Long haul plane food

[acd80]

UTH said:

I got back from 5 days in Vegas on Wednesday, we went Virgin Atlantic (1 stop both ways but majority of the flight on a Virgin plane)

We bid for an “upgrade” to Economy Delight - never even knew that was a thing

The meal was utter utter garbage. Is this just the new norm in these trying times?
Last time I went to Vegas I actually looked forward to the meal - not expecting 5* quality of course, but my god this was tripe.
Crap hot thing, bread roll and butter. No salt and pepper. No cheese block and biscuit. Not even the old school orange juice with the foil lid.

Hoping this was a one off but I’m guessing not.

I flew back from LAX last week with Virgin in UC. The food was utterly dire, bordering on inedible and no different to the experience I had flying back from Tampa in February.

[wong]

When flying, your sense of taste is dulled. Ideally they would need to add extra salt to compensate. But then the salt would dehydrate you encouraging you to drink more water which they don't want to have to carry. It's a balance.

[gotoPzero]

acd80 said:

I flew back from LAX last week with Virgin in UC. The food was utterly dire, bordering on inedible and no different to the experience I had flying back from Tampa in February.

Flying back to UK always worse IME.

This is what we got outbound LHR>LAX







The main tasted great presentation was a bit lacking but I wasn't bothered.

Meanwhile on the return leg is was not as good. Breakfast was alright, but the main meal was below what I would expect.

[gotoPzero]

Jeez could the pics be any bigger...

[acd80]

gotoPzero said:

Flying back to UK always worse IME.

This is what we got outbound LHR>LAX









The main tasted great presentation was a bit lacking but I wasn't bothered.

Meanwhile on the return leg is was not as good. Breakfast was alright, but the main meal was below what I would expect.

The breakfast was alright in fairness!

It wasn’t much better on the outbound leg to SFO….

[Petrus1983]

Last week BA Premium LHR- DFW

A very yummy chicken pie (I know it looks like shepherds pie!) -



Return with with American Premium - again - no complaints -


I get access to the lounges so usually have dinner in there, but having seen some of the pictures above I feel they did a good job for premium ECONOMY. Important not to forget that word when meeting expectations.

[gotoPzero]

That does look pretty good.

[anonymous-user]

paulguitar said:

djc206 said:

paulguitar said:

I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen.

I’m not sure if it does any more but etihad used to have a chef onboard for first pre pandemic

Wow, I didn't know that, amazing.

Turkish Airlines used (maybe still do) to have Flying Chefs in Business. Well, a bloke in a chef's hat with a trolley used to come round. Not sure you could get flambéed Crêpes Suzette though . Guy possibly went back to flying the plane or cleaning the bogs after the bit of theatre. Food was pretty good though.

Looks like they still do:

https://www.turkishairlines.com/en-gb/flights/fly-...

[Greendubber]

Petrus1983 said:

Last week BA Premium LHR- DFW

A very yummy chicken pie (I know it looks like shepherds pie!) -



Return with with American Premium - again - no complaints -


I get access to the lounges so usually have dinner in there, but having seen some of the pictures above I feel they did a good job for premium ECONOMY. Important not to forget that word when meeting expectations.

I find BA premium economy food pretty good to be fair the times I've had it, definitely the best 'plane food' I've had.

I've flown Virgin Economy Delight and it's just economy with extra leg room. Probably the worst flight I've ever been on, entertainment broken, old tired cabin and food that meant I had the sts (luckily after landing) We got out the airport, collected the car and somewhere on the M40 I became really ill. Had to pull up in a disabled bay at a services, abandon my car and sprint into the toilet before I crapped myself. Took about 3 days to get over it.

Edited by Greendubber on Sunday 19th June 18:32

[nebpor]

UTH said:

No cheese block and biscuit

That's been the kicker for me since it went. You could turn that into about four mouthfuls of wonder if you were deft with the knife ... savour every morsel

I used to do a LOT of long-haul around APAC in economy. Korean and Singapore airlines were always fab. Qantas was passable in a meat-and-veg kinda way. The problem is Qantas was the only one I felt safe flying, so I put up with the passable food on the basis that it wasn't likely to be my "death row" meal

I'm on Delta to Boston next month. I think I'll definitely be stocking up at Edinburgh airport first

[GT03ROB]

Petrus1983 said:

Last week BA Premium LHR- DFW

A very yummy chicken pie (I know it looks like shepherds pie!) -

.

Is that still on the menu! I think I’ve had that 3 or 4 times since last September. To be fair it’s actually quite nice.

Greendubber said:

I find BA premium economy food pretty good to be fair the times I've had it, definitely the best 'plane food' I've had.

