Qantas Business Class meals & menus

[Daver6]

do we know why qantas has offered the same international menu for over a year? Sorry if I missed that discussion up thread.

Cost cutting. Why else?

 

[sudoer]

Cost cutting. Why else?

Gotta wonder how much it actually saves though. I would've thought a menu revamp is a one-off cost which wouldn't be that much right? A drop in the ocean compared to a $100m lounge refurb program anyway.

 

[Daver6]

Gotta wonder how much it actually saves though. I would've thought a menu revamp is a one-off cost which wouldn't be that much right? A drop in the ocean compared to a $100m lounge refurb program anyway.

I guess NP charges a pretty penny

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Cost cutting. Why else?

Well yes. But VA isn’t exactly extravagant…they at least have 8 dishes they rotate through.

 

[ALH]

Had this yesterday on QF41. Possibly the worst food I’ve ever tasted.

Soggy watery potato, with no seasoning. Rubbery tasteless mushrooms ….. and the Fennell was just so mismatched. Luckily I’d had already awesome food in the FLounge about 4 hours prior.

 

[zig]

I nearly ordered this last week, so glad I didn’t

Had this yesterday on QF41. Possibly the worst food I’ve ever tasted.

Soggy watery potato, with no seasoning. Rubbery tasteless mushrooms ….. and the Fennell was just so mismatched. Luckily I’d had already awesome food in the FLounge about 4 hours prior.

 

[eminere]

do we know why qantas has offered the same international menu for over a year? Sorry if I missed that discussion up thread.

A year?

 

[jboy90]

Recently flew QF63 and QF64 Sydney- Johannesburg in J. Menu was the standard Qantas fare ( see attached). Barramundi and chille prawns on the way to South Aftica was good ( not great) but the hake on the way back was too dry. Wines were decent with a chardonnay being a standout ( didn’t get a pic unfortunately) . Service was good. Overall a 3.5/5 star experience. Emirates and Qatar still miles ahead on food and beverage.

I’m sick of having the vanilla crème caramel as dessert. It’s not a proper desert in my opinion (can buy from Coles for $3)

 

[milehighclub]

do we know why qantas has offered the same international menu for over a year? Sorry if I missed that discussion up thread.

Menu lead in times are quite long and dare say this would have been a consequence of the stand down. But changes are coming soon, including changing of the menu (and won't be around for a year either) and introduction of new meal services that I spoke about previously.

 

[RichardMEL]

It is a fair point re the lead in times for catering decisions. Not only do options need to be developed and tested, but agreements drawn up with suppliers, agreements on projected order sizes, the caterers need to be able to meet the orders etc. Now sure, they need to do it for current flights, but changes do mean changes.

I mean "They" (QF onboard services, or whatever they're called these days) don't go to work on a Monday and say hey we'll put new menus on, for example, the USA flights in a couple of weeks. Just doesn't work that way unfortunately.

Believe it or not, a lot of logistics go into catering flightrs - the volume of food, the supply chain of ingredients, prep requirements, all the things - and when you add in multiple kitchens at multiple ports to provide reasonably consistent level of food (let's not make the obvious jokes here ) that's also a factor.

not making excuses for QF - they are very stale in the menu department in terms of interesting changes on a regular basis. They're also not the only ones. I seem to recall flying UA transpac on a regular basis and not much change there over the years, and even NZ have some pretty regular items been going over the years (and I am, in general, a fan of NZ catering).

About five (or probably more now - time flies) a bunch of us got the opportunity to visit QF catering in BNE for a very in depth tour, and it was absolutely fascinating in many respects.

but yes, new menus would be great!

 

[muppet]

It is a fair point re the lead in times for catering decisions. Not only do options need to be developed and tested, but agreements drawn up with suppliers, agreements on projected order sizes, the caterers need to be able to meet the orders etc. Now sure, they need to do it for current flights, but changes do mean changes.

I mean "They" (QF onboard services, or whatever they're called these days) don't go to work on a Monday and say hey we'll put new menus on, for example, the USA flights in a couple of weeks. Just doesn't work that way unfortunately.

Believe it or not, a lot of logistics go into catering flightrs - the volume of food, the supply chain of ingredients, prep requirements, all the things - and when you add in multiple kitchens at multiple ports to provide reasonably consistent level of food (let's not make the obvious jokes here ) that's also a factor.

not making excuses for QF - they are very stale in the menu department in terms of interesting changes on a regular basis. They're also not the only ones. I seem to recall flying UA transpac on a regular basis and not much change there over the years, and even NZ have some pretty regular items been going over the years (and I am, in general, a fan of NZ catering).

About five (or probably more now - time flies) a bunch of us got the opportunity to visit QF catering in BNE for a very in depth tour, and it was absolutely fascinating in many respects.

but yes, new menus would be great!

Most of us have aspects of our job where we are planning and preparing for the next deliverable before the current one is finalised. It's called planning or management or whatever you want.

