United Airline Economy Class, Part I
One of the pleasure of a longer international flight is getting food service. On most domestic U.S. flights, you're not likely to get real food, or even food that passes as real food.
Even on trans-continental flights, the best you can hope for is a cold box lunch (that you have to pay extra for).
But not so when you fly internationally (well, at least most of the time). On my recent flight from IAD (Dulles) to TPE (Taipei, Taiwan) via NRT (Narita, Japan) on United Airlines (Economy Class - not even Economy Plus!), I had four rather tasty in flight meals.
Lunch 1
The choices (!) were chicken or beef. I actually selected chicken, but the flight attendand didn't hear me and handed me beef. I was going with the karma and just took it. Turned out to be a rather tasty beef tips in gravy served with mashed potatos, green beans with carrots, side salad, roll, and oatmeal bar. I topped off the lunch with orange juice and coffee.
Snack 1
Wow, a surprise snack! Somewhere over either Alaska or the Yukon, passengers were brought a cup of Chinese Noodles and a pecan cookie. It was basically a cup of soup (the interesting part was the cup of noodles was brought first and then the flight staff came back down the aisles with pots of hot water to finish the soups - seemed dangerous to do in a bouncing airplane, but no one was burned). So yes, it was basically Ramen noodles, but came with a spork and cute mini-chopsticks!
Lunch 2
OK, we're obviously heading east. Lunch number 2, served just as we were approaching the Japanese archipelago, was a sweet and sour chicken with noodles, peas with carrots, strawberry yogurt, and a pecan cookie. I was a bit surprised there were no mini-chopsticks this time.
Dinner 1
My first thought when I knew I had a layover in Tokyo was that I would get some quick sushi at the airport. But after the three meals above, I wasn't that hungry during the 2 hour layover at Narita.
But just in case I was, on the just over 3 hour flight from Narita to Taipei, I was given dinner.
Dinner (pictured above) was chicken, two types of noodles, sticky rice, a green, an airline roll, and an interesting "brownie." The chicken and noodles were quite good, as was the rice. A nice finishing touch to 18 hours in the air!
Meal: Lunch/Snack/Lunch/Dinner
Rating: Not Rated
Date: 21-22 February 2009
Address: Somewhere in the sky
Website: http://www.united.com
