Qantas Business Class meals & menus

[jase05]

QF696 ADL-MEL 1910-2100
Was travelling with another couple who only fly QF so thought what the heck, it’s been nearly a year since my last QF Dom J.
PB a shambles and no alcoholic PDB’s is always a let down. Staff were friendly but seemed to be a delay in getting meals out which isn’t great on such a short flight and to make matters worse there was quite a stream of Y pax using the forward loo and delaying dinner service.
Meals options were a beef salad or a Chicken dish. Wife had the beef and said the beef was very tasty but the salad was very ordinary and so left quite a bit. I had the chicken and it should have been called chicken jerky. Was horribly over cooked and inedible. The mash was a watery mess that resembled baby food. Barely ate any and it was just an all round fail. The wine was quite nice and the raspberry and hazelnut cake was pretty darn tasty.


To cap off a pretty poor flight, several Y pax made their way to the front of the plane before we had stopped and pushed their way past on disembarkment without the crew batting an eyelid

 

[jase05]

QF701 MEL-ADL 2040-2130
After such an ordinary flight over I was starting to have reservations about the return flight. Thankfully QF redeemed themselves quite well.
Started with some good food in the QF J lounge and then some attempt at PB even though it failed. Meal option was a choice of Chicken and Sweetcorn soup, cheese plate or fettuccine with pork ragu. Mrs Jase choose the cheese which she said was quite good. whilst I had the fettuccine which I thought was excellent. Service was excellent and just an all round good flight.

 

[Berlin]

PB a shambles and no alcoholic PDB’s is always a let down. Staff were friendly but seemed to be a delay in getting meals out which isn’t great on such a short flight and to make matters worse there was quite a stream of Y pax using the forward loo and delaying dinner service.

You were actually quite lucky with the meal choices, especially on the return. All the other issues is stock standard Qantas- PB pretty much never works domestically, you get “Water or water” as a drink choice which is so wtf, I can’t even really comment further on it without using worse swear words. And staff hardly ever gives a toss about the great unwashed invading the front toilets and, worse, often delaying the J service as you’ve noticed. If then all the Why backpacks come out first on the luggage belt, you really have to wonder why even fly up the front And these things are all so easy to fix- just train the staff properly to insist on using the back toilets if in Y and execute the PB properly, it’s not even that hard. And hey Alan, it’s free!

 

[kermatu]

You were actually quite lucky with the meal choices, especially on the return. All the other issues is stock standard Qantas- PB pretty much never works domestically, you get “Water or water” as a drink choice which is so wtf, I can’t even really comment further on it without using worse swear words. And staff hardly ever gives a toss about the great unwashed invading the front toilets and, worse, often delaying the J service as you’ve noticed. If then all the Why backpacks come out first on the luggage belt, you really have to wonder why even fly up the front And these things are all so easy to fix- just train the staff properly to insist on using the back toilets if in Y and execute the PB properly, it’s not even that hard. And hey Alan, it’s free!

One turnback is all it takes.

 

[GoldCanyon340]

QF701 MEL-ADL 2040-2130
After such an ordinary flight over I was starting to have reservations about the return flight. Thankfully QF redeemed themselves quite well.
Started with some good food in the QF J lounge and then some attempt at PB even though it failed. Meal option was a choice of Chicken and Sweetcorn soup, cheese plate or fettuccine with pork ragu. Mrs Jase choose the cheese which she said was quite good. whilst I had the fettuccine which I thought was excellent. Service was excellent and just an all round good flight.

The fettucine ragu looks good Excellent comfort food!

 

[jase05]

You were actually quite lucky with the meal choices, especially on the return. All the other issues is stock standard Qantas- PB pretty much never works domestically, you get “Water or water” as a drink choice which is so wtf, I can’t even really comment further on it without using worse swear words. And staff hardly ever gives a toss about the great unwashed invading the front toilets and, worse, often delaying the J service as you’ve noticed. If then all the Why backpacks come out first on the luggage belt, you really have to wonder why even fly up the front And these things are all so easy to fix- just train the staff properly to insist on using the back toilets if in Y and execute the PB properly, it’s not even that hard. And hey Alan, it’s free!

