Plane Food

Emirates Business Class Menu

Any chef will tell you that making huge portions of food that needs reheating before serving does not easily translate into a great dining experience. But today there are a number of chefs that consult to airlines – Aussie superstar chef Neil Perry even designed an eight-course tasting menu for Qantas. Perry is the consulting chef for First and Business class and although I’ve not flown Qantas business class for well over a decade, his menu is almost enough to make me book a flight to see how much better the food can be. Almost…

On the first leg of a recent flight from Melbourne to Dubai we had an excellent meal on Emirates. As much as we have enjoyed flying Emirates over the years, occasionally we’ve had some very average meals, even in Business class when we upgrade to burn off some frequent flyer points. This flight, however, had me thinking why it has to be so hard. An appetiser of lemon Yamba prawns with green bean and capsicum salad was delicious. Yamba in Australia is known for its prawns and these were plump and sweet – certainly good enough to warrant breaking the rule that you don’t eat seafood on aeroplanes. A crispy duck salad served on mango, with coriander and chilli soy reduction is the kind of fusion that works well in Australia. The duck was moist and tasty with great balance – the right mix of sweet, spicy, sour and salty.

There was a classic Duck breast confit for a main and we both couldn’t help ourselves but order it – and we never order the same dish. It came with a red bean mix, mushroom crepe, steam choi sum and a Mandarin glaze and was so delicious and moist, we’ll even forgive them for having duck as a starter and a main course for such a limited menu. While there was a tempting pepper beef tenderloin with Paris mash and roasted baby vegetables topped with veal jus, if the chef isn’t on board making sure mine’s served medium-rare, I’m going to pass. I don’t know why they don’t prepare bœuf bourguignon (the classic French stew) that doesn’t dry out or overcook in the airline cookers. I guess because when people ask what it is they’ll have to say ‘stew!’ Still, these kinds of dishes would fare much better than tenderloin.

The wines were fabulous. Moët & Chandon Brut Impérial NV is a decent glass of bubbles and a great welcome to Business Class. Craggy Range Yacht Club Vineyard Marlborough NZ Sauvignon Blanc 2008 is an interesting drop from a region famous worldwide for its Sauvignon Blanc. It’s a very dry one, but still has that quintessential Marlborough signature grassy taste and garden-fresh aroma – in other words delicious. One of our favourite Western Australian wines was also on the menu – and we had the crew running backwards and forwards to refill our glasses of 2007 Leeuwin Estate Prelude Vineyards Chardonnay. This wine is rated at 94 out of 100 by Australia’s most respected wine writer, James Halliday, in his Australian Wine Companion, 2010 Edition. It’s a classic Aussie chardonnay – big, bold and lush.

Award-winning Wither Hills Pinot Noir 2007, from Marlborough, New Zealand was probably a great match for the duck for those who like a lighter style of red, but we opted for the Chateau Meyney 2004 Saint Estephe, which has a Wine Spectator Rating of 90. It’s still tastes a little young (unlike the winery which goes back centuries), but if someone offers you another pour, you won’t say no, especially when the cheese trolley is about to arrive. And the cheeses were excellent and served at the right temperature. This was a great wine selection for a flight.

Our flight from Dubai to London, however, was disappointingly not as satisfying in the food department. The menu read like someone desperately trying to make something interesting, but ignoring the basic rules of food combinations. There is a reason why certain food ingredient combinations work and why only the genius chefs can break the rules and make a dish work – chefs like Ferran Adrià and Pierre Gagnaire. Clearly the chefs devising the menus from Dubai are neither of the above chefs, but yet this was one of the starters:

Grilled prawns glazed with sweet apricot sauce, served with a pistachio and blue cheese mix, and an apricot and balsamic dressing

It looked and tasted as bad as it sounds.

We love flying Emirates – the entertainment system is a thing of beauty. We just wish they would get an imaginative, high profile chef to design and refine their menu, because the service and the sommelier are doing such an outstanding job – as are the Melbourne caterers who prep the food on that leg!