Off to Seattle

We had a Friday evening flight out to Seattle, and after getting to the airport and going through security, we only had a short time to grab some dinner. We were flying JetBlue so we were pretty familiar with the food court options - pizza, Asian food, burgers, sandwiches, salad bar, soups and the like. All generally fine, but nothing fun like Shake Shack or some of the other more interesting options we've found at other airports. 

We took turns picking up dinner, and when I went up to order, many of the lines were long. It seemed easiest and quickest to just pick up some ready-made food from Cibo Express, that generic deli that you can find at lots of airports. None of the sandwiches were that interesting, and they were also all pretty expensive, so I went with chicken noodle soup (although I should have gotten a small instead of a large as it was a ton of soup to drink before getting on a plane and very, very hot) and an assortment of salads from the cold bar. The soup was okay, but didn't have a ton of flavor and probably could have used more chicken stock. From the cold bar, I got a Southwest bean salsa, buffalo chicken pasta salad, pasta salad with chicken and tomatoes, and tuna salad. They were light and refreshing, which was good before getting on a long flight.

When A went up to get his dinner, there was no line at the Boar's Head Deli, so he got a build-your-own sandwich there with focaccia bread, cracked pepper turkey, pepper jack cheese, red onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and spicy deli mustard, which he had them toast. Overall, it was a good sandwich - a good combination of flavors and good ingredients - although A did find it a little over-toasted in parts. I had buyer's remorse after I tasted his sandwich, as it was just so much better than everything I had gotten and not that different in price (about $11 total for each). I knew they made pretty good sandwiches there (since I got that on our way out to San Diego), so I wished I had waited in line for it instead of getting what I got. A's sandwich was even better than the one I got there last time. We decided that, whenever flying JetBlue in the future, we'll probably just get some Boar's Head sandwiches as they do seem like the best quality option, even if a little pricey for a sandwich.

A also got a small cup of the potato cheddar soup from Cibo. It was very creamy and rich, but it wasn't all that cheesy considering the name. You could taste some cheese, but it wasn't a dominant flavor. It had chopped vegetables and potatoes, and was generally a hearty soup. It was warm and comforting, and a perfect complement to the sandwich he got.

On board the flight, we settled in and waited for them to come around with the snack baskets, one of the highlights of the JetBlue experience. I was ready to get my usual Cheez-Its and chocolate chip cookies, but when they let us know the options, there were some changes from our last visit. They now had Rold Gold pretzels as well as cinema style (basically butter flavor) Popcorners (instead of kettle). Fantastic improvements, in our opinion, and we got all of those, including the cookies, over the course of our flight. We arrived in Seattle around midnight, so it was pretty much straight into a taxi to the hotel at that late hour, but it was a pretty good first day (or night) of vacation!

Hello San Diego

Our San Diego vacation from last October feels like it was just yesterday, and we wish we were back there instead of in New York's cold winter (even if today felt like spring for a day). We normally do separate posts for every place we visit on our trip, but since the first day was mostly spent traveling and we hit up lots of places that are repeats from other recent trips, I'm going to combine them all here to move things along faster.

We flew out on JetBlue from JFK, so there weren't a ton of fast options for lunch. A chose to go with Famous Famiglia's pizza, getting one slice of plain pizza and one slice with sausage and pepperoni, the first of which he found bland and the second a bit too salty. They both could have used more time in the oven, and generally he didn't particularly think too highly of them.

I went to the Boar's Head Deli which had a fancy tablet ordering system, and got a chipotle chicken sandwich with lettuce, avocado, and provolone. I remember the menu saying something about a mango mayo but didn't taste anything like that. This sandwich was supposed to be a panini, but it wasn't very pressed. The provolone cheese was melted, but the sandwich just seemed to come out like it would if I put a sandwich in the toaster for a few minutes, not a panini press. I had thought the chipotle chicken would be chunks of chicken, not slices, but that was not the most logical expectation considering where I went to get the sandwich. It was nice having some avocado, but since that was in chunks, it kind of fell out and made the sandwich harder to eat. The sandwich wasn't cheap, but at least the flavors were good.

