatively small. I say the setup of the chicken wrap and it was much more substantial.

Definitely an improvement...hard to imagine that previously these long routes got a snackbox of carbs.

ORD-DFW, dinner, right now. Miscater meant we ended up w/ French toast instead of 1 of the 2 dinner options. I was actually OK w/ that, but they didn't load syrup and it looked bad, so I decided against it. The chicken I ended up w/ also was bad. All the food was bad.

Remember last year, when food was good?