I have 5 pieces of 8GB storage cards full of food photos with me at the moment ! To prevent them from being stuck in storage card Black Hole, here's some 'interesting' ones that I can write about in a more holiday mood. This 'interesting' meal was the Airline Meal of Scoot.
The wife and I flew to Sydney on Singapore Airline's new budget airline, Scoot in July earlier this year. We would say it was a really good deal that we got. A return flight, SIN-SYD-SIN with luggage, food and taxes included for SGD634.34 for 2! That's like $317 per person return! You can't even reach Perth on the usual full fair airlines!
With the money saved from the flight, we checked ourselves onto the Hilton Sydney and got ourselves the Executive Floor treatment! More of that probably later in my other blog, the Eats, Travel and Staycation blog.
Now to write about our 'memorable' meal on the flight.
We pre-booked our meals, but we did not know what we were getting at the point of booking. It's a long 8/9 hours flight, you need to book a meal, or you will die of hunger in the air!
When we got up the plane, we got this piece of card with the menu. What made us laugh was the menu itself! See the cute icon in green with the chef hat on the 4 dishes? It says Chef Recommendation! Only 4 dishes and everything is recommended! It's as good as not putting it there!
The menu has such nice photos right? It did make us want the food to be served earlier!
Tada! The real thing! Yup, we laughed again! Won't you?
Let me warn you, it's hot! But there's no extra container like full service airlines to put the food in.
Hot food on plastic and my head wondered off. Is it BPA-free? Can it withstand hot temperature? Etc...
Packed like tofu you get from supermarkets, you have to peel off the plastic wrapper on top.
It's very hard to peel the plastic off. You can ask the steward or stewardess to help you, they will tell you, stab very hard on the plastic near the sides with your plastic knife. Their recommendation works! The air pressure released with a pssshhh and yay, you get to eat the food!
The Soy Sauce Chicken Rice.
Compare with the 1st photo! OK to be fair to them, it does smell very good!
Taste wise, they need to hire Neil Perry that does Qantas' food to help them. Or maybe get Sam Leong that's on Singapore Airline's Culinary Panel to improve it. It's very salty! A consolation is that the rice has not dried out yet.
The Nasi Briyani.
Yup, you probably going to ask, what's that blob of food?
The smell of it is really really good! I think they have done really well on the smell side. All the food smell really authentic. Taste wise, we beg to differ.
The spices does smell very good, if you have a sharp nose, you can smell all the spices they use for the dish. But... taste wise, it's way too spicy for the wife. She's the cili padi eater and she finds it spicy. People's taste decrease by 30% in the air, but they might have overdone it for this.
The rice on the side's a bit fried out. We were hungry and nothing else on board to eat, so we finished it anyway!
Our pre-booked meal was the set meal, so it includes a drink and a dessert.
Those in Singapore will be familiar with SunMoon. This dessert was very nice! I will say it again, very nice!
There were a few different combination, mixed fruit etc. This was the Peach and it's not soaked in thick sticky syrup. It's peach in Apple Juice! It's still sweet, but if the label doesn't lie, Apple Juice.
We landed in Sydney on a really gloomy winter day.
Saying hello the Sydney Bridge, I remember climbing on top of it some visits ago!
The plane's like it is really near the ground ya?
Although we lived in Melbourne for many years, we think Sydney's a nicer place, especially after hosting the Olympics. The people seems to be more courteous and helpful!
....... fast forward a few days later.....
After a few days of fun, laughter and food (no shopping, most things are cheaper back in Singapore), we are heading back to Singapore.
We will be back again when Scoot's having cheap tickets again! Hoping the AUD will drop too....
My meal on the way back...
After a few days of tasting Luke Mangan's food at Hilton, Jamie's Italian, Neil Perry's Rockpool, Chat Thai, Hurricane's Ribs, etc, we were kinda depressed with this.
The Creamy Chicken Stew.
I guess there is no difference in the food that's prepared in the Australian kitchen. (I am assuming food's freshly loaded from the Australian flight kitchen) It still doesn't looked appetizing too. It was really salty too. Guess they were sticking to the same recipe.
I normally don't eat the bun, but the bun's there for a good reason, you need the bun.
The Lasagne.
Both of us spent our students days eating lasagne while studying as poor students in Australia.
We had better hostel food than this. This was the wife's lasagne she said all she remember is the layer of hardened top!
Digging beneath the hardened layer, was some edible lasagne. Yup, it's salty as usual. At least there's consistency in saltiness.
If you remember when Santouka first came to Singapore and they had the more authentic salty ramen broth, the flight food might be 1.5 times that saltiness.
We looked forward to dessert though. Yes, we knew how to make it even better!
Your drinks comes with a glass of ice. (Since you have already ordered drinks, the Scooties (yup, the call the flight crew Scooties on board) can top up the ice for you! Mix the fruits in the ice so that it is super cold. It taste even better!
We are wondering, if we can get this in the shops in Singapore. Anyone knows?
Oh yes, to make myself happy, I ordered the SGD5 Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ben & Jerry's!
The best thing on the flight! (other than the peaches in Apple Juice).
Ice cream don't seem to melt on the plane. You don't need to order slow-melting Haagen-Dazs or Ya Kun's Ice Cream that doesn't melt. Any ice cream don't melt on a flying plane!
It's not possible to use the spoon provided to eat the ice cream, it's way too hard! You will break the plastic spoon.
The best way to eat it? Squeeze the paper container and let the ice cream pop up. Bite it slowly and I find that's the best way to eat it! I wanted a second ice cream, but the person beside me said no!
That said, we will still fly Scoot on our next flight to Sydney.
- Bye bye Qantas for abandoning Singapore as a stop over and choosing Dubai.
- Singapore Airline's too expensive sometimes.
- British Airways breaking off the alliance from Qantas will probably not fly to Australia anymore.
Scoot has wide seats even for the el-cheapo flights, even for a person with long legs.
Let's hope the food will get better on the next flight there!
