United Economy Choice Menu: Bistro on Board and Snack Shop [2017-2018]

Feb 22, 18, 10:43 am - Wikipost

Please read: This is a community-maintained wiki post containing the most important information from this thread. You may edit the Wiki once you have been on FT for 90 days and have made 90 posts.

Last edit by: fezzington
Wiki Link

The current menu can be found online here

March 2018 BoB updates:

New: Breakfast "Biscuit Breakfast Sandwich" - egg, canadian bacon, cheddar on a biscuit. Replaces Sourdough sandwich.
New: Breakfast "Mixed Berry breakfast bowl" - berries, nuts, and granola, with a Chobani "greek yogurt drink". Replaces Yogurt & fruit plate
"Updated": Mezze sampler, new description is "Wheat berry salad with quinoa, edamame and corn, sun-dried tomato basil hummus, almonds and triangle pita pieces"
ex-Canada is getting a new menu-
- Breakfast: Maple Ham Sandwich
- PM: Hummus Sampler
- PM: Barbecue Burger on a Pretzel Bun
- PM: Tomato Pesto Chicken Wrap

March Snack Shop Changes:

Adding Nuts.com CB&J Mix
Adding Chipotle Grass-Fed Beef Jerky
"Updating" Classic box (no details)
Removing Chex Mix
Something about a cheese box and IPA combo

The Deep Dish on United's Exciting New Menu Items

Quote:

Chicago-style deep dish pizza tops a list of delicious new offerings on board July 1
Colorado-based New Belgium Voodoo Ranger IPA takes off September 1

CHICAGO, June 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- United is adding something new for every taste with several new in-flight menu items available for purchase. Starting July 1, customers can experience a slice of Chicago with personal-size Uno's deep-dish pizza, and United will expand its onboard beer list to include New Belgium Voodoo Ranger IPA beginning September 1.

United customers will also have more Choice Menu options from which to choose, including Bistro on Board items like the breakfast egg white flatbread; Uno's deep dish spinach, cheese and garlic pizza; Thai-style Chicken Ciabatta sandwich; and the new, Mediterranean-inspired Protein Box, featuring a healthy mix of almonds, sesame sticks, roasted red pepper hummus and cracked wheat salad.

United has also refreshed some of its popular Snack Shop items, including the Tapas Box, a customer favorite. The updated Tapas Box includes flatbread crackers, almonds, bruschetta, cheese spread, hummus, olive crackers, dried fruit, ginger mints and a sea salt dark chocolate caramel.

"As part of our ongoing commitment to putting our customers at the center of everything we do, we are always listening to their feedback when it comes to food choices on board our flights," said Jimmy Samartzis, United's vice president of Catering Operations. "Our customers told us they are craving pizza, and we heard them. We are excited to offer two new options – a breakfast egg white flatbread served on morning flights and deep dish pizza from hometown favorite Uno's on afternoon and evening flights."

All new menu items and refreshed snackboxes will be available for purchase on flights within the U.S. with a scheduled flight time of more than 3.5 hours and on all international flights from the U.S. to Canada, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Snack Shop items including the Tapas, Classic, Select and Ben Flyin Kid's snackboxes are available on all flights over 1.5 hours within North America, including the Caribbean and select Latin American cities, Singapore and Australia. Learn more about where you can get your snacks here.

United's popular cheeseburger and fries ($11.99) will remain on the menu. View United's refreshed Choice Menu with the new items here.

Code:

New Choice Menu options July 1 
 Uno's deep dish pizza $9.99 Personal-size, spinach, cheese and garlic
 Egg white flatbread $9.99 Egg white crumble, mozzarella cheese, cherry tomatoes, spinach, parsley, herbed ricotta on focaccia bread
 Thai-style chicken ciabatta $9.99 Grilled chicken breast, mozzarella cheese, carrots, red peppers, Thai-style cilantro aioli on ciabatta bread
 Protein Box $9.99 Almonds, sesame sticks, roasted red pepper hummus and cracked wheat salad
 Fresh-Start Breakfast Combo $12.99 Egg white flatbread, Chobani Greek yogurt, fresh fruit served with whole grain oat granola
 Pizza and beer combo $13.99 Uno's deep dish pizza and Miller Lite
 