In-flight, we got our usual free snacks - lots of water and (for A) some ginger ale, plus some chocolate chip cookies and Cheez-It crackers. We've mentioned JetBlue's free snacks plenty on this blog, and we hope they never stop doing that.

Once we finally arrived in San Diego and got our bags, our first stop was the Ryan Bros coffee stand near baggage claim. Ryan Bros was a local micro roaster, but A had no idea of that when he opted to get coffee. Unfortunately, he didn't think it was that good. He's not judging the whole brand by this offering though, because it was really late and this was just a small kiosk with coffee sitting in those silver cylinder dispensers and not freshly brewed. It really wasn't a very good cup of coffee.

To close out the day, we went for pretty much the same meal we always do when we first get to California, In-N-Out Burger. Is that what most people from the East Coast do when they go out west? We were pretty hungry, so we got three double-doubles, animal style of course, and two orders of animal style fries. It had been so long since we had In-N-Out that we forgot our usual order also added raw onions to the burgers, but it was fine without them. Everything was so, so, so, so good, and we were thankful that we got there at the exact time we did because that branch was packed. It was so crowded that the drive-thru line went out of the parking lot and circled down the street, and at one point after we ordered, we saw the restaurant line go out the door. Can't think of any fast food out here that would inspire that type of line other than Shake Shack (but you definitely couldn't get out of Shake Shack with all this food for $20).

It was a good first day of our trip, mostly traveling, with the San Diego portion kicked off by a delicious visit to In-N-Out. We were pretty excited for the upcoming week of relaxation and good food, and couldn't wait to get started.

Returning from Brussels

The official last day of our 2010 European adventure was spent entirely on traveling from Brussels back to New York. We had a morning flight out of Brussels so we were packed and on the bus to the airport before 7 am, watching the sunrise as we drove through the streets. It was pretty busy at the airport when we got there considering how early it was.

We got a few snacks for "breakfast" while at the airport. The lines were pretty long, so we didn't really weigh the options too much and just looked for something quick. A picked up a "tropical storm smoothie" with mango, apple, and passion fruit, as well as a meat and cheese sandwich. The line was too long where he went by the time I went to get some food, so I went somewhere else and got a cheese salad sandwich. I had a bit of sticker shock; the sandwich was almost €6 (and that was 6 years ago!) and all it consisted of was bread, a slice of cheese, some dressing, and a little bit of greens and tomatoes. A bit pricey just for that. Before boarding our flight, we also picked up a couple last bags of Haribo from the vending machine, lamenting that our vending machines at home didn't offer such good candy.

Since our flight covered the lunchtime hours (European time), Delta served us lunch on board. We weren't expecting much, since we've always found the food to be better on non-American airlines, but we were pleasantly surprised. We don't remember a ton about the lunch itself other than that it was quite decent. There was a salad that was pretty fresh and came with a little squeeze bottle of Italian dressing, some cheddar cheese and crackers, a chocolate cookie dessert, and an entree of grilled chicken with herb butter, mashed potatoes, and vegetables. We still thought our KLM meal from the way out was better, but this wasn't bad at all.

Delta also announced that there would be a snack on our flight somewhere over the ocean. We were expecting some sort of bagged snack like nuts or pretzels or chips, but what actually arrived was so much better. There was a margherita pizza with pesto and a side of gelato, which tasted like vanilla with chocolate sauce (which made sense since the container said Dame Blanche). That was a pretty great snack, and the very last thing we ate on our European adventure. Considering how long it's taken us to write about this adventure, we'll do one last post for a summary and then we'll finally be done!

Off to Boston

To get to Portland this summer, first we flew to Boston. It might sound a little weird to fly from New York (technically, New Jersey) to Boston instead of just taking a direct flight to Portland, but the time and price with the layover were a better fit, so we figured we might as well take the detour. The layover wouldn't give us enough time to leave the airport and explore, but neither of us had ever been to Logan Airport before, so we planned to just hang out there and have a nice leisurely meal.