Exactly. QF get a lot of things right but could be make things so much more enjoyable with just a few tweaks that would cost nothing. PB is so simple to police as is the J loo situation. And how hard is it for a staff member to stand at the back of J on disembarkment to prevent the hoardes of Y pax rushing to exit. That was what upset Mrs Jase the most, being basically knocked back into her seat by some pig from Y that thought he was entitled to be the first one off. Overall the return trip was fairly underwhelming compared to the same trip on VA a few days earlier. $799 on QF compared to about half that for VA with what I’ve found a better all round product will probably ensure that it’s another 12 months before flying QF Dom again

 

[Berlin]

Overall the return trip was fairly underwhelming compared to the same trip on VA a few days earlier. $799 on QF compared to about half that for VA with what I’ve found a better all round product will probably ensure that it’s another 12 months before flying QF Dom again

I’ve just booked my first Air NZ and also a Virginaustralia flight trans Tasman now, mostly because Qantas food just bores me to death with their endless repetitions and I want to at least be able to what the others are offering.

Never get that price talk though- if you catch a good special, they all cost pretty much the same. Around $1000 bucks for the Tasman return, plus/minutes 100-200$. Too little to influence my decision.

 

[jase05]

I’ve just booked my first Air NZ and also a Virginaustralia flight trans Tasman now, mostly because Qantas food just bores me to death with their endless repetitions and I want to at least be able to what the others are offering.

Never get that price talk though- if you catch a good special, they all cost pretty much the same. Around $1000 bucks for the Tasman return, plus/minutes 100-200$. Too little to influence my decision.

Our main travel Dom is ADL-MEL and QF is nearly always $1500-1600 return in J each whilst VA is $900-1000. So about $1000 difference for us and quite frankly the VA product is miles ahead so it’s an easy choice. For other routes it might be a different story

 

[Berlin]

19th April AKL-MEL on 737-800:

Morning flight but was classified as “lunch”. Priority boarding an absolute shambles as per usual so endless wait on the airbridge begins the great unwashed with their shreeky children. Actually, shreeky babies and non-behaved children with their “loving” parents EVERYWHERE this Good Friday. One of those spoilt brats straight behind me in row 2, happily kicking my seat for over 3 hours.

Menu was one of the “new” ones and as follows:



Luckily, both starters without seafood so I actually had a choice for a change. Didn’t feel like lamb in the early morning so I opted for the chicken salad and then the large bowl of soup. It might be a new menu but I definitely had both before, that very tasty sesame dressing with the chicken definitely rang a bell from the past. Tomato soup had also been on one of the older menus but decent portion and taste nice as per usual. Obviously not good enough as a “main” on a trans-Tasman but that’s the usual Qantas annoyance.

Service was okay, standard Jeet Conneeect over the Tasman. Fine flight with neither reason to complain nor to be totally mesmerised.

 

[Berlin]

19th April MEL-PERTH on 787-900:

I had seen the first Qantas “Dreamliner” on the factory belt at Boeing in Washington a while back and being based in Sydney and Auckland, hadn’t had any chances to finally fly the beauty so I was delighted to get the opportunity on this short hop over to WA.

This flight is a bit of an odd one as it’s classified as “international” in terms of terminal and customs regulations (so I only declared customs in Perth, coming over from New Zealand). The only one who thought different was the grumpy lounge dragon- finally for the first time in about 8 or so visits she had some spa appointments in the Flounge available but oh no, she declined and lectured me that this is an “international only offering”. That I had just come from New Zealand didn’t change a thing so I now had three hours in the lounge watching the cheap-cough Jetstar economy passengers booked to Bali enjoying their spa appointments. Once again, not happy Qantas, not at all

Lounge was the usual, the Melbourne one really pales in comparison with the Sydney one, it’s just far too small and as soon as it fills up, staff clearly starts to struggle and service levels fall badly which I rarely observe in Sydney. When it was time to board, I headed to the gate where priority boarding was completely messed up by having one general boarding queue with passport check on top of the escalator leading to the gate. This meant endless delays waiting behind chaotic moms who can’y find all the boarding passes for their oversized family, one of my favourites

On board, the seats are almost identical to the J seats on the A330 with a tiny difference of the plug and USB panel looking slightly more modern. I don’t mind it but I also think this seat is far from great- good enough for a 5 hour flight but certainly no “near-First” experience on a flight from Perth to London. Classified as a international flight, I was offered proper champagne prior to takeoff, yay, and also some hot towels, yay again. The menu also comes in international size (the printed menu I’m talking, not the actual portions or meal choices of course) but after my initial excitement, I was extremely disappointed as silly NP managed to include one disgusting ingredient in every single dish, I kit you not



Who comes up with awful ideas like a fennel soup? Or beetroot dips, yikes? Also kale, fish and sweet potatoes. Literally all the things I absolutely hate or am allergic to, spread over the selection of dishes. I voiced my disappointment with the crew and they told me very energetically to complain about it as “hardly anyone likes this silly stuff and would much rather prefer a lasagna”. Yes please. A normal soup and a lasagna, that’s an idea, Qantas! I wonder if anyone from their catering department is ever listening to their customers as some of those meals are just outrageously silly.

