This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
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It's been a while since I've done one of these; compound it with my mis-management of my account, and it's a few days late posting, too.
This was my fourth transatlantic crossing in four weeks. I've two more coming up in the next ten days. I'm beginning to sympathize with crew, as I feel a bit tired all the time, and cranky to boot. That said, it's been a very challenging time. A long-ago booked vac trip to celebrate a couple of family occasions ended up being pared with another trip to Europe at front, work-related, unexpected, but needed to be done. On said trip to Eastern Europe I picked up the flu, got back with 102 temp, slept it off and traveled back. On our trip to Italy, the BH proceeded to get into a major accident, which forced us to delay our return. My needing to be back, while BH is unable to travel, finds me on this trip, to be followed by a prompt return on the 21st, and 36 hours later an about face, and return home this time hopefully with BH, assuming she is able to walk. Right now, that's a distinctly dodgy proposition. As you can imagine, this did not set me up well for the trip to come.
Ah well ... as you can imagine, this did not have me best disposed for the trip. Very much a last minute deal, I managed to arrange passage to LHR from Florence with Swiss, by way or Zurich, yesterday. A pretty reasonable experience, as frustrating as having to change planes is for what would otherwise be a two-hour trip. The Swiss biz lounges between Piers A and B in Zurich are actually pretty neat. Ain't going to get much complaining about that from me. Otherwise, two short, uneventful trips found me at the LHR Renaissance Hotel early afternoon, where I proceeded to do some work, then head into London for pints and curry with a good friend. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, as apparently said friend then went on to confront Network Southeast, and came out worst - what did you think would happen?
Me, I got back to the hotel, not too worse for the wear, took the customary six hour nap, and woke up at 6am to get ready for the CH. Have I said how much I hate the 9:30am departure time? Have you all? Yes, many times. Things aren't what they used to be.
CH was fairly quiet, this being a Saturday. Got there at 7am on the dot, a bit disheveled, definitely a bit cranky, not really the happiest of campers under the circs. That said, check-in was smooth as always, and passage to the CH flawless. The whole redesign of Heathrow's been a stroke of genius, you wouldn't know you are in one of the oldest, messiest, crappiest airports in the world anymore. Other than having to negotiate a few overly aggressive Duty Free salesfolk to get to the CH, it's just plain wonderful. Even without a CDC.
As noted, Virgin CH has decided to put us all on a well-deserved diet. From where I stand, I don't think I'm in urgent need of medical attention on that score, but nonetheless upon ordering Smoked Salmon & Scambled Eggs, I was SHOCKED to note we had gone from three to two slices of smoked salmon, the brioche has gone from three toast-like slices to a real looking, but really small, brioche, the whole thing being somewhat Eggs Benedict-like arranged, and even the eggs themselves had been under-sized.
Not that at 7am it wasn't OK. Not that I didn't help myself to a mini-croissant or two to compensate. It's just the shock effect, you know? The staff on a day like this, reasonably quiet and manageable, is just FANTASTIC. I wish I could have spent more time there, and gotten their names approved to report. But I myself received impeccable service, and noticed lots of smart little touches - like when a couple ordered Eggs Benedict both, and they brought three plates of it, ''cause everyone always needs a bit more than what's on a single plate'. It has always struck me that in a place where food is free, undersizing portions is always a bit of a silly thing to do, as we'll just order everything twice. Definitely special service there pre-empting the request from the waiter.
I was definitely having a bad day. Lingering cold from the EE flu, time compression, the need to fit in a quick T-Shirt purchase and a treatment meant I did not venture west of the Brasserie, thus missing the sweets counter, and for the first time ever I omitted to have a single sip of alcohol in the CH. I must confess I have never developed an appreciation for added-sugar drinks. Much like sexual orientation, or the preference of vanilla over chocolate ice cream (or viceversa), this seems to be something one is born with, or which at least recedes in the mist of time; nevertheless, I just simply can't do mojitos, which might explain the difficulties I was having renewing my subscription. I do, however, enjoy a martini or four, and have always had one previously. Alas, not this time.
The massage, on the other hand, was pleasant and professional, and the experience purchasing the cheapest T-Shirt at Paul Smith was painless, the gesture being required because of a prolonged soujourn in Italy due to OH's accident, as well as my unwillingness to saddle our families with more laundry duty.
All formalities expedited, proceeded to go to gate, the flight having been called during my massage. This was a mixed bag. Couldn't tell where the front was - there was a bit of a line to get into 31, the line however seemingly composed of mostly UC passengers. I could not tell until I reached the front that this was the case, being as I was a bit late getting there. But they do tell you to proceed to the front, so what is one to do? You have to MARK things somehow, or the message to just walk up is just as likely to result in a right royal mess with everyone forming a scrum, like italians trying to board a bus. Under the circumstances, i was the only italian scouser (worst of the worst, I hear some of you say), so I just jumped the jump-the-line line, and went straight in.
Well, I'll be damned, 31 is tiny, as you know. And this was a full flight. Front door access is all well and good, if you can get to bridge B, but the line is well into the lounge, which is packed, and it took a good while to reach B. I'm being unfair, this wasn't really that bad, just I now understand the drawbacks of this system at Heathrow, you can't easily partition the throngs on a full 747 flight from some gates. You need a more open space, which you have at the newer, low-numbered gates. But not here.
Anyhoo, I got on board only to find out Virgin Bellinis are no more. All good things must come to an end, I suppose. 'It's not even on the menu anymore', the admittedly very helpful flight attendant points out. No, it's not. Ah well, cheap champagne it is.