Before our flight to Boston, we grabbed a quick lunch from Currito Cantina, which we remembered we had seen at a rest stop in Maryland earlier in the year. They had a sit-down restaurant but we stuck with the grab and go case and ate by our gate. We only picked up one salad to share because I had eaten a giant breakfast of leftovers from our Sticky's dinner from the night before and wasn't that hungry, and we also had plans to eat when we got to Boston. A chose the ensalada mixta (romaine lettuce, pico de gallo, corn salsa, black beans, applewood smoked bacon, cotija cheese, guacamole, and lime dressing). The salad was good, very light and refreshing, and exactly the type of thing we like to eat on a travel day. The only criticism we had was that it probably would have been better if parts of it hadn't frozen in the to-go case. Aside from that, it was great having a place with fresh vegetables instead of all the fast food and sandwiches.

Since the flight from New York to Boston was really short, JetBlue only did express service instead of their full menu of snacks, which made sense. The choices were water or soda (water for us), and cookies or chips. We both went for cookies, which we didn't remember being on the snack menu during our last flight and came in cute packaging.

Mini chocolate chip cookies like these always remind me of the cookies I used to bring to school when I was younger. I liked these, but I don't know if it was because of the cookies themselves or nostalgia (or both). I got another bag of cookies and also some Cheez-Its on the flight to Portland, but didn't take any pictures of them since I didn't open them until it was already dark outside. A fell asleep and missed snack service on that leg. We love the free snacks on JetBlue and hope they'll never take those away.

Good Sleepless Morning

As we got closer to the British Isles, it was time for breakfast service on our Virgin Atlantic flight. They had mentioned the breakfast boxes and their contents on the dinner menu, so we knew they were coming. We had been hoping to sleep the entire time between dinner and breakfast, but unfortunately for us, there was not much sleep to be had. At least there was good entertainment and a very informative map.

Each breakfast box was the same - raspberry yogurt, a packet of granola, and a small fruit cup with mostly melons and few grapes. (I skipped the melons because of their effect on seasonal allergies.) It was a nice, healthy, nutritious breakfast. So much better than giving out danishes or rubbery eggs or whatever they used to give out on domestic flights back when airlines served food.

After breakfast, we didn't really try to go back to sleep because we were so close to London. We were pretty excited, and the detailed, changing map on Virgin Atlantic's app was such a joy to watch for a geography geek like me. We were almost to London when they came around with another snack - these little rolls of Love Hearts.

Visually, these seemed to us to be a cross between Smarties/Sweet Tarts and Sweethearts. Unfortunately, we didn't like the flavors as much as Smarties or Sweet Tarts. They were a little more sugary and had less tartness to them, which made them a little more like Sweethearts. They also disintegrated in your mouth about as quickly as Sweethearts. We weren't huge fans, but we were happy to have our first UK snack.

Soon after our final snack, we descended out of the sunny blue skies into rainy London, which was blanketed with thick clouds. We were just happy to finally be on the ground. We were completely exhausted, but ready to start our adventure!

A Virgin Atlantic Dinner

We were pretty excited for our first flight on Virgin Atlantic. We've always had a good experience flying Virgin America domestically, so we were looking forward to our transatlantic flight. From the start, the service was great. We were greeted with blankets, sleep kits, good headphones, and bottles of water. My entertainment system wasn't working (and I was worried I'd be stuck with nothing for the whole flight), but after we alerted them, they checked on it once we were in flight and rebooted it without me even needing to ask again. So far, so good.

Sorry the pictures are all a little bit purple ... That's the Virgin "mood lighting"

At some point, they came around and handed out dinner menus. The menus listed out all the components of dinner and the 3 options for the main course. We liked that because we could look at what was in store, see what the ingredients were (to watch for allergies/intolerances), and decide at our leisure and not in a split second on the spot. Why doesn't everyone do that? Anyway, the 3 options were beef, chicken, and pasta (penne in pesto sauce). A picked the beef, and I picked the chicken. We planned to try at least a bite of each other's entree as usual, so we wanted to make sure we got different things.