I had the coppa (which is basically Qantas hipster-speak for prosciutto) and left most of the beetroot dip to the side though it was otherwise an acceptable starter which went very well in combination with a glass of champagne.



I then selected the moroccan stew, mostly because I really had no other choice given that I’m allergic to fish and really really really “allergic” to Kale which was once well loved as a garnish on Pizza Hut salad buffets but somehow needed to start a life of its own a few years back which was not a good idea AT ALL. Anyway- I asked for the sweet potato to be left off as this is almost as bad a vegetable as Kale and that’s where the awesome Qantas crew came in: Even though it was all mixed up in the stew, they had manually picked out the pieces of sweet potato for me which was a great feat and super nice of them. Meat was just alright with quite a few fatty bits in between -I wonder where Qantas even gets those off cuts as neither Woolies, Coles or Aldi would dare to sell cubed beef like. Maybe it’s Woolie’s and Aldi’s off-cuts, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest I loved the Chardonnay and spicy hot paste that came with stew, very yumm and actually really properly spicy!

I

I finished off with the cheese and as always from Melbourne, it had this amazingly creamy Brie-style cheese on it so I asked what it was. I had actually expected it to be some Victorian local delight given it doesn’t get catered from anywhere else but alas, I should have known better, such an awesome delight of course comes from France rather:



The great flight manager got his iPad which lists all the different cheese platters and apparently it’s the “Les Maitres Comtois” so the first of the middle platter in the above picture. A rather stock-standard supermarket cheese in France, actually, that turns into a magical delight on flights out of Melbourne. So that riddle is finally solved

 

[serfty]

I headed to the gate where priority boarding was completely messed up by having one general boarding queue with passport check on top of the escalator leading to the gate.

If you have an escalator to your gate at MEL T2 then it is gate 9 or 11. Both these gates can be reached directly from the lift outside the Qantas First lounge bypassing said escalator (it is generally not the case for flights to the USA).

 

[Berlin]

If you have an escalator to your gate at MEL T2 then it is gate 9 or 11. Both these gates can be reached directly from the lift outside the Qantas First louge without needing said escalator (it is generally different for flights to the USA).

Oh, that’s what I call a useful tip! Well marked somewhere in my scattered brain

 

[amaroo]

BNE-SYD mid morning flight - very tasty

 

[scallops]

Was offered a Cucumber salad with chickpeas and feta for the CBR-MEL flight yesterday afternoon. Only 2 pax accepted this light dish. Yes it's a light snack but not on my favourite list or the other 9 pax. The red was good fortunately.

 

[Kangol]

I had the coppa (which is basically Qantas hipster-speak for prosciutto)

Hate to disappoint (correct) you:

Capocollo - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

From the neck to the upper rib.


For the leg:

Prosciutto - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

ie. Different part of the animal.

 

[VPS]

BNE-SYD mid morning flight - very tasty

View attachment 162320View attachment 162321

what was the tart

 

[RichardMEL]

Forgot to mention flying over easter domestic J got additional koko black easter eggs (yummy) .. nice little touch. Specifically labeled as "QANTAS gift"

the other day I did not partake in food (lounge belly full) but they had the excellent Gosset Rieseling back again... I very much enjoyed that flight

 

[BD1959]

MEL-OOL QF880 May-11 2019.

This is "the frittata", option was a mushroom omelette. Mrs BD chose to go with just the yoghurt.

Frittata was bland, sausages were more chipolatas and quite tasty.



Regards,

BD

 

[BD1959]

OOL-MEL QF881 May 12.

Pesto Chicken, option was "Spicy Lamb Shank" which, after a night out in Surfers, spice was the last thing I needed.
Unfortunately the chicken was quite dry.



Regards,

BD

 

[RichardMEL]

.... yet you had the Grant Burge?! LOL

(sorry, just poking fun )