I love Virgin America's on demand food system. I wish they had some free snacks, but I really love the way their program operates and appreciate that the food is actually pretty good.
Since we ate our snack early in the flight from Newark to LA, we waited until about halfway through the flight before ordering some sandwiches for lunch. We placed our order through the in-seat touchscreen monitors and within a couple of minutes our food and lots of free drinks arrived. No waiting for the cart to make its way to your seat, no worrying about whether your choice of meal will be sold out, no issue getting complimentary drinks whenever you need them. I really love this system and wish more airlines would embrace it.
We got two sandwiches. The first was one I had heard about as one of Virgin America's best offerings (but I can't remember where I read that): the Godfather sandwich ($9.50).
The Godfather sandwich consisted of roasted turkey breast, beef salami, sliced pepperoncini, provolone, lettuce and tomatoes on a cheese focaccia roll with an olive, tomato and parmesan spread.
The sandwich was really tasty. The combination of meats and cheese, along with the spread, had such a multitude of flavors, and the cheese focaccia roll was soft and delicious. A really enjoyed the sliced pepperoncini as it added a good, subtle heat as well as a bit of sourness. It was a more complex sandwich than the Java Moon one and it showed. This was worth the price.
The sandwich came with a small piece of chocolate for dessert which we split. It's always nice to have something sweet to eat at the end of a meal.
We also shared a Thai vegetable half wrap ($7.50), which came with a half sandwich and a small salad cup.
The Thai vegetable sandwich had chickpeas, edamame, black beans, chestnuts, carrots, daikon and cilantro with Asian vinaigrette and Thai pepper spread in a spinach half wrap.
The wrap was good, but I wish it were a full wrap instead of just a half! I would trade in the salad for the rest of the sandwich, since I liked the sandwich much more. The crunch of the vegetables, the creaminess of the spread and dressing, and the healthy flavors of the ingredients made for a good combination.
The salad on the side (which is not very big, about the size of two chocolate squares, even though it appears rather large in the photo) consisted of daikon, carrots and a piece of cilantro. I thought this was fine, although not very exciting. It just tasted like the raw vegetables it contained. That said, it's nice to have fresh vegetables while on a flight. A liked the sweetness of the carrots since he's a fan of raw carrots, and the daikon added some crisp moisture to cut the sweetness just enough.
As I mentioned above, one of the best things about the Virgin America on demand ordering system is the free drinks. The complimentary drinks include coffee, tea, soda, water and juices. They come through the aisles with some drinks soon after takeoff but after that you're free to order more whenever you please (whether or not you're ordering other food), which is fantastic.
In addition to multiple bottles of water, I also got a couple of orders of cranapple juice, while A got some Coke zero. The drinks were good for our snack of raspberry m&ms (which were really overpriced from the airport store since I forgot to go to Duane Reade before the trip).
That's three different sandwiches we've had now on Virgin America (turkey one reviewed here), all of which have been good. At least we know we can get a good meal that's worth what we're paying for on this airline!
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