Usual 40 minute wander to 27R ensued, followed by glorious take off in full view of the plane spotters at the Renaissance. I gave to say, if you happen to be leaving from 27R west on a busy morning shuttle to Manchester from the wrong side of T5, the wander round to take off is going to take longer than the flight itself. Which is neither here nor there, just something that happened to cross my mind as we were patiently waiting for our turn to push on.
Take off was soon followed by drinks service. I proceed to order T10 & T, with lemon, lime being unavailable, and life being such that procuring a lime in a small out-of-the-way-ish town for the purposes of enjoying your 10-hour flight to SF proved to be impossible Thursday.
Snacks were mini pretzels (so United Economy), and some weird tasting, funny looking orange things which no one could tell me about. Which were OK. Chap next to me elected to skip the drinks service at 10:45am (why, I don't know), and when he finally got to it as I was eating my cheese, they went to him with a plate of crisps. Too late to swap, I suppose. On the whole, I was unimpressed with the snack offering, but it is so minor. I still LOVE the warm nuts you get on US airlines. Easy to do, and an obvious winner in my book. Pretzels and Weirdels ... not too good.
Lunch has been a controversial topic, but I have to say it wasn't too bad. From the new menu, I had the salad and the mini pizza for starters (I did not eat much last night for the curry, honest). The salad was OK, though you better like blue cheese, as it overpowered everything else attempting to dress the dish. I do, so I liked it well enough. Calling what I received next a pizza would be charitable even if you weren't into the theory of rigid designators. It did taste OK, though much like every pizza not made by someone who's made an effort to figure out how to make pizza, it had a tomato sauce that was way too sweet, and therefore overpowered most other ingredients. With a fair bit of open mind, it was acceptable.
I had the French Alencades (with a cedilla, which I am not going to try and figure out how to write here) with my appetizers. Good enough (trend of the moment, I suppose). Young, fruity, a bit vibrant, a bit of finish, not too much. Perfect for pizza-like food, not so much for blue cheese, but I wasn't in the mood for trying more than one red.
My main pick was the much maligned cod. I like cod. I cook cod. It's a tough one to make tasty. You'd generally bathe it, brush it and otherwise smother it pre-cooking and during cooking with assorted flavorings. Which was not the case here. You had another slightly too sweet pureed tomato confit type thingy which smothered the cod, and helped. The butter beans and spinach side was very good, very much to my taste; potatoes were potatoes. It wasn't a bad dish, and at the time I was eating was just right. I think you need to make an effort to turn baked cod into something interesting, and it's hard, and it's not likely to happen for plane food. You need more of a braising process. Baking it, and adding tomato glop on it, is not going to compensate. Unless you have a taste for food that is not overflavoured and overseasoned. Having come from two and a bit weeks in italy where family salts everything by the fistful, I was having a bit of a hard time adjusting.
Washed this down with the italian Falerio, a trendy but not too dangerous choice. A cross between your trite pinot grigio and the southern italian white wines which find so much favor in so many places these days. A Falanghina would have been a more interesting choice, but that's going to have to wait a year or two before making it onto this kind of menu. People might truly not like that.
Cheese was OK, smallish plate, but fine enough. I didn't read the blurb beforehand, so missed the fact that the cornish cheese was wrapped in nettle leaves. I love nettles (sauteed, and eaten, that is), but not being aware, I removed the rind, thus missing out. Did not miss much, probably, but we won't know for a while. Always like oatcakes with my cheese, and was glad they are still serving those.
The Berry pavlova was actually a mousse/cheesecake contraption, with a meringue base which had been broken into four pieces, and scattered around the mousse. I liked it.
Crew was attentive, asked about wine refill as soon as glass was emptied, did three water rounds, etc etc. All this upstairs, which some have mentioned can be a bit of a barren land during food service. Not today. FSM nowhere to be seen, it must be said, but this did not seem to make a difference. On a flight that had maybe two or three empties in UC, an impressive performance.
Settled in at the bar after QoS finished, and drank G&Ts while chatting with a variety of crew and passengers. Good times. My cabin crew happened to be from Liverpool, and proceeded in good time to retrieve the ManU-Liverpool score from the captain, which was met with disbelief around the bar (can't have been hearing right can he???). Time passed along well enough. During a minor episode of shakes, we were dispatched to our seats, at which point I watched three lunatics scooting it across Vietnam on vespas and the like, on what was supposed to be a car show, then returned to the bar to wait out the remainder of the flight.
Tea was fine. Scone, good; lemon & ricotta thingy, good-ish, a bit too sweet, but fine really. Infamous sandwiches were a hit for me. I liked the proper bread served, had pastrami, which I like, and found the whole thing done well, and avoided what is sometimes the stale bread syndrome typical of the finger-shaped offerings.
Early arrival, first through the US passport check, bag was fifth off, first out the door. Too bloody early - had to wait for a couple of friends to arrive and pick me up [:)] - sometimes these things can work too well. Off to the city then for suitcase drop, followed by some chit chat at Magnolia Brewery, intersected by occasional staring down a glass of really pretty good local lager.
All in all another good flight, one to add to the recent list. It was just what I needed under the circumstances, and it did the trick very well. The only miss during it all was definitely the drinks snacks, which was commented on by many folks (as in, what happened to the 10 Kettle Crisps -no more- and olives service???), crew included. Clear winner.