That’s probably because it supposed to be a club meal, so if you are judging by economy standards it should be good.

[paulguitar]

GT03ROB said:

Petrus1983 said:

Last week BA Premium LHR- DFW

A very yummy chicken pie (I know it looks like shepherds pie!) -

.

Is that still on the menu! I think I’ve had that 3 or 4 times since last September. To be fair it’s actually quite nice.

Greendubber said:

I find BA premium economy food pretty good to be fair the times I've had it, definitely the best 'plane food' I've had.

That’s probably because it supposed to be a club meal, so if you are judging by economy standards it should be good.

The last time I went in BA Premium Economy, the food was the same as ordinary economy, except we got proper silverware and a real glass. I think the better food must be a fairly recent development?

[GT03ROB]

paulguitar said:

GT03ROB said:

Petrus1983 said:

Last week BA Premium LHR- DFW

A very yummy chicken pie (I know it looks like shepherds pie!) -

.

Is that still on the menu! I think I’ve had that 3 or 4 times since last September. To be fair it’s actually quite nice.

Greendubber said:

I find BA premium economy food pretty good to be fair the times I've had it, definitely the best 'plane food' I've had.

That’s probably because it supposed to be a club meal, so if you are judging by economy standards it should be good.

The last time I went in BA Premium Economy, the food was the same as ordinary economy, except we got proper silverware and a real glass. I think the better food must be a fairly recent development?

Premium economy has always offered the main course from the club menu for as long as I can remember. Maybe the Club food was just dire on your flight!

[paulguitar]

GT03ROB said:

Premium economy has always offered the main course from the club menu for as long as I can remember. Maybe the Club food was just dire on your flight!

Oh, I didn't know that. We're going back a few years though.

[GT03ROB]

paulguitar said:

GT03ROB said:

Premium economy has always offered the main course from the club menu for as long as I can remember. Maybe the Club food was just dire on your flight!

Oh, I didn't know that. We're going back a few years though.

The tell tale is if its on a china plate like Petrus’s above its club food, foil tray its economy. Premium economy has for years been on the china dishes.

[paulguitar]

GT03ROB said:

The tell tale is if its on a china plate like Petrus’s above its club food, foil tray its economy. Premium economy has for years been on the china dishes.

Mmm, I remember for certain it was proper glasses and silverware, but can't remember about the plate. And definitely can't remember what I ate!

[gamefreaks]

Airline food is an international competition to produce the best microwave meal.

Certainly, pre-covid the meals on KLM, Air France, Lufthansa and Emirates in poverty class were perfectly edible.

I look forward to the meals because it breaks up the boredom of a long flight.

Then there's Austria Airlines. I can't remember the main course but the tiramisu and the coffee were great.

I did fly WestJet earlier. (Or WorstJet, another story!) and the food was terrible and the coffee was even worse. They serve McDonalds coffee FFS.

[arfur]

UTH said:

I got back from 5 days in Vegas on Wednesday, we went Virgin Atlantic (1 stop both ways but majority of the flight on a Virgin plane)

We bid for an “upgrade” to Economy Delight - never even knew that was a thing

The meal was utter utter garbage. Is this just the new norm in these trying times?
Last time I went to Vegas I actually looked forward to the meal - not expecting 5* quality of course, but my god this was tripe.
Crap hot thing, bread roll and butter. No salt and pepper. No cheese block and biscuit. Not even the old school orange juice with the foil lid.

Hoping this was a one off but I’m guessing not.

We did Virgin LHR <> LAX in Economy (for 550£ for both of us) xmas/ny 21/22 and to be fair it was not actually too bad .. Nothing to write home about for sure, but was ok

[Zumbruk]

Order an Asian Vegetarian meal in advance. I've had some excellent vegetable biryanis instead of the usual bit of boiled boot.

[DT1975]

gotoPzero said:

Virgin has 3 classes for food. Economy, Premium Economy and Upper Class.

IME the food outbound from the UK is always better than inbound. Its also better out of LHR than any other airport due to it being their home base.

This is true. My daughter's cabin crew and your food heading back long haul is sourced locally, so if you're doing anything Caribbean or exotic then expect some weird and wonderful stuff that usually involves pasta /sauce .

Unless I was booking business, food doesn't even come into the equation. Strangely no matter what's served up in cattle class people usually eat it, it's almost part of the 'ritual' / flight / film / drinks....I'm certainly guilty of that, just unpicking the thing uses up a bit of time and that's good unless you're engrossed in a film. I just cannot stand that early wake up call heading home with that brekkie roll thing thrown at you.