 Refreshed Choice Menu items July 1 
 Tapas Snack Box $9.59 Featuring new flatbread crackers, almonds, bruschetta, cheese spread, hummus, olive crackers, dried fruit and a sea salt dark chocolate caramel and ginger mints
 Ben Flyin Adventure Bear Kid's Snack Box $5.59 Mini chocolate chip cookies, raisins, squeezable applesauce, and Goldfish. Includes an activity sheet with games and CrayAngles crayons
 
 New beers September 1 
 New Belgium Voodoo Ranger IPA $7.99 Brewed in Colorado, New Belgium Voodoo Ranger IPA gives aromas of citrus (specifically orange and grapefruit) as well as some tropical fruit notes and a hint of toasted bread
 Sam Adams Oktoberfest $7.99 Born in Boston, Oktoberfest is a delicious harmony of sweet flavors, including caramel and toffee
 Blue Point Toasted Lager $7.99 Brewed in New York, Blue Point Lager is made with six grains to perfect a balanced flavor of malt and hops, and a special proprietary lager yeast to give Toasted Lager an exceptional, long-lasting smooth finish

Closed Thread Subscribe

Thread Tools

Search this Thread

Jul 27, 17, 7:54 am

#91

TCD

Join Date: Oct 2016

Location: EWR

Programs: UA Gold, BA, HHonors, Avis

Posts: 192

Quote:

Originally Posted by mjcewl1284

Always an item on my expense report

Seriously though, DL is in the same ballpark price wise. I recall them charging $8.99 for a Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin

The cultural differences between those of us who work in NYC and the rest of America is always shocking. I just assume that a beer with tax and tip will cost me $10 anywhere.

And that a burger in a bar will be $15 if I'm lucky...

Jul 27, 17, 8:05 am

#92

eng3

Join Date: Aug 2008

Location: PHL

Programs: UA 1K 1MM, Marriott Gold, IHG Platinum, Raddison Platinum, Avis Presidents Club

Posts: 4,682

Quote:

Originally Posted by transportprof

I sure hope that UA's rules don't allow for any outside food to go into their on-board ovens under any circumstances. The public health and security reasons for such a restriction should be obvious.

Don't FA's commonly put their own food into those ovens? I remember flying on PHL-ORD on thanksgiving once and the FA told me they had turkey in the oven but it was for them (after I joked about getting the snack basket instead of a turkey dinner). I've also see FA's put in a burger or something that looked like it came from the food court. I've never seen fried chicken in there though

As for the pizza, I figured it would not be crisp. If you put it in the oven with the cover on top, you are basically steaming it. Which is why other "normally crisp hot food" shouldn't be served on an airplane. I'd much rather have a simple dish made well than a fancy dish made poorly. Airlines like many restaurants try to jump before they can crawl. Get the basics right first. (That applies to everything)

Last edited by eng3; Jul 27, 17 at 8:11 am

Jul 27, 17, 9:08 am

#93

EWR764

Join Date: Jan 2005

Location: New York, NY

Programs: UA, AA, DL, Hertz, Avis, National, Hyatt, Hilton, SPG, Marriott

Posts: 8,635

Quote:

Originally Posted by e53nyc

Not impressed with the new options. United used to be the leader for healthier in-flight choices.

The Thai Chicken Ciabatta is 95% bread, and as others have commented, nothing which justifies the "Thai" label. The deep-dish pizza is more or less a cheese bowl, and the burger is not for me.

I understand why United would choose to have one or two comfort food options, but all three does not make sense to me. American and Delta have pulled ahead of United, in that regard.

Unfortunately, I think the point is that junk food sells. I too would prefer healthier options but they tend to be more perishable and given the choice on an 'anonymous' airplane, I am confident lots of people are willing to make worse decisions than they otherwise would on the ground!

Jul 27, 17, 11:08 am

#94

bocastephen

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: LAX/TPE

Programs: CO Platinum 1K, United 1K, SPG LT Platinum, National Executive Elite, Platinum TSA Hater

Posts: 38,259

Quote:

Originally Posted by EWR764

Junk food sells...and has a lower acquisition cost. Aside from this, I would suspect (or at least hope from a business standpoint) that UA is getting a significant discount on the pizza products offset by Uno branding concessions (otherwise they are dumb as rocks).

We're talking about roughly 30-50 cents of ingredients, mostly automated assembly and boxing, and a big concession from Uno - hence very wide margins for UA which are needed given the fast spoilage rate vs a snack box.

