Thursday, October 1, 2009

Almost vegan in the air

I’ll open this series of travel posts with the very beginning and end of my trip: airport and airplane food. I flew from Kansas City International to Dallas-Fort Worth, and during my layover there, I ate at a Chipotle imitator, the name of which I can’t recall. I had a burrito "bowl" with black beans, rice, pico de gallo, tomatoes, onions, salsa, and a huge glop of guacamole. It was decent, but not as good as the fake Chipotle I’ve had at Chicago’s O’Hare airport.



On the overnight flight from Dallas to London Heathrow, we were served dinner and breakfast. I’ve only ever heard bad things about airplane food, but the meals I had were GREAT! I requested veg ahead of time, and for dinner, I was served salad, honeydew, a whole wheat roll, a little bottle of balsamic vinaigrette, water, and to my surprised delight, curried chickpeas with rice and vegetables! It looked like a tv dinner would, but I was impressed to find it tasted just-cooked. Way to go American Airlines!



Breakfast was fruit and yogurt, plus this little guy—a gluten-free, vegan, organic German chocolate cookie. Nice!



Fast-forward 35 days to my overseas flight home last weekend. These meals were even more impressive. For lunch, I got salad, a honeydew-apple-mandarin orange medley, a gluten-free roll, balsamic vinaigrette, a little pat of sunflower seed "butter," water, and Italian stewed vegetables (eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes) with couscous. It was really good, and again, tasted freshly cooked.



My veg dinner was chewy Israeli couscous (AA loves the couscous, it seems) with broccoli and julienne zucchini and red and yellow peppers, and a container of grapes. So tasty! The veggies weren’t the least bit soggy. The rest of the plane’s dinner happened to be vegetarian too, a mini vegetable pizza, so I asked for and received one of those as well. After blotting off some of the excess grease, it too was better than I would have expected on an airplane.



Next week, the real vacation posts begin. First up: England!
Happy World Vegetarian Day, everyone! And happy birthday to my dad, and happy 100th-post day to me :]

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9 comments:

  1. All looks yummy especially for airline food. Happy Birthday to your Dad!

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  2. I was pleasantly surprised the first time I had airplane food. It was significantly better than I expected.

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  3. I'm finding myself wanting some couscous now.

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  4. Okay, your airplane fodder looks a hell of a lot better than the stuff that I was served on the way to Germany. Not fair. :P
    -Brandon

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  5. Ridiculously enough, I've thought about this food since the trip and actually craved it.

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  6. Congrats on your 100th Post!!! I love hearing about all these interesting places and foods that you have had!

    Rachel

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  7. Airplane food! Yummy! lol.

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  8. i'll take the flan, a Nutella-stuffed crêpe topped with salted caramel glace, the floating island and a bite of the stolen bagel. if you no longer have these i demand exact recreations. k? :)

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