Appetizers

Each tray came with a main dish, dessert, and a collection of appetizers/sides - a dinner roll, side salad, and cheese and crackers. (Technically the cheese and crackers were listed in the dessert section of the menu, but we tend to eat those at the start of the meal as appetizers.) The roll was a standard dinner roll, fine but nothing special. The "mixed salad with ranch dressing" came with spring greens, iceberg lettuce, shredded carrots, and a tomato. There was also a single packet of ranch dressing that wasn't really enough dressing to give flavor to the entire salad. Overall, the salad was fine, but again, nothing special. The cheese and crackers were fine, but fairly standard stuff. We do like Tillamook cheese so that was nice; seems like it's a common choice on transatlantic flights. Generally, our feeling about these sides were that they were good, solid choices, but nothing to rave about.

Beef in red wine

A got the beef in red wine, which was described on the menu as "tender, juicy slow cooked beef in a classic French sauce," with mashed potatoes and roasted root vegetables. The dish that he got looked like it was divided in thirds. One third was the very tender beef with lots of well-flavored gravy. The second third had creamy mashed potatoes, and the other third had the roasted root vegetables, which looked to us like carrots, parsnips, and potatoes (including purple potatoes). This dish was great. The potatoes and root vegetables were hearty and tasty, the texture of the beef was quite good for airline food, and the gravy was delicious.

Chicken teriyaki

I chose the chicken teriyaki, described on the menu as "delicious chicken pieces coated in a soy, honey, and ginger sauce, with fluffy steamed rice, carrots, and sugar snap peas." I lifted the foil off my dish and found what looked like a single chicken thigh cut into 3 pieces, 3 slices of carrot, and a single sugar snap pea. I thought maybe there was another sugar snap pea hiding under the chicken since the menu specifically said sugar snap peas, but there was not. One single sugar snap pea. I was disappointed with the quantity of vegetables, considering they're really not that expensive and A had gotten so many more vegetables in his beef dish. This dish was pretty much all chicken and rice. The rice was fine - nice and sticky - but I wouldn't call it fluffy. (We make fluffy rice at home.) The chicken was good and I liked the sauce, but there was just not enough sauce for the amount of rice in that dish. I ended up putting the rest of the rice into whatever beef gravy was left after A was done. Flavorwise, the dish was fine and it tasted clean and healthy, but it was a little underwhelming as far as what was actually on the plate. I was expecting more since I had already seen how great A's dish was!

Cheesecake

The dessert everyone got was a slice of strawberry swirl cheesecake from Eli's Cheesecake out of Chicago. I'm not a big cheesecake fan, but for whatever reason, strawberry cheesecake is the one type I'm actually okay with. The cheesecake was fine, but we were mostly disappointed because there was no pudding. See, we had forgotten that in England, they use the word "puddings" to mean desserts. So when we saw on the menu "puddings" and "strawberry swirl cheesecake" one on top of the other, we thought there would be pudding and cheesecake. When the tray arrived with no pudding, we were confused until we noticed that pudding looked like a section heading, and then remembered the English meaning of pudding. Oops. Our disappointment wasn't the cheesecake's fault, but our own.

At some point after dinner, they came around and distributed pieces of milk chocolate to close out the meal. That was a nice touch, similar to the piece of chocolate that would come with every Virgin America sandwich. The dinner overall was a fair amount of food considering we were eating after 11 pm. The best part was clearly the beef entree. I had orderer's remorse.

As we settled in after dinner, I read all the parts of the menu that I hadn't read before when checking out the options for dinner. I was particularly interested in this statement on the back (I wonder if I'm the only person reading the back of the menu) about fairly traded ingredients, ethically sourced meat, and sustainable buying. We thought it was pretty cool that an airline as big as Virgin Atlantic could make this type of commitment on some really important environmental issues, and were pretty proud to have chosen an airline that was willing to try in the first place.

