Inflight Special Meal

Food is the second most important thing for me to rate my in-flight experience after seat width and comfort. In the past 5 months, I flew different airlines and I got to see their variety of special meal and its service. I do not eat red meat, so I order either seafood meal or lacto-ovo vegetarian meal.

Life changed after Korea. I take this meal pre-order very seriously and I got really grumpy when I forgot to order one (sigh my recent China Airlines experience). I don't bother thinking about this meal pre-order when flying with my national carrier because they would never have pork and lamb in their options, so there will always be seafood or chicken option. By the way, I would not normally enjoy in-flight meal back home because I often travel with LCCs :P

Korean Air 

KE is my new favorite! Super wide seat, fair mileage reward, and best special meal service. I flew their A380 for my London stopover or ICN-LHR and LHR-ICN leg.

1st meal

My ICN-LHR leg was a very full flight (the only remaining seat was first class) and they had countless special meal requests. They have a very systematic way by sticking yellow sticker to passenger's seats who requested the special meal. They served different bread than the normal breakfast bun to other passengers. I opted for seafood meal this time.

I was delighted with the menu. Pasta with generous salmon. The portion of the salmon was just... Wow. Super fulfilling.

2nd service

My second meal was a different kind of fish. Man, I am really lame with fish name, but this was also a good one. Not a fan of veggie, I liked the first meal better than the second one.

fish with potato and veggie

I loved the potato! 

Now for my LHR-ICN leg, I opted for the vegetarian meal.

The flight was also full, but not many people in my area (because most of them are Koreans) requested for the special meal. I did not see the flight attendants flying with the tray of meals this time. 

first meal

I absolutely love my mac 'n cheese with broccoli and carrot. I have yet to found a good place for mac 'n cheese in Seoul sigh. I felt like this was my second best meal in almost a month, after spending time in Brazil. First best? The chicken in Sao Paulo :P basically Rio food sucks.

second meal

My second meal was a pretty salty omelet. I love mushroom and hash brown, but the mushroom was too salty. Good choice of menu though.

Another good thing about KE is they also serve snack. Standard Korean cup noodles (you have no idea, Koreans love their cup noodles THAT much), folded pizza, onigiri, nuts, and banana. Of course, I got the banana which I really hate.

LATAM Brasil

First of all... After 12 hours of flying KE in A380, my LATAM flight from London to Sao Paulo was just a disaster. Cramped seats, old aircraft and unfriendly flight attendants... The list goes on but lets just focus on the food.

LHR-GRU leg

LATAM does not have seafood option so I am stuck with lacto-ovo. They did not check nor confirm my order with me before hand. The flight attendant almost served the normal meal to me until I asked for my vegetarian meal. So I did not get my meal ahead of others too. Only one service, mac 'n cheese, standard deal with a plain taste. 

My next leg on LATAM was a slightly better GRU-LHR.

First meal

I love that they served real vegetarian food this time! They have soy meat with Brazil rice. I should say 'Brazil rice' because it was not the sticky rice like what I normally eat in Asia. Match the taste, fair taste. I like the cracker snack too.

second meal

My second meal was a bread with spinach and egg filling plus fruits. I am sure this dish has a fancy name, but I just don't know haha. I am not a fan of spinach but this was a good one. The fruits were also nice, I appreciated it more than salad. 

Thai Airways

Thanks to Thai Airways recent huge promo and AirAsia's weirdly expensive price, I got to fly from ICN to BKK via HKG with Thai for the first time. I know it was not the most efficient route, but as a student, I have more time than money :P

I ordered seafood meal for both legs. The flight was relatively quiet and the flight attendant kindly came to me to confirm my order, few mins before they closed the door.

Fun fact: I just nodded even before he finished the sentence because he was speaking in Thai and he thought I was Thai :))

ICN-HKG, Pasta!

I got pasta with fish and cream sauce and a very pleasant sashimi salad.

I never ate raw fish before, really.This one was my first and it was actually nice.

HKG-BKK

I got an oriental style pasta for my next leg. Orzo (yeay!) with fried fishballs and cream. What was unique here is the tofu dessert. This was also really good, I don't know which one I like better. Wow, great job TG!

Oh, they also gave me special nuts with berries with my seat number written on it. They gave nuts to other passengers, though. Not sure why they have a different kind paired to the seafood meal order.

Now for my route back to ICN.

I was not in my best mood after the check in drama. Their system went down for almost 30 mins in their own base. I was really tired and although they sent me to the business class immigration gate to skip the queue, another drama happened.

ICN-BKK Seafood meal

The meal failed to cheer me up. It was a seafood platter (squid, small shrimp and a chunk of fish) with potato and green peas. Korean touch of Kimchi was added. The bread did not taste fresh and warm that night.

Still, better than LATAM. *everything is wrong with LATAM*

Then I forgot to order seafood meal on my recent China Airlines flights so let's keep that for next time. *grumpy*

Overall, KE is still the best with their system in handling the special meal request. I also get my food ahead of others by ordering special meal, except in LATAM. I love Asian airlines for their hospitality and their food certainly didn't fail me. I think the only non-Asian airlines that I have ever flown with are only LATAM and Aer Lingus. I did not like my Aer Lingus meal since... I did not eat them. I regretted my stupidity back then by ordering Kosher food instead of vegetarian so I ended up with sandwich that I could not eat :))