Airline Food and Drink
 

Following Justapax treaty to start new threads I thought maybe airline food good and bad as we all travel quite a lot so should all have examples.

For me my best was on EK inbound Hong Kong and ate a rather fine Chinese Duck dish which surpassed a subsequent meal in the Peninsular by some margin.
As for worst easily Skyjet Aviation Services - Nigeria who I think tried to kill me with food poisoning.

I was laid up in Accra Hotel for 5 days and lost around 3/4 stone after a flight and suspicious sandwich which I only half consumed. If I had eaten it all I would not be typing this now 🙄

Since then I have only drunk water from unopened bottles or Beer on African airlines.
Over to the rest of the cabin for your culinary tales at altitude.

Cheers
Mr Mac

In 'Some websites you may enjoy', there is a link to https://www.greenergrass.com/menus which bears out my contention that the best food you get in many towns and cities is not in a fine-dining restaurant, but at the first-class lounge and in the air. In the same thread there is a link to https://theluxurytravelexpert.com/flight-reviews/ who videos his flights, including a view of the menus at the lounge and in the air, and the meal as it's put in front of him.

I find EK consistently good, and back in the 80s CX were unrivalled, especially if you like lobster (I do!) which was an option at almost every meal. I haven't flown in that part of the world recently, so I can't say if standards are the same 40 years later.

One of the quirkiest reasons I have heard of for choosing a carrier was on the BRU-LHR route on which I was a regular flier, in those days contended between Virgin and British Midland. A guy I was sitting next to said he always flew British Midland, as they served ('It's the real thing') Coke, whereas Virgin served Virgin cola. I've never come across a cola connoiseur before or since!

Used to love the miniature bottles of Champagne served on EI both with breakfast and dinner. CC always gave out two at a time with a cheery "there you go !", but unopened, so straight into the briefcase, ready to be handed over to Mrs W on my return from a LHR-DUB day trip.

LHR-DUB morning flight. Gate opened 0730, as soon as you were airside there was a bar open, with pints of Guinness. Onto the plane, a miniature version of a full Irish breakfast with a 187.5 ml bottle of champagne with fresh orange juice, 'can I have them in separate glasses please?' 'Sure Xxxxxxx', the flight attendants and I were on first name terms, 'would you like another one?' As you say, unopened.

Then I'd take a hire car across to Phoenix Park and meet with the Gardai.

Those were the days when the limit in Ireland was 120 mg/ml (it's now 50) which meant that two pints of Guinness wouldn't put you over the limit.

Happy days.

I have some stories about the Gardai during the Troubles, but I think it's best they remain classified, and anyway this is an aviation forum.

My first flight on an AF Caravelle between Paris and Manchester introduced me to a tin of drinking water (the size and shape of a small Red Salmon tin nowadays) and a dinky little can open to make two little holes in it to get the contents out. Don't think I dared even try to open it, let alone drink it.

I have almost always flown cattle class (with the exception of a few 'business' flights )

However - in circa 1985 I flew Swissair in a DC8 from either zurich or geneva down to Harare on holiday - there were only a few pax on board - the meal was delish and on proper crockery with logo'd cutlery and the bored Hosties were plying me with booze :) - excellent,and I managed to pour myself off the a/c at Harare :).
I had to behave on the return flight as I was back at work next day :)
In 2018 we flew Norwegian 787 LGW to Denver (calculated risk - lots of 787 problems at that time) but it all went ok and was cheap cheap cheap.The food served on the westerly leg was absolutely excellent (I think some sort of savoury chicken dish) but the food on the return leg was ultra bland in comparison :(.

I won't go into detail on the food on the BA/VIR LHR-JNB routes, but I will mention Airlink, a South African regional airline. I fly them each time into Kruger, on a (usually) Embraer ERJ 135. The flight is 45 mins in total, and there is one cabin crew. They still, despite it being a very short flight, manage to offer a choice of drinks, including wine and beer, and a snack.

Their service is excellent. I have flown them into King Mswati III airport in Eswatini too, again with the same great service.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....168e65a890.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....695e51a471.jpg

I agree Helol. We have used them a few times and were on their E195 JNB-CPT last year. Have found good service with them whether sitting in the front or back.

When flying I have the low salt option.

Most of the time the meals are very good...tasty, edible and hot. Emirates probably top my favourites with KLM coming in close behind in second place. However it does depend on where I am flying from. You can get awesome or lousy food depending on the departure airport.

Manchester, Hong Kong, Singapore, Amsterdam, Dubai.....brilliant food produced.

