Inflight meals onboard Air Asia - MNL-KUL

I reproduce here an article I wrote in my other blog:

Airline food is probably among the most maligned among meals. You’ve probably read or heard about complaints on meals served on board aircraft; especially those on Economy Class or coach. You have to be in Business Class or First Class to be served good meals or sets. If you are not the picky kind, then you will likely find the simply joys with the meals served on low cost carriers. These are usually selected and paid for in advance though you can also order in-flight assuming they carry all those items on their menu. Here are some items with AirAsia’s Santan:

Promotion of in-flight meals on AirAsia

The Chicken Rendang and Vegetable Curry meals look good on paper.

So are the Chicken Biryani and Vegetable Biryani meals

The Chicken Rice and Thai Basil Chicken dishes are also familiar to me.  I wondered if the airline got these right and if they would be satisfying to passengers choosing these on-board or perhaps pre-ordering them.

Nasi Lemak sounded familiar and was perhaps something we tasted when we were still residing in Singapore.

There’s a vegetarian or plant-based version of this dish.

I settled for something familiar and enjoyable to me – Chicken Satay.

The rice was curiously prepared and served similar to the ‘puso’ found in the Visayan and Mindanao provinces of the Philippines.

 

To cut the story short, I enjoyed my simple meal on-board AirAsia. I would dare say that I found my meals on this airline better than what I have eaten on-board Cebu Pacific. The meals also were better than what we recently had on board Philippine Airlines. That says a lot considering PAL is a full service airline. Of course, the meals on board Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways are would be tops on my list even in Economy Class. 

I suddenly recall being on a Northwest (now Delta). An elderly passenger was complaining about the meals on the plane. I assume he had a long flight from the US as Northwest used Narita as a hub in Asia and passengers transferred there from various origins in the US (mainly from Chicago) to get to Manila. There were not so many choices (probably 2 - beef or fish, or beef or chicken, you get the idea) and the meals on US airlines are not so tasty for Asians. So I can understand his frustration when he said: "Wala naman akong makain dito." Looking back, I am sure he eventually was able to eat good Filipino food he probably was craving for.

Something I wanted to write about is my take on airline food over the years. I have a good memory of my first airline meals on board PAL in the 1970s. And I have had my fair share of various airline meals including First and Business Class meals on various airlines. That should be fun to write about!

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