Airplane food is never known to be all that fantastic. Yes, first and business class can offer some great options (caviar, cooked to order steaks), but still all in all, the food isn’t any better than what you can get on the ground.  This is not a story of how I had a meal that was so great on an airplane that it eclipsed food I had on terra firma .  Instead, I want to talk about the best meals I’ve had while in the air. Interestingly enough, two of these three meals were on a recent trip to and from Shanghai.

The best meal ever was on South African Airways from LHR-CPT.  I flew economy on an old A330-200. Our dinner was an absolutely amazing lamb curry. There was just enough spice to make it interesting, but not enough to make the 12 hour flight uncomfortable…if you get my drift.

The second best meal on a plane was a hunan beef and rice with peppers.  Surprisingly, this dish was served in economy on United from Chicago to Shanghai.  The presentation is really lacking – a plastic wrapped cold role, a salad with two slices of cucumber and a tiny tomato wedge – looks do not make a meal.  The beef was really good – full of flavor, warm throughout (none of those surprisingly icy bites) and rice that was also prepared almost perfectly.  Shocking, I know. Usually the food that comes out of those carts is so far from edible.  Not this time though. You can see my words of praise on top notch – just saying this meal was a whole hell of a lot better than I was expecting.

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