Heathrow, Bangkok, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, Madrid....inedible, abysmal....eeeeeyyyyyyyucky

It's rather difficult to make statements about locations as each location is airline and hence catering provider dependent.For example Bangkok has at least 3 major catering suppliers (BFS, LH and TG) and they do vary significantly.

Gate Gourmet is awful...no matter where in the world the departure airport is
Dnata is very good everywhere
LSG can be a bit mixed...excellent one place, not to much in another

Generally it is OK...sometimes though the same company provides totally diffierent quality dependent on where you depart from....that has been my experience of inflight catering and the various companies that supply it to the various airports/airlines

I have resisted commenting as I would expound for hours. I shall restrain myself ...

Overall, I am not fussy. Just don't serve anything with spices and/or pasta and I can accept most things. Unfortunately, some airlines want to do PR of their fabulous new menus. One of the reasons that we hardly ever fly VS these days is that - even with a choice of three mains in P.E. - I am lucky if I can accept any of them. Long story, explained in VS thread long ago.

Short haul is what it is although did I have a very fine Full English on BD in (I think 1998) LHR-ABZ. It was a big promotion for the front cabin but I then went on a European contract and could not use them again.

Generally, BA will still serve a standard British meal - although they did once manage to have three choices all outside my possibilities - and that was in C. They flat refused to find something that was not needed from F.

I suppose the meal on Concorde was great but I was too excited to remember it!!

I’ve had my fair share of both good and bad with airline meals. Singapore Airlines almost always surprises me, especially out of Changi, the satay skewers and curries have been above average and don’t come out as bland or rubbery, though it really depends on their local caterers. On the other hand, a couple of flights from London with BA have served stuff I barely picked at, the pasta was just a sticky mess and the chicken was barely seasoned.

I feel like food quality is super dependent on which catering kitchen is loading up at each airport. When I used to work in food processing, it was interesting to see how airlines started shifting to automation, even for packaging things like salad packs or ground meat. These days most big suppliers use automated ground meat packaging equipment to keep everything consistent and hygienic before it even gets near an airline meal tray.

Order a Kosher meal if you want quality. Most caterers aren’t certified and will order from an outside source. Generally the meal will be of a higher standard than the mass produced, costed to the last penny, standard airline offerings.

This also applies if you’re locked up in prison, Jews are such a small percentage of the prison population that it’s not worth having a Kosher kitchen.

But that means no bacon butties...

Artee
No Shellfish either !!!
Cheers
Mr Mac

I used to fly around India a lot as a kid, with Indian Airlines, now mercifully defunct. They didn't serve pork (Muslims) or beef or fish (Hindus) and they never seemed to have heard of lamb. So every non-vegetarian meal was chicken rice, and a sandwich wrapped up in a banana leaf. Even before the days of genetic engineering, they had contrived a fowl that was completely devoid of any flavour. I didn't drink tea or coffee even then, and I was too young for alcoholic beverages in which the alcohol sterilises the bugs. Water was of course out of the question, you didn't know where it had been. So it was Thums Up (their spelling not mine), a sweetened beverage which at least was carbonised and thus (one would hope) sterilised), which tasted faintly of hair oil and oranges. Sometimes it had a sediment of sand at the bottom, which made you question the purity of its source.

If you travelled on the surface with Indian Railways on a 1st Class aircon sleeper, the journey took a lot longer, but there were the choices of vegetarian thali or non-vegetarian thali, which varied across the country to suit the local taste. Nonetheless you could get idlis (a south Indian dish) on trains between the south and the north, thus introducing Northern Indians to this Southern staple. To this day, fusion dishes in India between the Tamil south and the Hindi, Bengali and other peoples of the north are referred to as 'Indian Railways cuisine'.

While Indian Airways were constrained by the galley of the B727, the mainstay of their fleet, they could perhaps have shown a bit more imagination than chicken rice.

About 20 years ago I learnt that there was a division of north/south in Indian cuisine. The north being milder, richer and creamier. Beef and pork are taboo in many locations which basically leaves chicken and mutton plus fish if you’re near the coast. A significant percentage of the population is vegetarian which further limits the offerings.

As in most situations, it pays to be adaptable and I’ve fond memories of drinking rose milk and eating chapatis along with various curries for breakfast in India.

Northern Indian Cuisines of which there are several) are completely different to Southern Indian Cuisines, which you hardly ever get in the UK.

A prominent Indian politician is on record as saying that the only things that unite India are the English language and Indian Railways.