thejaredhuang

2/12 UA208, IAD-LAX. FA went around to all the GS/1Ks in economy to take orders, she said for some reason there were only 15-18 hot entrees loaded for a full flight. After taking orders then they started at row 7 and began regular food service. They had 1/5 hamburgers left and chicken wraps. All 8 or so pasta entrees were taken by the time regular service commenced. Good job FA, bad job catering.

764toHI

3/19 UA148, GRU-EWR - quinoa/grain salad, chicken and rice (other option was beef), roll and chocolate mousse for dessert. Sampled the meal as I indulged at the *A lounge, the entree was a bit salty for my taste (although consistent with what I experienced in Brazil), and the roll was served cold - I warmed up the roll by placing it under the hot entree.

Breakfast was a warm croissant served with fruit salad (a grape, papaya slice and several slices of pineapple) with a strawberry yogurt. The breakfast was good.

TCD

I'm getting pretty bored of the quinoa/grain salad now. Would it really hurt them to rotate that every month or so?

I think the roll is always cold, as well as pretty stale. Which is surprising as I've found American bread products seem to have an infinite shelf life. I once left a pack of Thomas bagels open on the counter when I went on vacation. Two weeks later they were entirely unchanged.

764toHI

Agree with all points, which was why I ate at the lounge. That being said, the breakfast was decent for Y standards with the warm croissant and fruit (no doubt given ex-GRU catering).

OT, but you should watch the Netflix series Cooked - the Air episode discusses the evolution of bread in the human diet and speculates on why gluten intolerance has become so prevalent.

TCD

I'm actually fine with the UA Y food, The entree/main is normally edible, the ice cream always good and I'm okay with both the breakfast and light meal options. Which is why its vexing that they can't get the last few details right.

My secret shame is that I happily eat (and drink) in both the lounge and on the flight, then wonder why I don't sleep well.

Thanks for OT recommendation. I'll check it out.

truncated

UA16
EWR-LHR
3/12/17

Dinner
Options were chicken or pasta, had the chicken which turned out to be chicken strips and orzo in some sort of cream sauce:

Pretty bad (maybe because I'm not a fan of orzo, but chicken strips were basically rubber and sauce was salty and not very flavourful). Appreciated the vegetables though. Also came with the infamous quinoa salad which appears to have shrunk from previous iterations and not very good either. Dessert was mango sorbet. Best part of the meal was probably the two Goose Island IPAs I had with it

"Breakfast"

The usual affair - warm croissant and way-too-sweet yoghurt. And the FA came back down the aisle with the leftover croissants and gave me another without asking

Overall food was meh but great service from the LHR crew somewhat made up for it.

thejaredhuang

Looks like the same meal I had in 2016, http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/27547375-post75.html

However I thought it tasted great, hopefully it was just rotated in and not being catered for 5 months straight.

TCD

The main/entree is definitely rotated, as I've had other "chicken" dishes served this year. I'm pretty sure the overall list is fairly short and unchanging though. Then again, I'm not sure how many cheap, long-life, easily repeatable, low-allergen, dishes there are.

I wonder why no airline has made the jump to pizza though. That cooks swiftly from frozen in a standard oven, and everyone loves pizza. I would go out of my way to fly on a pizza plane.

shimps1

I would assume packaging a round pizza when tray tables etc are square may be a problem. Along with that, serving square pizza is definitely very school cafeteria level. Not that Y food is much better than that.

I think avoiding pizza is just a way the airline can make it seem like they're putting in effort. If I was served pizza in Y, or on any flight, I would think the airline phoned it in.

DCA writer

LH served a vegetarian pizza as the second meal on a westbound TATL flight a few years ago, and I recall liking it very much.

saltydog75

No pictures, but a few notes based on a flight from ANU (Antigua) to EWR:

1) The 375ml bottle of red wine (a malbec) was nice. Wish they'd stock them on domestic flights. Alas, those only have the small bottles. It kinda makes Y feel like J when you have that half bottle.

2) I picked the BBQ chicken sandwich because it was the hot option - again, reasoning this would turn the flight into some semblance of J with the half bottle and a hot meal. Alas, the bread was WAY too thick. I could hardly taste the BBQ chicken through the giant mouthfuls of bread.

truncated

AC has pizza on their BOB menu and reviews are decidedly mixed: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-c...afe-pizza.html

Also some pics from this Buzzfeed article: Dear Air Canada, We Need To Talk About The State Of Your Airplane Food

764toHI

Was just going to comment how pizza can turn out to be disastrously disgusting on-board but the previous poster provided the perfect visual.

TCD

Ah, guess I was being too optimistic. Not sure how they can get it so disastrously wrong, but I guess I should never be surprised by what the airlines can do!

caverunner17

Calzone is the answer. I think it was Swiss that had one in Y back in 2012 on my ZRH-ORD flight.