Qantas Business Class meals & menus

[zig]

A

Monday 11th Feburary, SYD-AKL 'lunch' flight on

Macademia nuts work much better for me as I, well, can actually eat them. And the little dried apricot was also nice as were the actual cheeses- one soft goats cheese type and one rather mild blue vain cheese. Hit the spot perfectly for me!

They look like hazelnuts not macadamias??

 

[Berlin]

A
They look like hazelnuts not macadamias??

Oh, you're probably right! I was just delighted that they were NOT the usual walnuts as they are the only ones I'm allergic to.

 

[zig]

Oh, you're probably right! I was just delighted that they were NOT the usual walnuts as they are the only ones I'm allergic to.

Hazelnuts are one of my favourite nuts, so I’d be happy to see them as well

 

[kermatu]

Qantas splurge on macadamias. Funny.

 

[aussierob]

Sydney - Auckland Business on A330 yesterday:
Appetiser:
Zucchini and Parmesan soup - bleck! Terrible! No flavour, watery, very unappetising texture and look.
Main:
Red Wine chicken with mushroom and something served over rice with a wet sauce poured over: yuk - rubbery & fatty chunk of chicken. Smell was all wrong (gamey?) and trying to cut into it resulted in the bed of wet rice sloshing off the plate and onto the table cloth/napkin. Put me right off, swapped it for a cheese plate which was an "old reliable" pleasure. Nice dates!
Am really getting a bad bad impression with what seems to be an increasingly bad run of food offerings on Qantas business-class over the last year.

 

[Berlin]

Does anyone know how often Qantas changes their menus on the Trans-Tasman? The current ones still say “September 2018” on the bottom and have been around for close to half a year. They seem to be exactly the same on any city pair over the Tasman and there are 4 in each direction.

By now I had all 8, some several times. It’s getting VERY boring. Am I too optimistic hoping that there will be a “March 2019” menu be introduced at the half yearly mark? Does anyone know from previous years?

 

[Berlin]

Friday 22 Feb Auckland- Sydney, QF146 on A330-300, “dinner” flight:

The so-called “First” Lounge in Auckland was a total disgrace as per usual and still, the proper champagne has not re-appeared. It’s long time for that promised refurb to start! At least the priority line at customs and emigration is now available to Qantas priority customers- it used to not be this case until two weeks ago so thar’s a real improvement (you get a little blue “Priority” on your boarding pass at check in- make sure you actually get it as the third party Menzies aviation staff at AKL check in is usually slack and forgetful).

Boarding was the usual Qantas shambles with some gullible idiots like me patiently queuing up at the priority line, just to then have people cut in front of it and including the riff raff from the back of course. One QF Dragon at least tried to check that only Priority members are boarding at this time but it was just a lost cause. Sticky, fat too warm gate with limited space- I blame Auckland airport as much as Qantas itself for the mess.

Unfortunately, the flight itself was also not much better. Meal was the same one for a third time in a row and i deduced it have the big bowl of pea and ham soup which is always excellent as a starter (I didn’t bother to take pictures again, I’ve posted it in one of my previous posts here in this thread). I then decided to only have the toastie with keg ham and cheese that the crew ridiculously referred to as the “leg of ham”. Haha, I wished!



I asked to leave the ticket off but in any case, the toastie was tiny (see above). Nicely crispy toasted on the top, totally soggy thanks to the tomatoes on the bottom but super tasty with the melted cheese. However, just does not cut it as “dinner” on a Business class flight across the Tasman. I wish that EK still flew this route :-(

Unfortunately, and very untypical for Qantasc, the service on this flight also was a let down. As a matter of fact, I haven’t had such a bad Qantas crew in a very long time: No separate drink service with nuts before the meal, very robotic service akin to a bad really bad luck crew you sometimes (in my experience in about every third flight) get on the big 3 Middle Eastern carriers. After the meal, the whole crew zipped themselves up in the galley like I experienced it many years ago on Economy class LH or BA flights. The service call button was systematically ignored and crew disappeared entirely from the J cabin for most of the flight, no apologies given, even when asking directly what the heck was going on. When I finally went to the galley myself to ask for another drink, all crew members where just standing there chit chatting while ignoring the call sign. Very very bad service and not the usual on QF.

