A look at the Japanese meal served in American’s International Flagship First Class
Umamimart is a Japanese food blog I follow in my Google Reader subscriptions. And the other day, one of the writers at the blog, Yamahomo, posted a review of the International Flagship Service Japanese meal he was served in first class on an American Airlines flight from Tokyo to JFK.
He actually posted photos of the western meal service he had on the flight to Japan as well, but I’ve seen many similar images over the years. I thought the Japanese food items were interesting, so I thought I’d share his post with you: ReCYP: First Class Cabin Meal.
A good post and I did follow the links. At ReCYP, I left my dribbles about avoiding AA when possible and why, especially for the loing-haul international links. A quck summary is this: Most front-end food is bulk packed, rehated in-flight and plated for a galley FA on your airplane. Short of soup, there is no excuse for that sloppy, esssy plating. Yup, the Senior Mammas certainly know how to do it well, but they just don’t give a twit. AA’s front cabin food is not seriously bad, but other carriers deliver slighly better food and with a LOT more grace and care. Those Senior Mammas just don’t give a twit – becasue they don’t have to. Hm…
Experienced front end flyers understand that the limits of good food from cramped quarters and at 40K feet. Perhaps funny/strange, most Asian and some European carrier still manage to deliver excellent food, despite the physical limitations. My pet peve: Given that most front end food is bulk packed and plated on flight, WHey are the veggies almost always DEAD ON ARRIVAL? With just a little care and maybe less time, that broccoli or asparagus, or even squash CAN be served in it’s glory state. The FA’s basic idea that Every Pan needs one hour of heating (or whatever) is crap! Some need more and the damn veggies could do with a lot less. This is not Rocket Science and the galley FA does not need to be a trained chef! It just takes a little common sense, seriously lacking, especially at AA. Why is it that many of the Asian carriers can easily serve properly cooked veggies, but the Amerikan carriers cannot? They use the same equipment. Amerikan carriers, espicially AA, just don’t give a twit, is my answer. If you’ve got a better idea (or excuse for AA) I’d like to hear it. Front cabin food on an international flight of 12+ hours should be good. It can be good as many prove, daily. What the heck is wrong with the Amerikan flag carriers?
@ Old Fart – I’m glad you liked the post. I was hoping that others would enjoy the trip report as much as I did. Yamahomo took some great photos and made some humorous observations like when he described the soup, “My soup was piping hot, almost lawsuit hot”.
I haven’t had the opportunity to try the premium product from Cathay Pacific, JAL, or Singapore Airlines yet, so I can’t speak from experience when it comes to a comparison. I know that many people share your view about Asian carriers, and my Dad was a big fan of SQ’s first class product (he used to joke that a SQ 747 was a Ritz-Carlton with wings), but until I get a chance to try it, I’ll withhold any judgement (of course if you send me a first class ticket to HKG on CX, I’ll be happy to write a trip report. ;-).
I can say though, that I have also witnessed some pretty tired looking veggies at 35K feet. I always just assumed that they (like me) were wore out from going through security.
Thanks for the comment and thanks for reading!