What was the best in-flight meal to you?

There are entire websites devoted to rating good ... and bad airline meals.

I doubt we will have the chance to get bumped into first class on an overbooked flight any more. It happened to me once, on an Air France flight to Paris, but that was 20 years ago. Now they pretty much auction such perks off; you have to pay a surcharge. Suppose it is still a great bargain but I'm not about to pay even a couple of hundred dollars or euros for a more comfortable flight and better food - I have a very limited budget (to put it mildly) and would far rather enjoy a good meal with friends at my destination.

So obviously that was the best in-flight meal I've ever had, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. We could have all the champagne we could drink (hmm this reminds me of another thread) but the best perk of all had nothing to do with food or drink: it was the seat that became a full-length cot (at least for me; I'm not tall). So I arrived refreshed. They also gave all the ladies a red rose upon arrival.

The rich people who usually enjoy such treatment were certainly not averse to indulging in champagne...

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_meal Airlinemeals.net and airplanefood.net are among the many websites devoted to this. You will also find endless discussions on travel boards such as the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree.

"best in-flight meal" is another oxymoron, on the same scale as "Alberta culture".

(not meant to be taken as a slight to Alberta, by the way)

I had a memorable box lunch that had some particularly tasty items in it while aboard a 7 hour herc flight one time.  There was a cold, bbq pork chop wrapped in cellophane, coleslaw, a sandwich bag containing carrots, celery, and a packet of caesar salad dressing to use as dip, salmon salad sandwich, an apple, an orange, orange juice and milk, a package of oreos and a chocolate pudding.  The air force was known to pack solid fare into their box lunches.  It was memorable because in the month prior to that event my dining had been exclusively limited to military boil-a-bag rations (IMPs).  Our blessings were relayed through the flight crew to the food services personnel.

There was this one time the flight attendant let me have the cookies [i]and[/i] the Bits & Bites!

But of course, nothing beats Spam. 

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Boom Boom please stop or you may start getting comments about the "nation" you live in.  You humour was barely palatable once this week but it is now once too many.

Trust me as a BC'er I have lots of nasty little jokes about Alberta but I refrain from them just as I refrain from Newfie jokes and Blue Noser jokes and Quebec jokes. 

I grew up hearing Quebec-bashing all the time - very, very rarely have I heard any joking about Alberta. Even from Quebecers. But I take your point.

Korean Air was the best in-flight meal I had, ever! I was on economy, but the food was first class for sure. If you guys ever plan to visit Korea, check out Korean Air. Pretty awesome service/food.

Spammers let me know that every day the world becomes more magical and more unexpected.

In post #11 Catchfire wrote:

I flew Porter this summer and they gave me a beer for free. And a sandwich

In post #12 lagatta wrote:

I've reported the above comment (not as "offensive", of course, but pretty clearly spam).

Good eye, lagatta. For shame, Catchfire. For shame. 

LOL!

Probably Canadian Airlines.  I always flew it in preference to Air Canada.  When Air Canada was privatized its main aim seemed to have been driving its competition out of business to create a monopoly.

Last flight I was on was Westjet, to a conference in Winnipeg.  Aircraft of dubious age, super cool flight crew, and edible food. Then again, if I'm hungry enough I'll eat deep-fried gopher ...

I've taken those too - up in Nunavik. It is another world, eh?

No food on those planes, but I've received yummy caribou from folks living up there.

Airline food, really, I am hard pressed to understand why anyone who is not flying between continents cares that much. I almost always used to refuse meals when they were offered to me on flights anyway (much to the consternation of the in-flight staff) -- and I never collapsed from hunger on account of having done so. If my metabolism was such that I would find a four hour flight hard to deal with without eating something, I would prefer to bring my own "snack". I guess serving food on flights serves some purpose... keeps passengers in their seats and reduces their boredom... but a good book does much the same. What comes to mind when I think of airline meals is the appallingly bad behaviour on the part of passengers regarding such meals. Makes me wish the flight attendants had the option of physically ejecting some passengers during the course of the flight - sans parachutes.

