Air Canada, Mister Donut, and M's Dining

I guess I didn't take a whole lot of food pictures on my earlier trips to Japan. It seems like my folders are all full of airplane food. I got upgraded again this time and there were no kaiseki meals left so I took the western meal. The bread and butter tasted good, but that's about all I can say. They started us off with some kind of salad that was pretty bland. Then whatever meat that is sitting on the bed of mushy veggies and rice was mediocre at best.

Mister Donut. What a fine donut shop chain that is. What you see below is called kori-coffee. Basically, it's frozen coffee chopped up into little cubes, you pour the milk in and wait for it to melt into ice coffee. It tasted pretty good I suppose. I'm not much of a coffee drinker, but on a hot summer day in Japan, where the air conditioning is only set on mild, it did the trick.

M's Dining is sort of a family restaraunt....sort of like Denny's here.

I had the hambagu steak with some sort of gratin on the side. I love hambagu.

2nd April 2004 Japan Trip AC Business Class food

Here are a few shots of my meals on my second trip to Japan in April, 2004. As soon as you're seated, the flight attendant offers you a choice of champagne, juice or water....or pretty much whatever you want, but I got a simple O.J.

In business class, they don't just give you a small, plastic cup for water, they give you the whole bottle.

So after you've settled in, you almost forget that you're on a plane. The service just keeps coming. They serve you a snack, and not simply a bag of peanuts, we got a small plate of gyoza (pan fried meat dumplings) and a bit of smoked salmon.

We were given a choice of a western meal, or a traditional Japanese Kaiseki meal. I chose the latter and here's a shot of the first course:

Bamboo shoots, snow peas and a shaped carrot slice, finely presented and very tasty.An assortment of pickles, not to strong in flavour.Tofu, with a hint of wasabi.There was also a kani (crab) sunomono with tobiko but the picture I took was way too blurry. Anyways, here's a shot of the lobster tail, with some sort of Japanese-style tartar sauce Japanese tartar sauce generally has egg as one of the ingredients, so it tastes more like egg salad. There was also unagi (eel) rolled in tamago (egg). The scallop was actually my favourite part. Baked in a Miso-mayo, it tasted quite different from your standard Oyster Motoyaki. Throw in a bit of miso in the mix, and it gives it an extra tangy flavor. I was quite surprised that all of these dishes tasted so good when chilled. After the lobster tail, they clear your tray and serve you a bowl of rice, bowl of miso soup, and grilled black cod, or sable fish with some string beans and a carrot shaped like a maple leaf....Nice Canadian touch. The cod was heaven that melts in your mouth. I love black cod.

By this time, my belly is full and I'm feeling content, but the service keeps coming, and being the greedy pig that I am, I indulge myself in further gorging. A fresh assortment of fruit, cheeses and crackers, I say yes to all of the above.And after that, ice cream....chocolate ice cream, with a hard chocolate coating, sitting in a bed of frozen Mango....something...sorbet maybe? Anyways, who am I to say no?A quick, blurry shot of breakfast. There were several choices to pick from, but I went with a simple assortment of sandwiches, inari (rice ball wrapped in sweet tofu skin), and a plate of fresh fruit.

It's been a while.....

Well, it's been a while since I last posted. I've been a bit lazy, I have to admit. Sometimes it's hard to find the time to post when I'm not even sure if anyone is reading this. But I told myself, well, what the heck, if I don't post, then it defintely won't get viewed. So I'm back with a few more shots of airplane food. These shots are of a business class meal on Air Canada from Vancouver to Narita back in April, 2004. AC's business class was a nice service with big, comfy seats, miles of leg room, a crew that was often quite pleasant, and on this trip, a half-decent Kaiseki meal as we as could be prepared on an airplane.

Actually, I was fortunate enough to go to Japan twice that April, and I managed to get upgraded to business class on the return flight on my first trip in April, as well as on the outbound flight of my second trip.

Business Class Airlplane Food

There is a common belief that airplane food could hardly be categorized as food, but when you're crammed into a tiny cabin with no where else to go, it tastes pretty good at the time. Here are a few shots of an experience I had with my brother. I was taking him back to Japan back in January, 2003. He was teaching there for a bout a year, came back for Christmas holiday and had to go back to finish off another month or so. We were lucky enough to get upgraded on the way out and here was some shots of the meals served.

I ordered the kaiseki meal and my brother ordered the western meal. Both were incredibly well put together and delicious. Even the butter was tasty....or maybe we were just really hungry.