 

[kermatu]

Does anyone know how often Qantas changes their menus on the Trans-Tasman? The current ones still say “September 2018” on the bottom and have been around for close to half a year. They seem to be exactly the same on any city pair over the Tasman and there are 4 in each direction.

By now I had all 8, some several times. It’s getting VERY boring. Am I too optimistic hoping that there will be a “March 2019” menu be introduced at the half yearly mark? Does anyone know from previous years?

I think it has been previously posted that it is every 6 months. Really don't see why it has to be that infrequent.

The menus are often the same for the trans-con flights. I often do PER-SYD/MEL-AKL and get the same stuff.

 

[I love to travel]

Is syd or bne to drw treated as transcontinental?

 

[DrJ]

QF810 PER-ADL 22 Feb sched 1415 actual departure 1515

Was in a foul mood boarding this flight after an unexplained 1 hour delay and then a long line on the hot tarmac to board via stairs, when at least 3 domestic jetbridges sat unused (First world problems I know). Things improved greatly after this though, good flight in 1C and attentive service by CSM Jamie and FA Ashley.

Water and juice offer pre take off.



The bill of fare.



Pre dinner drinks were promptly served.



The duck salad was quite good. Washed down with a good Forest Hills Chardonnay from Mt Barker.



In spite of its appearance, the pork taco filling was very tasty. A way better than expected Peter Lehmann 8 Songs shiraz from the Barossa accompanied.



There were fortunately some cheese platters left over, so opted for this for dessert rather than the less than inspiring ice cream stick, with
more Peter Lehmann.
In spite of getting into ADL late, a very good flight.

 

[Quickstatus]

Is syd or bne to drw treated as transcontinental?

No it’s not. Only between east (SYD,MEL,BNE) and west coast (PER)

 

[Silvia]

I think it has been previously posted that it is every 6 months. Really don't see why it has to be that infrequent.

The menus are often the same for the trans-con flights. I often do PER-SYD/MEL-AKL and get the same stuff.

Usually with international flights it's March and Sept. From what I remember, last time menu was changed for NZ flights around the 15th, instead of the 1st for other international flights.

 

[Berlin]

I think it has been previously posted that it is every 6 months. Really don't see why it has to be that infrequent.

The menus are often the same for the trans-con flights. I often do PER-SYD/MEL-AKL and get the same stuff.

Totally agree, at least every quarter I think they should be changed. It’s the most loyal passengers who suffer the most from the ever repeating same stuff.

And you’re very right- I now remember doing BNE-PER not too long ago and was surprised to get pretty much exactly the same menu as to Christchurch the week before.

 

[Silvia]

Sorry for the delayed posting of this...
QF29 MEL-HKG B747 J class
15/02/2019.

Full menu here


Started with a very bland arabic mezze, quite large. I didn't finish mine.


Went for the pork option. Presentation wasn't the best, it was OK though. The portions of protein to side dishes are a bit out of proportion.


Dessert - Summer berry pudding - wasn't good at all. I had a couple of spoons and left it... I have a sweet tooth, so definitely not good.
The dessert wine was great... so made up some marks there.


Pre-arrival - I had the stir fried vegetable with noodles - a winner! although extremely small. My husband had the kofta and he was kicking himself for not choosing the noodles.


In all, what I've unfortunately come to expect with QF J catering. Service was great, got PJs during a day flight and a tour of the coughpit as a birthday gesture from the crew. I now tend to eat at the lounge (did this on our way back from HKG and was grateful about it as I was able to sleep and apparently the catering was even worse).

 

[Mr H]

View attachment 155468

The bill of fare.

What on Earth is seasonal cheese?

 

[Quickstatus]

What on Earth is seasonal cheese?

Whatever cheese they can get on special?

 

[milehighclub]

As a general guide:

International Menus except Tasman/Noumea change every 3 months.