I was flown in and out of a few bush jobs by Viking helicopter services up around Marathon to T-Bay, Hornepayne etc. And sometimes the pilots were very sober in the morning and didn't even cowboy it very much. Those were the best flights early in the am because ambush re-breakfasts tended not to sneak up on you if you know what I mean. Good pilots, though. That was back in the 1980's when it was still sort of okay to drink and fly choppers I suppose.

ETA: Yah Porter's pretty good. First time latte for me at Toronto Island AP just a couple years ago. First rate Canadian airline.

Yeah scary roads for sure. That 20 kliks of winding "highway" between Thessalon and Chapleau seems longer in winter with a logging truck riding your derriere. Truckers up there are friendly that way. Glad I'm not doing that one anymore.

Hornepayne and Constance Lake? What were you doing up that way, Boom Boom? 

Ah, those guys again. Yikes! 

Wasn't a meal but I got free drinks one time on a flight home (way back when airlines still did that)... Nothing like getting off the airplane three sheets to the wind to be greeted by your parents. 

I mostly can't remember airline food.    I guess one can only remember if it was fairly good i.e. smoked fish and cavier on an Aeroflot trans Atlantic flight back in the 1980's ... or fairly bad...a disgusting little sandwich on a British Airways flight between northern Italy and London Gatwick.

I was on one airline a few years ago that had a "no booze" policy...Aerosvit...the Ukrainian national airline.

I always pack a lunch for the train. If one should not have time to pack a lunch before leaving the Montreal Central railway station, there is a good selection of takeaway shops; one does lovely pita sandwiches, salads, Middle-Eastern stuff and isn't very expensive. (Psst, if you want to feel decadent, there is even a small SAQ (=LCBO) and they sell those little 250ml screw-top bottles of Côtes-du-Rhône....). Good coffee, too.

One is very limited packing airplane food by all the restrictions, and they can always decide to throw your lovingly packed lunch away...

The best butcher near here is halal. Their chicken is all locally-reared and killed, and has a nice, deep flavour.

VIA? I have heard tale of VIA... it is a train thing, right? We don't have it here. It seems more important that rail transport be made available to places in Central Canada than, say, Canada's fourth largest city.

Still, the southern route should have been kept. I hope things are changing a bit in Calgary with the new mayor.

I guess if there are really no pedestrians, the sidewalks could become cycle paths!

Rebecca West wrote:

First plane I was ever on was a single engine Cessna.  Normally a 4-seater, the rear seats had been removed to accommodate people with parachutes attached to a static line.  The door had also been removed because you needed to step out onto the wing strut and then jump.

Weirdly enough, I've never felt safer in a plane than the one I jumped out of.  In-flight meals were not to be had, but there was an excellent pub not far from the jump site.

Ditto for me.  Can I ask when and where you jumped?  My first jump was from this Norseman in Orange Mass., but I was up for rides in my sisters club Cessna prior to that.

That was a particularly stupid urban planning decision. I suppose back then it seemed "green" because of the parkway. I don't think I've ever seen a railway station as dead centre as that one.

I think the most common feeling about CP in Calgary is that, so long as they don't provide any passenger services it would probably be better if they were to pull out all the tracks in the city core.... make the equivalent of a "ring road" to the north or south of the city. As it is, the entire south side of downtown Calgary is subject to the whims of CP schedulers... who seem to have a special interest in running extra long freights through during peak movement hours... and with the number of level crossings in the area traffic and transit often come to a complete stand still. I think Nenshi could not just guarantee reelection, but probably sainthood if he would propose expropriating the CP line that runs through downtown. Would make a great place to run the LRT system... or a bike path.

Question: where's the bus terminal in Ottawa for Gray Coach, Greyhound, etc... is it still just a couple of blocks west of Bank Street downtown as it was in the 1960s?