Author: jean komatsu
Last saved by: ENU

Virgin America Air
Review date: May 2012

Airline food?!?

Yup, airline food. 

Boomers can remember when flying was still fun. No security lines, no ridiculous fees-on-everything-but-breathing. At one time, airlines actually competed as to who could serve the best food on long flights. This is something almost unthinkable in the US these days, when you should feel grateful if the airline deigns to give you peanuts instead of pretzels.

Going out to the East Coast, we flew for the first time on Virgin America. The Airbus 320 is a good plane: clean, new and well-designed. There's only two classes – Main Cabin (coach) and Cabin Select (first-class). We've always flown coach, since we don't fly often enough to get upgraded, and purchasing first/business is usually out of our price range.

In the MC section, the Airbus has touchpad screens for ordering/paying for food, which the flight attendant then brings to you. The chicken tarragon sandwich on a healthy dark molasses bread is pretty darn good. With it there's also a small Tcho chocolate wafer, one of the newest San Francisco artisanal chocolatiers; both of which beat pretzels any day.

We were in Connecticut visiting friends prior to our return. Our plans were to drive the stressful I-195 back to JFK to return the rental car, so we allowed ourselves not just extra time, but extra extra time. It turned out we didn't need it, which is one of those Peter Principle or Murphy's Law things: if you're prepared for the worst, then it certainly won't happen.

When I went on-line to print the boarding passes for the return flight, I saw we could purchase the upgrade to Select for less than $300/each. And we were tired enough to be dreading the elbow squeezing in the MC for seven hours. Having seen the two rows of Select seats when we were boarding our first flight, we knew there's considerably more leg and arm room there. Ironically, the seats are similar to 'the old days' of the 1960's when airlines were actually remodeling planes and installing bigger/wider seats so they could boast of offering more "elbow room" in coach than their competition.

Another positive is that Select has one restroom for 8 passengers and the crew, compared to sharing two restrooms with 2000 other people. When you're older, these kinds of minor details loom large in your personal CI (Comfort Index).

After a lesson from the attendant on how to work these seats, which are a miracle of compartmentalization – woohoo! footrests and almost-full recline without annoying the passenger behind you – we were offered drinks before the plane even took off. Little trays pop up to hold your drinks. TV screens, instead of being scrunched on the back of the seat in front of you, are hidden in the generous double armrests. 

The opposite armrest holds (gasp!) a two-part tray, that can be used half-width or full-width across your entire seat. Yes, you can actually use your laptop comfortably with a drink alongside. And there's enough horizontal aisle room that you don't have to get up if your companion wants to use the restroom.

Civilized. We like civilized, a lot.

Then we were handed our paper menus. Real, honest-to-goodness menus with entree choices. Carlos, of course, opted for the beef filet with rice and Spanish-style vegetables. I chose the vegetable lasagne. 

These aren't large trays. The portions are probably diet-sized, in fact. But they actually taste good, and are attractive. The trays hold white porcelain serving plates. You get real cloth napkins with substantial silverware. 

We haven't seen food this good on a domestic flight since Pan Am and TWA were the premier US airlines. Nice little mixed lettuce salads with a curled cucumber slice and a lovely mild honey-Dijon dressing. Carlos doesn't always like this type of salad dressing, but he approved of this one.

His filet was well-done but tasty, and the vegetables were all the way up at excellent. Nicely diced (meaning all the same size) mixed vegetables had been pre-done in a really delicious EVOO and agrodulce pimenton sauce (in spices, agrodulce means "bittersweet", not the Italian sweet/sour). My vegetable lasagne was actually a gratin, since it was sans pasta – mushrooms, eggplant, carrots, zucchini, red and yellow bell peppers, moistened with a tasty tomato sauce that had just a touch too much dried oregano, then double-layered with shredded Provolone and Parmesan, with the top actually browned. Carlos and I did our usual exchange of tastes and he pronounced the lasagne very good.

Both trays come with a soft warm sunflower seed-studded roll and (low quality) butter. The dessert that evening was a chocolate mint mousse cake, a sort of mint-flavored tiramisu. Carlos got a china cup of good quality Philz coffee to go with it.

An hour later, the attendant offered snacks. I picked salt-and-pepper cashews, Carlos picked (not surprisingly) the box of four crisp chocolate chip cookies, which he happily dunked in his second cup of coffee.

A relaxing way to come home (well, as comfortable as you can be on a plane that isn't a private jet). I personally think the seats fit men more comfortably than women, especially if you have short legs. Still, I managed to recline enough to actually sleep for a while on the plane, something I usually find almost impossible. 

We liked Virgin even in coach, but we liked them even more in first class. Usually it's a toss-up what's worse – airline food vs airport food – but in this case, Virgin America beat JFK by a continent or two.

Good free airline food still exists, to our surprise. And we didn't have to worry about finding a restaurant open late (very hard in Oakland) that we could easily drive to, after an extremely long day that started in Old Lyme, CT and finally ended 5,000 miles and 15 hours later.

A winner, all the way around. That serendipity thing again!