Menus on Planes

Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Thanks for your post and the pictures. The meals certainly look appetizing and the plating of the food is well done. Even the fruit dish looked very attractive.
Here's a follow-up of AA's Premium Economy over the Pacific.

As expected the hard product is very similar to AA's Domestic First with a few more inches of pitch and recline. It may not sound that comfortable but I kept nodding off and sleeping for a few hours. As usual for PE seats the AC port was difficult to reach and under-seat storage was limited. The USB charge port was broken on this flight but everything else worked as expected. One unexpected feature was a double-sized lavatory between the W and J cabins. It was possibly the largest lavatory I've seen on a 787 with plenty of room for changing. As for IFE the Movie selection was good but TV options were just a few episodes each. The Airshow had a good mix of views to chose from.

First meal service was a lunch/dinner setup with a choice of Chicken Teriyaki or Veggie Risotto. I tried the Chicken. Although it may not look that great as delivered the ceramic plating made a noticeable improvement after the plastic tops were removed. Seems like a potential lesson of catering to expectations for Amtrak. The quality was not fantastic but good enough. The veggie salad was fresh and tasty, the chicken teriyaki acceptable and filling, and the (unknown) dessert was surprisingly good. The bread was cold (boo!) and I did not try the seafood dish.

IMG_0578.jpg


Second meal service was a choice of Western Breakfast or Noodles. I went with the Breakfast. The fruit was perfectly ripe and sweet, the yogurt was good quality, and the entree was reasonably tasty. I think the bacon could benefit from an upgrade or replacement with sausage.

IMG_0580.jpg

The experience wasn't anything special but it worked well enough and I could see myself in AA's PE again in the future. I've only been in a few PE cabins so far and the original (EVA) is probably still the best, but AA's version is a reasonable option. In coach JL blows AA out of the water but in Premium Economy they're honestly pretty close. AA has better plating and a more comfortable seat while JL grants PE business lounge access* and has a longer drinks list. Both versions board at roughly the same point and use plastic cups with no PDB.

*If you upgrade from coach at the airport lounge access is not included.
 
Last edited:
The biggest issue with the quality of food is that it's all from local foodservice companies. The quality of the food depends on the provider and may not have that much to do with the airline. There are likely several companies to choose from that supply the same airports though.
 
The biggest issue with the quality of food is that it's all from local foodservice companies. The quality of the food depends on the provider and may not have that much to do with the airline. There are likely several companies to choose from that supply the same airports though.
If we were talking about an airport like Domodedovo I'd agree but Haneda and Narita have an established history of excellent catering, so if something is subpar it's on the airline to resolve.
 
If we were talking about an airport like Domodedovo I'd agree but Haneda and Narita have an established history of excellent catering, so if something is subpar it's on the airline to resolve.
I agree. Most Southeast and Northeast Asian major airports have excellent quality food service choices, some of course a little better than the others (Singapore for example). The problem in those cases are usually with the choices made by the airlines rather than any inherent issue with the city. I would go so far as to say that even India has excellent food services available (eg. Taj SATS) used by the likes of Singapore Airlines etc. A lot of the recent downgrades have been airline initiated, but fortunately they seem to be restoring quality back to before the downgrades slowly but surely.
 
If we were talking about an airport like Domodedovo I'd agree but Haneda and Narita have an established history of excellent catering, so if something is subpar it's on the airline to resolve.

Yeah - I kind of left out that if an airline had poor quality food from a specific supplier, it could change suppliers. But then again there are probably some places where there are few options or where they're all pretty bad. But then again, if someone finds something really exceptional on an airline flight, it may have more to do with a specific supplier than the airline per se.

I do remember the Alaska Airlines commercials of the 80s. The end of this commercial shows a lobster tail, so I'm not sure the average passenger is going to be eating like that.

 
Meals served on EVA Air in economy. Id' say all of them were good, and most of them were great. Most came with the main plus a side and some fresh fruit, along with a warm bread role. Most of the flights also had metal cutlery except one with cool Hello Kitty branded utensils. All came with a drink of your choice and then an offer of tea or coffee as well.

Long haul trans-pacific:
1685505502661.png1685505516089.png1685505530381.png
+ A nice chicken congee that I didn't get a photo of

Three hour flight within Asia:
1685505578873.png1685505592585.png
 
Last edited:
That’s what u get in first class??? I’m sorry but that don’t look good. Must taste better than it looks.
Those were coach meals and in my experience EVA Air (Evergreen Airways) meals are actually pretty tasty. I would put them in the top tier for coach meals on any of the airlines I have flown. EVA was the originator of "premium economy" and also features a highly regarded business class product.
 
Last edited:
I think Cassie may have been responding to bonzoesc's post, which was also posted yesterday and is in first class.

EVA's meals all tasted good and were filling.
 
Back
Top