After dinner, we attempted to get some sleep. Our bellies were full, we had good music and movies to keep us occupied, and the lights were out, but it was so hard to get comfortable for some reason. I usually have no problem sleeping on planes, but for whatever reason, I don't think I slept more than 15 minutes. A slept a little longer, but still not that much. We may not have been very well-rested when morning came along, but at least we'd had a pretty good dinner!

Flight Snacks

We've written about JetBlue here before and it's still one of our favorite airlines. Free snacks, free DirecTV, more legroom than other airlines for the basic economy seat - it's hard to beat that. We had already eaten dinner, but it was a long flight (over 5 hours) so we got several snacks.

I started off with water and cranberry juice, while A got Coke Zero and cranberry juice. We also stocked up on those mini water bottles throughout the flight since it was so dry.

I was sad that they no longer had Fritos as a snack option and that the only Popcorners were kettle flavored (my least favorite), so I settled for some Doritos and mini chocolate chip cookies. Years and years ago, I remember buying cookies like this in Costco sized packs for school snacks. It had been so long that I had forgotten how much I liked them. A got the Terra Blues with a bag of cookies. We really enjoyed the cookies.

JetBlue, please don't ever stop the free snacks. They are much appreciated!

The Godfather of Virgin America

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!

Virgin America

This past December we went to Las Vegas for a mini-break to get away from the stresses of work and the beginning of the winter doldrums.  One of the things we were most excited about was flying Virgin America, an airline we have wanted to fly for some time but never had the chance to try.

Our Virgin America plane, soaring over the Midwest

One of the great things about Virgin America is their in-seat entertainment system.  They have several TV channels, as well as games, music, the useful in-flight map and something I've never seen on other in-seat units - meal ordering!  This means you can get food whenever you're actually hungry, and that taking a nap doesn't mean you miss meal service. What a fantastic idea!

Since we were running a little late that morning, we didn't get a chance to eat at the airport before our flight and were looking for something to snack on.  Relatively early in the flight (sometime around Pennsylvania or Ohio, I think), I ordered a peppered turkey sandwich ($9), which A and I split.

The sandwich consisted of black peppered turkey breast, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, pickled red onions and smoky chipotle mustard on dark pumpernickel rye.  It was actually a pretty good sandwich. A little pricey for a sandwich, but what airline food isn't more expensive than on the ground?  What was great about the sandwich was that it tasted freshly made and not like it had been sitting in a package in a refrigerated case for hours. Not the easiest feat on an airplane.  Ingredients seemed fresh, flavors worked well together, we were very satisfied with our purchase.

Packaged in with the sandwich was a piece of chocolate, which was a perfect way to end the meal.

I wish Virgin America had some free snacks (JetBlue wins on that one) to go along with their tasty sandwiches. But at least the options you pay for taste like they're worth it!

Free Snacks are Good

We just returned from a short happy trip to Chicagoland (wedding! baby! yay!), which means there are more places we get to write about - both old favorites and new discoveries.  Going to Chicago these days doesn't really feel like a vacation since we lived there for so long but we really enjoy our return trips to the city.

We kicked off our trip with a very late arrival at the airport (so late that they printed late on our baggage tag and we just made it to board), something neither of us wishes to repeat.  After finally settling in to our seats and calming down from the stress, we got to enjoy snack time on the plane! 

Snacks, I'm guessing over Pennsylvania/Ohio, but my LiveMap didn't work

Since we were flying JetBlue, that meant we got free snacks. And not just a small cookie, but real snacks. Everyone in the rows around us stocked up on multiple drinks and bags of chips (dinnertime flight).  I opted for water and iced tea (a decent sized Arizona can!), along with sea salt Popcorners and Fritos (which are new to JetBlue), while A got water and Coke Zero with caramel Popcorners and Terra Blues.  (On the way back (night flight so no pictures), we pretty much got the same thing except for the snacks - A got caramel Popcorners and I got Fritos.)