East/West run on a 6 menu cycle over a 6 month period, meaning that a menu will make an appearance no more than 5 times. So whilst it may say September on the menu (when it was printed), it hasn't been served every week since then (the first menu since Sep has only been used 4 times for example)

AU to NZ/NOU also run on a 6 menu cycle but NZ to AU have a 3 menu cycle

Next menu change will be March for International and mid March for Tas/Dom/Nou

 

[Berlin]

Sunday 24 Feb Sydney-Brisbane, 737-800, “snack” flight

As pretty much always, Qantas totally messed up the priority boarding by starting the so-called priority line at the same time as the non-priority line so you had to queue up behind the riff raff anyway. I really wonder why they bother- just don't offer it as a benefit if you have zero inclination to get your staff to actually implement it.

Anyway, as soon as you were on the plane things got better though this particular aircraft seemed really old and dated though admittedly, I actually prefer the older seats. The crew was very pleasant and smiley and we offered us the "Great selection of water and now wait everyone... Sparkling water!" before take off. Good to see that the ridiculousness of this choice does not get lost on the crew.

Shortly after takeoff, the food came out (which it had to, given the flight duration). To my big surprise, the choice on this "snack" flight was between a proper hot meal (Lamb with vegetables) and a Chicken and Corn soup. Given that I am very picky with lamb and had rather awful experiences with it on Qantas in the past, I opted for the corn soup. I also still had a second flight across the Tasman left so I figured it was probably better to stick to a lighter choice.



The soup was served with some fresh spring onion slivers on top which was nice and it tasted super yumm overall, especially after adding the entire satchels of salt and pepper. The highlight was the white wine that I selected with this meal, it was The Lane from the Adelaide Hills which was super yumm and perfectly complemented the soup. All in all a quite nice flight and we landed on time into Brissy where I made my way over to the International terminal.

 

[Berlin]

Sunday 24 Feb Brisbane-Auckland, 737-800, “dinner” flight

Qantas actually enforced priority boarding on this flight, something that happens about once in 10 times in my experience so cudos to this crew! I must admit that the way lines are set up in Brissy also make this quite easy to do but then again, there's many places where in theory it would be easy to do but the crew just decides not to

As much as I prefer the hard product on the A330s, quite often the service in J is actually more personal and attentive on the smaller 737s and this flight was no exception! The crew was SO on the balls, one of the best in a long time. Reacted straight away to the service button calls (the exact opposite of what I had on Friday on the way over) but most importantly, I hardly ever had to go to this measure as they mostly proactively re-poured drinks and cleared your table etc. Speaking of clearing the table, this is time when I should talk about what was actually ON the table:



Yay, this made me so excited as it's the 8th of all the menus currently being used, the last one of the lot that I haven't gotten before. The choice was easy for me- I asked for a big bowl of soup (which I do most of the times now because the tiny mains never feed me) and the steak but knowing I'd never touch it anyway, I asked for no spinach -aaargh, Spinach! - to not have it soak the entire plate with its duck-poo green water. The soup tasted excellent though needed a little bit of salt and pepper (as most food does on airplanes):



When the main arrived, the flight attendant was very apologetic that the steak "looks so lonely on the plate without the spinach" so she added a sliver of lemon to it but I personally was totally happy with just the mash on the side. Actually- it was one of the nicest presented steaks in a long time and the cut of meat was excellent. A bit dry as almost always on airplanes but still pretty tasty, I really enjoyed it!



The red was a Pinot Noir from NZ which was nice though gets a bit boring over time as the wines on the Trans-Tasman also seem to hardly ever change, very much like the menus -it is pretty much ALWAYS a choice of the same Aussie Shiraz and NZ Pinot while the whites are an Aussie Chardonnay and a (usually quite awful) Kiwi Sav Blanc. Why the wines are less varied than on Domestic routes is a riddle to me but here is hope that they might get swapped with the menu change in mid March.

I finished off with the usual cheese plate and asked for a fortified or desert wine but unfortunately, they hadn't loaded any- neither red nor white. Oh well, back to the champagne early then!

 

[kitkatff]

QF30 HKG-MEL last week, I didn't take a copy of the menu, just was surprised when they offered "canapé" with the apéritif. It was an arancini ball. No nuts provided, but it was a nice change.
Had the pea soup and then the dumpling, then sleep, no breakfast.

It was on one of the new 330s, where it seems they changed the seats around - on "older" models the even rows are "windows", that is, 2A and 2K were window seats with the storage space on the aisle side.
On the new 330 it's changed and the odd seats are that configuration. So check the seating plan if you prefer one or the other