Jul 27, 17, 11:37 am

#95

fezzington

Join Date: Feb 2016

Programs: Hyatt Globalist | Jumpseat Platinum

Posts: 505

Egg white flatbread is being discontinued as of August 1st. It may still be shown on the menus until the 31st though

I, for one, like the pizza. It's not restaurant quality deep dish, but it's not bad. Not as good as the burger, but not bad. I'm still trying to figure out how to make it not as soggy (trying different containers for myself), but with a steam oven it's not easy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eng3

Don't FA's commonly put their own food into those ovens?

Not really supposed to. But it happens, as you experienced with the turkey.

FWIW, as someone else noted, they're rarely (if ever?) cleaned by catering/techops. The case of shelves gets changed, and I think those may get cleaned, but certainly not the units themselves. If FAs get really bored, I've seen them try and clean it, but without decent supplies onboard, I question how clean they really get.

Jul 27, 17, 11:47 am

#96

DELee

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Jun 2010

Location: TOA

Programs: HH Diamond, Marriott LTPP/Platinum Premier, Hyatt Lame-ist, UA !K

Posts: 14,041

Quote:

Originally Posted by fezzington

So it is a steam oven and not a radiant heat oven?

I'm assuming you've tried heating a pizza without the lid on.

Could you build a aluminum foil convective tunnel around a pizza (assuming you had foil on hand, place the pizza inside the tunnel but with room above the pizza for heat to flow)?

David

Jul 27, 17, 2:18 pm

#97

fezzington

Join Date: Feb 2016

Programs: Hyatt Globalist | Jumpseat Platinum

Posts: 505

Quote:

Originally Posted by DELee

Depends on the plane configuration. Some are steam, others are convection. I tend to refer to all of them as steam ovens though.

I've tried lidless as well as into the aluminum pans (had to cut it up though, the sizes are different). Haven't tried a tunnel, though I could do it in theory. Might need to bring my own foil though.

Jul 27, 17, 5:24 pm

#98

emcampbe

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Oct 2006

Location: SFO/SJC

Programs: UA Silver, Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold

Posts: 13,690

Quote:

Originally Posted by fezzington

Egg white flatbread is being discontinued as of August 1st. It may still be shown on the menus until the 31st though

Wait..is that confirmed? They only had it for a month?

i actually wanted to try it - it looked good. FA on my last flight (afternoon) said she'd heard pax saying it was good. But I haven't been on a breakfast flight to try it - do too many short hauls and not that many 3+ hour fligts.

Jul 28, 17, 2:28 am

#99

eeflyer

Join Date: Dec 2016

Posts: 572

I also got to try the pizza today. It was quite soggy in the middle but the crust was somewhat hard. Well, at least it was hard enough that made slicing it difficult.

Overall, it's decent but not as good as the burger.

Jul 28, 17, 6:58 am

#100

JBord

Join Date: Oct 2013

Location: ORD

Programs: UA Silver, Marriott Platinum/LT Platinum, Hilton Gold

Posts: 5,519

Quote:

Originally Posted by eeflyer

Having lived in Chicago for 25 years, I can say this is the most common description for frozen/reheated deep dish pizza.

The picture provided above does not look appetizing at all to me, and pizza may well be my favorite food. I guess at this point I'll applaud the effort to try something new, but I'm hoping they're not locked into this for too long and offer something different soon.

Jul 28, 17, 8:45 pm

#101

fezzington

Join Date: Feb 2016

Programs: Hyatt Globalist | Jumpseat Platinum

Posts: 505

Quote:

Originally Posted by emcampbe

Yeah, company communication to FAs. I heard it was tasty as well, but didn't ever get around to it. Oh well, I like the sandwich anyways. Wish we could get more of it boarded though, it never makes it past the exit rows.

Aug 30, 17, 5:14 am

#102

Points Fitness

Join Date: Oct 2016

Location: Chicago, IL

Programs: United Platinum, Marriott/SPG Platinum

Posts: 40

Looks like there's more new stuff to come on top of the June news release items. A contact from United told me: "What I can tell you is this: we will have new breakfast and lunch options rolling out in November as well as new lunch additions in September. Additionally, the future menus will feature new items not yet seen on the menus, although there is always a possibility that a favorite may come back in the future."

I'm sure this is partly in response to the egg white bfast not working out. In any case, they're tinkering and that's good to see.