I love flying JetBlue for a number of reasons, but the unlimited free snacks is a big plus when domestic flights usually means nothing but expensive (and not great) food. It's much more like the international airlines which still feel like you are entitled to eat something real with your ticket price. Go JetBlue!

AMS to BCN

Our flight from Amsterdam to Barcelona was relatively short (a few hours).  It was a late flight and after our day trip, we were quite tired.  Considering the flight was so short, we thought they would just have a snack and nothing else.

We passed out and ended up sleeping through sandwiches, but I woke up in time to get one of these:

Stroopkoekje (literally "syrup cake") by Punselie's, a company located in Gouda.  Inside the wrapper (I forgot to take a photo of the inside on this leg but remembered on the return flight) was a big cookie/cake/biscuit that was like a stroopwafel but a thicker cookie.  We liked stroopwafels on our last trip to the Netherlands and I was excited to try the cookie. It was sweet, crumbly and a bit gooey from the syrup, just as I thought it would be.  It was a nice snack before our Barcelona adventure!

Another Breakfast Box

About an hour before we landed in Amsterdam, they came around with breakfast boxes.  This breakfast box wasn't that different from the one we got on our last KLM trip, so we knew what to expect.

The box, just like last time, came with 3 components - orange juice, yogurt and a baked good.

The orange juice was a small cup of Minute Maid, nothing special but it was fine.

The strawberry nonfat yogurt came from Upstate Farms, a more local (New York, based on their website) brand of yogurt than the Breyers we got last time.  It was smooth, sweet and creamy.

The last part of the breakfast box was a small muffin.  Even though it's only been two weeks, we can't remember whether this was blueberry or chocolate chip.  I could blame this on the haze of just waking up and still being sleepy, but I think it just wasn't very memorable.  A thought his muffin was a little dry.  Mine was ok, but just not very special.

The toughest thing about the breakfast box was that when it arrived, we weren't really very hungry.  In the past 12 hours (or so), we had eaten chicken from Buffalo Wild Wings at the airport and then the entire dinner tray.  Combine that with not sleeping that much, and we weren't really ready for breakfast!  A managed to finish his box, but I think I left half the muffin because I just couldn't eat anymore.

Not long after breakfast, we arrived in Amsterdam, ready to start our next European adventure!

Second Dinner

We were big fans of the dinner service on our KLM flight to Amsterdam a couple of years ago, so when we saw them starting to serve dinner we were excited to see what it would be.  I checked on the in-flight entertainment (there is a meal section!) before the food came which said the options were either a Dutch beef dish or pasta.  A and I both picked the Dutch beef option.  It's a Dutch airline, so of course we went with that!

Our dinner tray

Each meal came with a warm soft dinner roll.  We skipped the butter but it was nice having a warm roll.

Each tray also came with a small package of crackers and some cheese.  In this case it was the Carr's water crackers which are common here along with some Tillamook cheddar cheese, which we knew was from Oregon.  That was a nice snack.

The "appetizer" for the meal was a salad.  The salad had lettuce, cherry tomatoes, shredded carrots and a protein (which we can't remember but might have been tofu or fake seafood or chicken), in an Asian sesame dressing.  It wasn't the best salad in the world, but it was light and refreshing.  It always feels good and very cleansing to eat salads on flights.

The main course was like the Dutch dish hutspot with beef, and consisted of beef in a thick brown sauce with onions accompanied with mashed potatoes that had carrots and onions mixed in.  We were happy with our choice.  Although I don't usually eat so much beef (and gave some to A), the sauce and the mashed potatoes were both good, which made for a great combination.  A thought the beef was more tender than he was expecting, the mashed potatoes were good, and the dish was nicely flavored.

Dessert was a cake which A remembers as an apple cake.  I don't remember the exact flavor (even though it's only been 2 weeks!), but it was moist and sweet and a good ending to dinner.

After dinner, we tried to get some sleep (mostly unsuccessfully since the flight was so warm) before it was time for breakfast!