Unlike Qantas I don't get to choose not to do that and then to charge more for my services, just cos.

 

[kermatu]

What I find amusing is that despite the embarrassingly small number of dishes on the domestic rotation, the exact same dish is almost always described differently by the CSM or J attendant. Not their highest priority I know but does compound the feeling that catering isn’t a priority at all.

 

[RichardMEL]

Most of us have aspects of our job where we are planning and preparing for the next deliverable before the current one is finalised. It's called planning or management or whatever you want.

Unlike Qantas I don't get to choose not to do that and then to charge more for my services, just cos.

True this.

And that really suggests the ongoing issue with QF in this, and many other, areas - complacency.

Yes, there have been tweaks here and there, and the recent post regarding additions to longer domestic sectors and apparently larger portions coming attest to this, bit that the menus have had the same kinds of things - and the same kinds of menus on many sectors (to be fair to QF, the Japan and India flights appear to have some actual appropriate dishes) - for so long basically is "resting on their laurels" - and one can mention pandemic and all that, but this has been going on well before that.

Even the fact that the "F" services are basically J meals with a couple of extras, but it's never been super special or above J in quality (compared to say SQ in F).

So complacency, or perhaps a bit of arrogance is involved - with a degree of cost pressure too no doubt influences these things.

I mean in theory they have "seasonal" menus (I'm thinking more international - domestic seems a weird mix in my experience) that change every three months - but even if we accept this, the actual offerings seem to be in a certain defined band, or selecting from a set of dishes that they rotate between without a lot of thought to new creations (the recent Korean inspired ones brought in with service to Seoul, are a bit of an exception imo).

There was an interview I read somewhere in the past few months - I think mostly about the F lounge anniversary dishes - but also mentioning how there are a lot of supposed fave inflight dishes such as the steak sanga and so on that they didn't want to get rid of (interestingly my int flights recently did not have them!)... but I don't know how you can define a dish as a favored one when you have a relatively small choice, and it may not even be a first choice on flights - so the crew may report oh all those dishes went - but that doesn't mean a lot when you're hungry and options are limited.

I also wonder if there's an aspect of resourcing - putting aside the marketing guff of Perry "designed" dishes and all that - how big is the team responsible for all of this stuff? How much has it been culled over the years and what do they have to work with? I have no idea but I wonder if that's an aspect to it too.

 

[RichardMEL]

What I find amusing is that despite the embarrassingly small number of dishes on the domestic rotation, the exact same dish is almost always described differently by the CSM or J attendant. Not their highest priority I know but does compound the feeling that catering isn’t a priority at all.

Agree. It seems strange since the catering manifest (for want of a better phrase) would have a standard meal description you'd think... so is it the way it's interpreted? or is it something else?

I have heard on a couple of domestic flights the same thing being described slightly differently between rows - clearly CSM/FA going off memory eg "Pasta in mushroom sauce" may change to "past in bolognase sauce" - I swear the wording has been different. And OK, human error... but more generally yes - the chicken/noodle dish I've definitely had described different ways when offered which does seem curious.

 

[sudoer]

Was your photo QF25 or QF26? I know QF25 has been beef, but I thought QF26 was always the grilled fish.

Sorry you're right, it was QF25. QF must do beef ex-Aus and fish ex-Japan for the Japanese menu.

- Introduction of full breakfast in economy on longer flights back into Australia (also from BKK/HND/HKG) and more hot choices in Business

Additional hot choice has made its way onto QF26 HND-SYD breakfast menu.

Menu in Oct 2022:


Menu today:

 

[VPS]

QF2 London to Singapore late February

Because I have a fish allergy the only option was to order a vegan meal. I can't remember what it was but I'd eaten well in the lounge so declined

 

[VPS]

QF2 Singapore to Sydney Feb -The vegan meal was a tomato pasta bake which wasn't too bad. I did ask about the pork but they said they didn't have any because they were in the middle of changing the menu. The panna cotta was returned because it was bland and revolting

For breakfast I asked about whether there was any fish products in the sauce for Bacon and Egg brioche roll and they said they don't have a list of allergens which I think is pretty poor.

I found the UK much better at dealing with allergens than Australia. They will usually have a book with all the meals and the allergens for each meal.

 

[VPS]

QF2 London to Singapore late February

Because I have a fish allergy the only option was to order a vegan meal. I can't remember what it was but I'd eaten well in the lounge so declined


View attachment 318970View attachment 318971View attachment 318972

And this was the breakfast which was OK but not great

 

[milehighclub]

I found the UK much better at dealing with allergens than Australia. They will usually have a book with all the meals and the allergens for each meal.

It's was an EU regulation that all carriers have a full list of allergens. QF has it for flights ex Australia.

 

[VPS]

It's was an EU regulation that all carriers have a full list of allergens. QF has it for flights ex Australia.

But not within Australia? Is that correc?