Believe it or not, flying to France in 2015 was the first time I had actually taken long haul on United. The horror stories of United plane food are plentiful, so after having been spoiled by ANA, I braced myself for the worst...
Dinner is a pretty standard meal ofering - rice or pasta, a side salad, bread, cheese and crackers, and a dessert cake. I thought the rice dish was actually not bad - kind of a lemony sauce. FT thought it was disgusting though. He thought the pasta was okay, which I thought was terrible and tasted like sludge on soggy noodles, so we're 50/50 on this.
I do appreciate the actual chunks of parmesan that were in the side salad though, and the lettuce was crisp.
I do appreciate the actual chunks of parmesan that were in the side salad though, and the lettuce was crisp.
The breakfast is not actually a meal and is offered in a "box"...
...which to my surprise, was actually filled with a decent amount of goodies. Granola and yogurt, cranberry and orange muffin top cake thing, and a bag of dried fruit. As I was going backpacking, I actually stashed the muffin and fruit for future snacking... otherwise, it'd be a carb filled sugar bomb. But definitely a pleasant surprise at the amount and quality of this box.
(And I always give + points for having dried cranberries and not raisins.)
Return meal from France similarly had cheese wedges. Food was okay.
Return "box" was slightly more disappointing though:
Black bean empanada was chalky and dry. Sponge cake was not bad, though kind of a weird combination together.
Compared to my meals on ANA, these are definitely not as impressive, but they're not all that bad. (Or maybe my standards are just artificially low from having eaten a meal on an Air China flight... never again.) I can see why if you're a business traveler you might want to avoid eating this for the upteenth time, but if it's your vacation meal this really is doable.
