So, just out of curiosity (seeking experience of the more frequent of flyers here); what sort of things can you expect for domestic lunches and dinners, in Y and J, on short flights, say MEL/SYD, ADL/MEL, SYD/BNE, and longer flights PER/MEL, ADL/PER, CNS/MEL?
Meals on QF domestic are fairly formulaic. They work on a cycle too, so it's not unreasonable that if you travel a lot of domestic in a year you may just end up eating the same meal more than three times.
For J service (except for breakfast), for all flights of longer than about 1.5 hrs or so (my guess here), pre-meal drinks are offered with a packet of nuts.
Breakfast
In Y, breakfast is continental. Cereal, milk, piece of fruit (or fruit bag), orange juice and a warm (hopefully) roll from the bakery (sometimes flavoured, sometimes not). LFML replaces the cereal with one of less sugar and the milk with skim milk (as opposed to full cream milk).
In J, breakfast is a choice of hot or continental. Hot breakfast can vary; last time I flew J with breakfast service was last September, and the serving was scrambled eggs, tomato, spinach and potatoes. Sides were plain yoghurt with passionfruit sauce and a choice of either white toast, raisin toast or croissants from the bakery. YMMV on this one - I've heard things like sausages, frittatas (or look-a-likes), etc. appearing on the servings. Sometimes the yoghurt is replaced with a small bowl of fruit.
Refreshment
In Y refreshments are always a sweet or snack, e.g. cupcake, cookies (set of two or three), chips+dip or the like. Apples are usually available if you want a bit of a healthy bite. Strictly speaking, as a "refreshment" the fare is fit for purpose, but it's a bit of a frustration if you're flying just before a dinner service flight, especially MEL-BNE or the like
.
In J refreshments rarely are just that
, i.e. usually a bit more to a lot more substantial. My four op-ups of recent were all refreshment flights: one flight was a quiche, the next a steak sandwich, another was a lamb pie and the last one was banana bread/cake. Probably the last one was the "lightest" of them all. Sides to the "refreshment" are usually a sweet cake from Manna from Heaven and another "side" from the "bakery", e.g. bread or mini-quiche. An even lighter option exists if you don't want to fill up - usually fruit and yoghurt.
Lunches
Y lunches are sandwiches. On some flights, it's a choice of a sandwich or a salad. No tray service.
ISTR J lunches are fairly similar to how J dinners are organised.
Dinners
Y dinners are warm and pretty much are the same deal: one meat, one serve of veggies and one source of carbs, e.g. pasta, rice, mashed potato, etc. The exception seems to be the creamy ravioli that's been said in this topic (i.e. no meat), which I haven't had on domestic service before. Add to this are the sides of a small chocolate square, water and a roll, however on occasion some of us have found variations to the sides. For example, on the ADL-CBR sector I flew recently, the chocolate was replaced with a sweet "health" bar of apricot and honey and the roll was replaced with cheese and crackers. Many observe the latter change happening too. IMO I don't mind having cheese+crackers rather than the roll, which is often so tough and stale it makes a better weapon than it does a food item.
J dinners are a choice of two: one hot and a salad (for a lighter option). Hot option is pretty formulaic - for some reason it always seems to end up being something with rice, but not enough experience here to tell. Sides are either a small side salad or a Manna from Heaven cake. I'm not sure if Peyton's chocolates are still supplied as well.
PER flights
...are a slightly different kettle of fish. For any flight between PER and the East coast (and possibly others), they are all meal flights. You will usually get a choice of two meals rather than just having to settle with one. Ice creams are offered after clearing the meal service.
See? Told you it was formulaic.
I flew over lunch CBR - SYD in Y on Thursday and back today. We got these cold, dry little flavoured loaves - sundried tomato & ? with chilli jam and fetta and ? with tomato relish in a box with a plastic knife. They are not very appetising as they feel like they are stale even though the use by date was late October!
I got that too on my last SYD-CBR route. It wasn't awfully tasty as you said, but at least the chilli jam added a bit of zing to the thing. Better than it saying "chilli jam" but being not the least bit biting!
My last 2 dinner Y flights Syd/Mel have been beef curry (not sure how they can call it a curry as it was not "hot" at all!) and rice with 2 crackers and a small bar of chocolate....:shock:
My recent experience at dinner time SYD - ADL was similar to KPC except I think the (bland) curry was lamb. I don't remember what else was served with it except a tiny Toblerone.
If the curry was any more spicy then you'd probably get quite a few complaints (i.e. if
QF009 won't eat it then you're treading into dangerous territory). I resolved this by emptying an entire packet of pepper into mine; if need be, politely ask for more pepper.
It's difficult for me to equate airline food with restaurant food - the two seem poles apart. While international F and J food can be interesting and very enjoyable, even if not exactly a "journey", domestic food seems very ordinary to me. I have flown QF domestic J from SYD-BNE three times in the past three weeks and my favourite meal would have to be the hot breakfast. The hot dinner option (as opposed to the salad/cold option) which in my case was a lamb casserole on one occasion and chicken swimming in something on the other two - were edible and meant I didn't need to get dinner at home but that was about it. And don't get me started on the sorry state of QF's domestic J wine choices...
I think most of the time QF's domestic J wine is OK if not good; certainly I've been faced with worse choices from other airlines before, but having said that there have been a couple of times that QF's domestic J wines haven't hit the standard, although some pretty tough choices to make at times that probably had the sommeliers in a real tail-spin (e.g. what the hell kind of wine do you match with a zucchini and boccocini soup?))
Then again, to quote from
The Simpsons episode where Homer is a food critic:
Homer Simpson said:
Marge, your pork chops get the lowest rating from me ever - seven thumbs up.
...
Marge, please, I've changed now. My palate has become more sophisticated.
But restaurant food = or > inflight cuisine? Is that even a question? All things at their best for the comparison, then inflight cuisine will never win.
Nevertheless, inflight cuisine can be pretty good and when one has a hunger at however many feet above sea level, its utility can range from sufficient to absolutely fantastic. Domestic meal service is fairly standard, but I never expect to be blown away; when I do get blown away by the meal service, that's an exception - not a rule nor expectation, and yes this even applies if I fly J....
