hotelboy

was this served hot? I did not know the E175s had ovens

st530

Cold. Is it served hot on mainline? This was the first time I’ve had it.

dkc192

Yes it's served hot on mainline. Frankly I can see a dish like this working out whether cold or hot, as long as the ingredients are of a reasonable quality.

SPN Lifer

​​​​​Reconstituted Chicken on United Airlines
​​​This topic may well deserve its own thread, but I will leave that decision to our esteemed moderator.

How prevalent is reconstituted chicken (compressed chicken parts in the form of a chicken breast) on United Airlines (UA)?

I have read several such complaints over the past months, but nary a close-up photo to document the faux chicken.

At the same time, I read posts praising UA chicken to the sky, which comports with my own MNL-GUM experience last month in business class.

Does UA have multiple caterers, some using real, and some fake?

We have enough FlyerTalk participants that we should be able to get to the bottom of this.

However, bandying about evidence without firm, physical or documentary evidence and analysis does not enhance our credibility.

Perhaps someone could even bring a piece off the plane (not through customs) for professional culinary or scientific analysis?

kmersh

I have a friend who is the GM of an airline catering unit and while his unit does not cater UA, I asked what he thought about the compressed chicken patty thing.

He said he is almost entirely sure that UA's spec does not call for restructured or reformed chicken, but that catering units on their own (to save money) are subbing out fresh who muscle chicken breast for the science compressed chicken breast.

While his unit has never catered UA he said it is his understanding from talking to other catering units that do cater UA that their spec is not as tight as other airlines (he did add that most US based airlines spec is not super tight), he said that Emirates has some of tightest specs he has ever seen and that if UA got wind of the compressed chicken they would tell the catering unit to knock it off.

Most likely UA is contracted for chicken breast and the price went up and certain catering units to show profitability to Corporate are subbing out ingredients to save money where they can and UA's chicken is one of the items being subbed out.

HNLbasedFlyer

UA certainly knows about the compressed chicken. Even taking out employee standbys executives are flying all the time.

BlueZebra

Had an interesting food situation on UA 351, DCA-SFO on June 12. Pre-order food selection was just 2 items (chicken and vegetarian), after having a choice of 5 items on the SFO-DCA flight. When on board, the purser came around, said there were no pre-ordered food and offered a verbal list of 5 meal choices, including a hot turkey sandwich (which DW and I had, nothing spectacular, slightly better than the Covid sandwiches, with fruit, a roll and pie in the sky ), a chicken dish, a dish that sounded like a meatball dish with impossible meat, a vegetarian dish and what appeared to be a left over waffle from the previous SFO-DCA flight the plane had just completed.

Overall, the result was better than the pre-order option, but just odd.

TWA Guy

0829 RNO-DEN on A319
only choice for breakfast

HNLbasedFlyer

Personally. That looks like a lot of food. Cereal plus cheese plus banana plus croissant plus cinnamon thing

nomad420

Agree, seems almost excessive and I have been called one of the greatest knife and fork men in the country.

st530

PDB of water or sparkling wine presented on a tray.

Choice of beverage before main.

Main was choice of za’atar chicken or Impossible meatballs. Went with the latter. Really tasty. Both of these new mains are home runs IMO. Bread and pie in the sky were warmed. Fruit bowl tasted very fresh.

Another excellent crew that worked the whole flight.

dkc192

This is the first time I've read of preordering available for non-hub departures (maybe I've just been ignorant), and it makes sense that some of the preorder-only choices (e.g., burger and falafel bowl) are only available when departing from a hub.

It's all prepackaged and not super appetizing though. RNO must be an outstation where UA doesn't have a catering contract for whatever reason, necessitating the need to provision shelf-stable food on the inbound the night before. Was that the case pre-pandemic?

kmersh

I was able to pre-order on my MCO-EWR flight coming up in a few days, was a first for me, so maybe it has expanded to non-hub flights now too.

ft4lyf

SAT-ORD today:

PDB = water or O.J.

breakfast flight - I had pre-ordered "Waflle with banana foster sauce".
F.A advised that catering had not loaded the waffle ....instead he had a bagel with cream cheese option (vegetarian option).
I said yes to that......and then I discovered that was the famous "Heart-Attack Cream cheese thingy" with 1400mg salt.
I did not eat.
The only other item on the plate was a fruit plate (2cm piece of watermelon, 5 blueberries, one thin slice pineapple; one thin slice melon)

Other food option was a packaged (hot) ham/cheese croissant.

Luckily I got my own food from home; I also got my own tea from home.

The food situation at UA is getting worse each day!

P.S Catering forgot to load water as well. Luckily FA's discovered that and the station folks got them the water.

BlooJoo

SFO-MEX lunch. Impossible meatballs, which really do taste like meat! The sauce looks frozen on top, but it was hot, and everything was good. PDB of water/OJ/bubbly. Drink before the meal (no nuts, no snack.) Fruit was a weird side. Shoulda been a salad. Bread warmed. Decent service.