Qantas Business Class meals & menus

[jakeseven7]

On my flight SYD-HBA on 23rd, we had eye fillet steak in economy (the flight was a chartered 737). Reasonably tender enough, but very well done. Obviously cooked too much initially so reheating killed it. That night at dinner at MONA the Qantas crew were introduce, including the chef who “represented Neil Perry”. As were were had just eaten the most tender, rare/medium-rare eye fillet, we were all saying he would probably rather not have been mentioned!

I forgot to take a photo. Trays, metal cutlery and cloth serviettes in economy class are a rarity. I’ve been kicked off the charter now as the only Western Australia, so won’t be able to photograph further meals. I am not allowed to enter SA or NT, so will fly home tonight HBA-PER. A normal 737 but at least I am in J.

The HBA=PER QF service seems to be smashing it, they increase the number of flights on it often...
(Well before the latest WA disaster at least)

 

[wannabeinvestmentbanker]

Some recent meals aboard QF 471 and QF490 (SYD-MEL)

Both meals exceeded my expectations which I set quite low particularly the Moussaka. Wines were great. Only downside is my 5pm got cancelled so shifted to the 7 30pm A330 in 7K so service a bit slow.

QF471: mushroom & ham raggou or superfood salad (Reisling or Shiraz)
QF490: moussaka or salad (cab sav)

 

[Port Power]

This was a beef with mushroom casserole. The beans and corn were good, the potatoes (lots of them) perfectly cooked but very salty. The very small amount of beef was tender, but there was a lot of fat and gristle. The meat should have been much better trimmed. So I am very glad I had a toasted sandwich and tuna salad in the lounge. Good Barossa Syrah and Red Claw Pinot Gris. Service was excellent. The J FA even turned back an economy passenger from using the toilet, so she received an extra gold star.

 

[Berlin]

Having my first QF Domestic flight in over a year tomorrow. All those meals posted recently (besides the Fish curry which I couldn’t eat due to allergy) look pretty good so I am looking forward to it.

11:35 departure SYD-BNE, what should I expect there? Lunch already, still breakfast or rather one of those weird in-between “snacks”? Not that I mind a good sausage roll...

 

[Lynda2475]

SYD-CBR (late morning flight) last Friday offered a Cornish Pastie with optional caramelised onion relish on the side, warm seeded soundough with butter and a Lindor ball. No choice, that or nothing.

 

[ric_melb]

Thanks for the food reviews. I think you will find Red Claw wines are from Mornington Peninsula if white varieties or Pinot Noir. And in the case of Shiraz, from Heathcote.

 

[Port Power]

Thanks for the food reviews. I think you will find Red Claw wines are from Mornington Peninsula if white varieties or Pinot Noir. And in the case of Shiraz, from Heathcote.

Fixed. The Red Claw was white wine., which I didn’t drink. Plus Grant Burge Sparkling, as usual.

 

[Peasant]

Not usually one to take photos of airline food, but obviously being back in the air is a novelty in this climate!

Pic 1: QF 775 MEL-PER

Pasta with chicken of some sort. A solid 2/10. I did make a passing comment to the CSM that I was disappointed not to get my preferred meal (steak) and she politely informed me that of 28 pax in J on the 333, there were 2 CL and 9 (!) P1s. 11 Steaks onboard so by the time they got to the Platinums like me they were all out. All good, and that's the way it should be. Service, while slow to start, was fabulous with a wonderful CSM who made sure no one's glass of Howard Park Shiraz 2017 was ever empty...stellar. Mental note for next time: 2K isn't a great seat for meal preferences on the 333 given they start back-to-front. I'd forgotten.

Pic 2: QF 778 PER-MEL

Chicken in a tomato sauce of some sort. Pretty good and tasty, with another hard working crew, but can't help but feel the whole experience is pretty basic. I remember the good old days when I started flying QF J in around 2008...the appetiser, genuinely tasty main course and then the dessert trolley with digestifs, ice cream and biscotti. We're clearly not flying QF for the food are we...

Post automatically merged: Apr 26, 2021

And as a side note, where's the bloody chardonnay at the moment!?

 

[eminere]

Mental note for next time: 2K isn't a great seat for meal preferences on the 333 given they start back-to-front. I'd forgotten.

Is this always the case?

 

[JohnM]

Bringing back memories of FEBO in F on DOM AA...

Soooo long ago...

 

[SJF211]

QF842 - SYD-DRW
Departure Time 2050 - Dinner
There was either a choice of chicken and mushroom pasta with spinach, beef brisket with potato rosti or grain salad with carrots and egg. I had the chicken and mushroom pasta has had had it before leaving Darwin and thought it was quite nice. However the breadcrumb was soggy and lacked texture, the spinach wasn't great but the flavour was not bad and the chicken and pasta were both cooked well.
Wasn't a fan of the Rosemary and semolina cake, wasn't bad but not exactly my thing.

