UA1967 (Dinner)
IAH to ORD
29 December 2017

Choice of salad or mac'n'cheese with chicken. Went with the mac'n'cheese. Despite the radioactive appearance of the dish, it was pretty good. Chicken tasted nice although it could have been hotter. I do enjoy the small cheesecakes too. Nice service from an LAX-based crew and despite delayed departure (ATC); actually arrived ontime in ORD.

Additional pro tip: Avoid the United Club in Terminal E after 15:00; total zoo with nowhere to sit. C33 Club managed to snag an entire room to myself.

Happy New Years all!

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a8daa31138.jpg

Yum - blue food! ;)

David

UA 5482: SFO to MSP
December 15, 2017
Embraer ERJ-175, Dinner

Apologies for the somewhat blurry shot. Tonight's dinner installment was actually outstanding, another entry in what has been extraordinarily hit-or-miss catering on Express. I tend to find that I'm either getting served something that was grudgingly tossed off on an Express flight as an afterthought (like a wrap or something else which might as well be shrink-wrapped Y food), or like today it's a nicely conceived salad that was clearly planned by a chef to be served on a plane with no oven:

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0d6b9e8149.jpg

The main is a salmon salad with fennel slices, pomegranate, strawberry, and (if I remember) cheese. I really enjoy the grapes as a side, and the Express cookies are hands down better than mainline at this point. The only stumbling point was the "other" salad, which as far as I see as even made it to transcons - whoever thinks that a pile of spinach leaves with a single tomato/cheese/olive is a salad needs to be "retrained"... but for a late evening meal on an Express midcon, this was quite nice.

Other choice was a salad with chicken on the side, which was very similar to the salmon one except it seemed to come with a fruit bowl (a la breakfast) in place of the extra spinach salad).

UA 454: LAX to OGG
December 18, 2017
Boeing 737-800, Dinner

As a former transcon for catering purposes, this flight was a pretty big disappointment. The only thing that felt at all "kept" from the old quality of 2016 was the sundae service (with standard limited topping set) and cookie both. Otherwise, there were only two choices and the meal was delivered as a single tray, in pmCO style.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7762a9c27c.jpg

I really wish I could remember what the menu name is for this main. I've been caught by it once before, and as soon as I had chosen "beef" I was suddenly worrying that, yes.. this was it. Most of the beef making its way around the system is perfectly respectable (including any number of short rib renditions) but this just... isn't. It isn't patently offensive, but it tastes like a rather low-quality TV dinner and I've easily had better food in Y. The beef is tough and overcooked, like you would find in a cheap stew, and the carrots and potatoes also feel like they have been nuked past the point of any flavor. Meanwhile, the salad was the same pitiful excuse for a salad from one post upthread, made somewhat more palatable by the honey dijon dressing.

As a saving grace, the roll was actually pretty tasty, the butter was real, and the ice cream was vanilla. The Mai Tais were decent and I got some milk with my cookie before landing :)

Second choice was a four-cheese ravioli, and I sincerely wish I had picked that instead.

Finally, as I was thinking on the flight.. a brief shout-out to LAXOGG as I was on his route. Was hoping for a sighting but alas, still too many frames and choices for that route.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...98cc074e47.jpg

UA 1213: ORD to SFO
December 24, 2017
Boeing 757-300, Dinner

It was actually a decent meal to finish off my flying for the year. Once I made the connection and settled into the best seat in the domestic fleet, I was able to relax and ignore the 1h ground delay we had while battling snow at ORD. Thankfully as a 1K in the first row, I didn't need to worry about meal prioritization, which would be killer as the other choice was described in some truly offhand manner by the FA as "some noodles... with beef?".

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5ee7a5baef.jpg

This meal was a blast from the high-quality past, the good old chicken and sausage jambalaya, with a decent salad to boot. I really don't mind the cheesecake as a replacement for sorbet, although it would be cool if they mixed it up just for the sake of interest. Would that every flight had an option this good, and I can only hope that they roll back the awful meal cuts come 2018.

Except the pmCO food itself was usually pretty good.

The salad with the salad is interesting...usually its a bowl of fruit.

Had a roast beef sandwich on UAX CLT-IAH 3:30pm departure yesterday. Best meal I've ever had on UAX.

Indeed. pmCO had good food, and pmUA had good wine. Instead of capitalizing on the individual airline strengths, we now get blah food and good wine for a few months, and swill the remainder of the year.

Will close this older thread and refer folks to https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...n-service.html

As the year has moved on, will close this thread and refer folks to
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...n-service.html

WineCountryUA
UA coModerator

I miss the pmCO tamale chicken. Was served on merged UA for a while, but seems to have disappeared...