plain food

MNL - DXB: Dory Insalata

I love flying back and forth Manila & London via Emirates for the following reasons:

• Dubai stopover cuts the flight in between so it doesn't really feel like a long haul flight. Plus the airport's not bad - lots of helpful Pinoys, lots of things to buy, lots of space to keep yourself busy while in transit.
• Chances of you having 'first class in economy' on your return flight are high. I've had a whole row of seats in economy class all to myself from Dubai to London - thrice.
• The food. Inflight catering is more important to me than inflight entertainment and Emirates has won awards for their food service. When you're up in the air and nowhere else to buy comfort food, good catering is the key to a stress-free flight.

I don't know what went on with this trip though, because on all four flights my stomach experienced some sort of turbulence and before you can even say "mayday" I've got to tell you this - we flew economy and though we did get good seats and extra leg room (return flights were practically empty) we felt every single bit of the cost cut, food-wise.

Here's what I had during the trips:

• OUTBOUND
  LHR - DXB : Chicken korma with aubergine chutney. Chicken was tender, aubergine was too sweet. It wasn't creamy enough to be a korma. Ham & cheese roll for snacks which I didn't fancy at all. Too cold. No other option. They gave out packets of cheese crackers. Pft.
  DXB - MNL : Chicken adobo rolls for snacks which I didn't enjoy. For mains my nan and my cousin had chicken adobo. How apt - a flight to Philippines equals adobo twice on the menu. I seriously forgot what I had - something dubious and clearly forgettable.

• INBOUND
  MNL - DBX : Beef Stroganoff. The meat was tender but very gristly. The sauce itself was bland. Shame. The pasta was cooked nicely. Thank god for sides - they served a dory salad with glass noodles, raw mango and tomatoes. Yum. In retrospect I should've just shunned the pasta and asked for two more servings.
  DBX - LHR : At this point I was very hungry. So hungry that I chomped off the super cold chicken tikka masala-slash-mayonnaise roll. I chose a proper English fry up for my brekky. This was probably my favourite of all meals: fried potatoes, turkey sausage, chicken fillets and bacon. I never usually eat fry ups in England but I've missed the idea. It was greasy (then again fry ups are!), meaty and the potatoes were lush. I didn't take a photo of it as I was too busy munching it down.

For an award-winning inflight catering service, the food was neither here nor there. So not much to talk about. Then again I was quite disappointed with the overall service anyway - during our LHR-DXB flight they didn't check whether all overhead cabins were secured and ours opened whilst prepping for take-off.  My nan had the aisle seat so bless her, she could've been seriously injured. And they left my nan's wheelchair in Dubai. I seriously don't know what it was... credit crunch? Economising economy? Pft. I'd probably still fly with them again - possibly pay extra to get extra, but to be honest I was just so put off I think I'd try Qatar next time.

I think my favourite plane food would have to be Singapore Airlines. What's yours?