 

[Peasant]

Is this always the case?

This has generally been my experience on the A330-300 as the J galley is located at Door 2. I gather there's also a safety reason attached to this, though I'm not familiar with the details.

Service generally starts from the front on the A330-200, I assume due to the forward galley.

 

[serfty]

Bringing back memories of FEBO in F on DOM AA...

Soooo long ago...

Yeah, memories - of course supplanted these days by the ability to pre-order.

It would be good if Qantas would introduce such domestically.

 

[Berlin]

Yeah, memories - of course supplanted these days by the ability to pre-order.

It would be good if Qantas would introduce such domestically.

Yea- people often complain about AA but they had this facility for ages now and Qantas doesn’t seem to be able/willing to do it.

Maybe I am getting too cynical but given they have to please their shareholders, I suspect that they save a lot of money by serving a coughty cold salad to the poor folks in aisle 3 while nearly everyone would pre-order the proper hot meal otherwise.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Yea- people often complain about AA but they had this facility for ages now and Qantas doesn’t seem to be able/willing to do it.

Maybe I am getting too cynical but given they have to please their shareholders, I suspect that they save a lot of money by serving a coughty cold salad to the poor folks in aisle 3 while nearly everyone would pre-order the proper hot meal otherwise.

I have suggested for quite a long time in this thread that I reckon the average domestic J class meal is probably in the range of $2.50, excluding alcohol.

 

[Daver6]

I have suggested for quite a long time in this thread that I reckon the average domestic J class meal is probably in the range of $2.50, excluding alcohol.

I can only assume that includes the cost to purchase the linen, cutlery and crockery too.

 

[RichardMEL]

yes, online catering ordering would be welcome for sure and you'd think would save QF some of the $2.66 they spend per meal (kidding) in terms of potential wastage AND (if they get it right) appease those who do order and have reasonable hopes of getting what they ordered.

It does seem odd that given they have the full capability to do so given they already offer it in certain International markets I can only imagine there are reservations at HQ about it. Obviously people making flight changes at last minute will cause problems (but so what? AA has the same issue). Maybe the real reason is the actual % of paid (or points) J seats are sold vs upgrades close in to departure (eg: I lose count of the number of seemingly empty J cabins I have been in several hours from departures, showing J9 etc, that fill with upgraders and employees at departure). Now I have no issue with this per se except that say you have 3 actual paid J pax out of 12, then you get 9 extras. The 9 won't have ordered, and catering needs to have options for them (and possibly one or two extras if the pre-order folks decide they don't want their choice that day and want something else). Again AA has the same issues, perhapss even more given the comp domestic upgrade structure for elites and the like.

So I don't quite see why they wouldn't offer it - although it may occur to me the cost impact of specific catering orders - which probably get treated like Special Meal requests (eg: VGML etc) and involve overhead to organise and manage per flight. Not all flights have special meal requests, but if you suddenly add say 1k flights a day with a bunch of new special orders the overhead would probably be significant on catering proviers and thus blow out the cost to QF...

With international there's both more certainty in who will fly (less last minute moves to other flights and so on) and they can factor in the meal ordering into the cost structure of a flight overall perhaps.

Would love to hear from someone at QF about factors that may or may not go into such a thing.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Agree - but you know... if they are offering either steak or kale salad, why is that they always load 3 steak and 9 kale? IRROPS and pax changing flights might be an issue, but I suppose to a certain extent their meal choices would be the ones popular with the new pax on the flight.

 

[JohnM]

The NP 'salad' seems to have gone MIA.

Please tell me I'm right. It will save them having to breed moths to insert into it: post #14221: The view from my "office"

 

[Berlin]

SYD-BNE “morning refreshment” flight on 737:

After over a year, I had forgotten how minimalistic Qantas’ J catering can be outside of proper meal times. We might have taken off delayed well after 12 noon but the flight seems to have been classified as a “refreshment”. A Cornish pastry (which strangely was pronounced more like “Paasty”) was the only hot option on offer, alongside the usual edamame bean salad which looked absolutely horrific to me.

The “paaasty” was mostly filled with vegetables and two microscopic portions of beef but at least the onion relish coming with it was quite tasty (albeit served from a glass straight out of a supermarket shelf- classy).


Together with the slices of bread, this meal ended up way too carb heavy but dry at the same time. The Aussie wines were nice though and I truly enjoyed drinking something else but pale Pinot Noirs which is what you can usually expect over in New Zealand. Unfortunately, our crew wasn’t the most forthcoming and we had to ping several times for top ups. Before we knew it, the flight was over and we were left to enjoy Queensland on a mostly empty stomach but slightly bedazzled from the wine.