re: Avianca "Life Miles" - New FF program in *A
frankly I'm shocked that anyone would rate CX J meals higher than SQ J meals. Both SQ and QF J meal presentation is leap years ahead of anything CX has put in front of me.
I'm with you on that. CX J meals are... rather dull? And never really push the boat out in terms of originality for flavour. They are pretty middle of the road and 'safe' in terms of appeal.
Having flown CX more times than I care to remember the menu has never really changed or been innovative. I could pretty much recite their entire inventory.
Food presentation I'd go SQ and QF for sure. CX J used to do a better job than they do now admittedly (as far as presentation goes anyway). I know there are a few here who will disagree, but I definitely rate taste over presentation. Food presentation
does help and it is not something you can simply neglect, but there is no point to food which looks pretty but tastes awful (and there's certainly examples of that!).
CX J food boring? It sounds more interesting frequently than SQ J. I look at a SQ J menu and I'm usually not impressed. And we're talking about an airline whose culinary panel has, what, 8-10 of some of the world's best chefs? I won't even comment on their between-meal refreshments. Probably only thing is that SQ J menus often have more variety (e.g. usually 4 choices; CX J is frequently only 2-3).
In fact, SQ
F food at times is pretty boring. If it weren't for caviar, good Champagne and very attentive service, it'd be a pretty average meal in the sky for First Class.
SQ doesn't exactly push the boundaries on flavours either, except for a few of their chef's speciality dishes. Mostly it's classic flavours and combinations, and they can't even get some of them right.
I'd suppose if you fly an airline enough, food doesn't tend to change much (or it feels like that). For CX, especially for shorter flights, I'm prepared to guess this is very much true. One thing I can vouch is that flying CX J I will get food which tastes good, if but repetitive. Have had quite a bit of fish with CX in J and surprisingly it has come out quite satisfactory or better each time. Of course, some recent reports may make me doubt the quality of food in CX J now.
I guess when one has enough alcohol (viz. Champagne), how good something tastes almost becomes immaterial because you can hardly appreciate the food!
QF is probably one of the most adventurous in flavours. It does kick them in the butt a few times (and quite hard), but when they get it right, it's excellent food (apart from the lifeless leaf side salad). LX (and brother-airline LH) is pretty adventurous with flavours, but I find they pull it off very well (Not sure about longhaul LH/LX J but I can vouch for LX F).
