My Meal of the Week feature examines an airline meal from my travels over the years. This may be a meal from earlier in the week or it may be a meal served over a decade ago.
After the disappointing Japanese-style curry chicken bowl, I was not all that optimistic about the cauliflower lime rice bowl in United Airlines First Class, but it turned out much better…this is a meal I would order again.
United Airlines First Class Cauliflower Lime Rice Bowl
United has committed to offering at least one vegetarian meal option on each flight in first class and one of the options this month is a cauliflower lime rice bowl (again served in a casserole dish rather than a bowl…).
It begins with a bed of cauliflower rice and is topped with chunks of zucchini, onion, corn, black beans, and scallions drizzled in lime juice and avocado salsa. Although this seems like the kind of dish that would be served cold, it was heated and served warm…and I thought that worked well.
The dish was light and a nice mix of flavors and I finished it. So often airline meals are incredibly heavy, but this was quite the opposite.
On the side was mozzarella cheese with a spicy tomato chutney, a cold roll, and cold “pie in the sky” cookie. The cookie and roll should have been warmed.
I took a slice of mozzarella cheese and the tomatoes and mixed it in the main course, which also worked well.
So how does this compare to the vegetarian “meatballs” last month? I thought this dish was better. I would order it agian.
> Read More: Impossible Meatball Bowl In United Airlines First Class
Have you tried the cauliflower lime rice bowl on United? How was it?
That cauliflower rice looks soupy. Not very appealing in my opinion.
This looks awful. We need to start a petition or something to get United’s attention and do something about the food.
They are well aware it sucks. Linda Jojo was literally asked why is the food so bad at the Skift forum a few weeks, so they’re well aware, they just don’t care.
The mozzarella and tomato thing sucks too, the fruit was much better, or just do a real salad, it’s not hard. They’d be better off just serving snacks than these so called meals.
Did you bring that lime wedge from home or was it provided by UA?
BREAKING NEWS !! United Airlines to announce “historic order” on Tuesday at Boeing’s South Carolina plant. Un officially, the order will be for 125 new “wide bodies “. This story is just breaking and is ongoing, no official confirmation on order ttl just yet.
Where’d you see this Gravelly?
Trust me, it’s for real ;)…
Just kidding!!! Lol…No, seriously, Reuters News Agency and Yahoo Finance, it’s finally happening Jared! Yay.
How much longer do you think the 767s have? They’re just now doing Polaris on the 400s and the oldest 300s (which are the lower Polaris ones) are going back to the factory right now for PP. I’d assume they’re gonna be around for a while with that level of investments?
But at the same time some of the oldest 767s were delivered in 1992, so it seems crazy they’re putting new sears on them right now if they won’t be around for much longer.
Also curious – where do you think United might want build new hubs or focus cities with all their new planes they have coming?
Just saw, fantastic news! Sounds like it is going to be in the 125-150 range. Curious how many are going to be to replace older 777s or 767s vs how many are net new. Have a feeling Kirby wants a lot to be net new. Given the work they’ve been doing on the 777-200s and 767s in recent years, I don’t think these will be retired anytime soon.
Maybe this order will be 7 years out or so though. Can’t wait to find out the details!
Me too, but one thing is for real, it’s a net fleet growth order as well! The ones to go are the 767-300’s and some 777-200, just the oldest ones. These guys are set for gigantic growth and don’t be surprised by the rising of a couple of new/ re hub hubs!
It looks familiar. Like the SW shaker salad they sell (lime, corn, black beans etc) poured over the bed of cauliflower faux rice and zucchini. A slice of tomato, mozzarella on a leaf of something green would have made a better side. That at least would have made a sandwich on a warm roll.
Delta’s sad box during the pandemic looked more appetizing than this
They really should do away with all of their crockery and start over. These casserole dishes are ugly AF and look like they are from Kmart in the 1940’s. As many have said, how are they getting away with this?
And this is why I pig up on meatball sandwiches and cheese cubes at the United Club before boarding.
Rehire all the old Continental folks. Food was always respectable!
Continental Congress of Chefs program had some of the best food I remember in a long time.
This is what UA got from Continental management. Legacy United’s first class food was very good. You don’t remember the ice cream sundae carts? The deli carts? Fresh baked and not reheated cookies? The Taste of Chicago offering- even in coach? The special Hawaiian island trays and main courses-even in coach? The mid flight noodle service going to Japan? The scones preserves and clotted cream going to England? All legacy United. This nastiness is from Continental.
Oh, OK, continental did offer those nasty cheeseburgers. I guess that’s something.
Sounds like a dish designed to induce flatulence with abandon.
United really needs to work on its presentation in premium cabins (the food obviously needs a complete overhaul). The look and feel of United’s service items looks and feels like it all was conceived in a 1980s high school cafeteria.
Whoever is the SVP of inflight catering/inflight guest experience (or whatever their fancy title is) needs to be called to the CEO’s office and fired on the spot! Too many complaints as of late.
Something has to be done at ALL U.S. airlines regarding meal service. As long as they continue to serve “slop” to their premium (and economy buy-on-board) guests for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, they’ll continue to get hate mail for their (lack of) meal catering.
They must quit trying to reinvent the “wheel” (meal). Nobody wants plant-based foods (tried and failed), or anything else we’ve seen displayed in reviews on this site.
Guests want something edible (such as) pot roast with potatoes and carrots, a decent salad, warm bread and a dessert (dinner), a Turkey ham and Swiss wrap with some vegetable sticks and snack chips (lunch), and a ham and cheese omelette, fresh fruit, croissant and Greek yogurt (breakfast).
If they’d plan a menu like this, customers would sing praises and want to fly in their premium cabin.
John Slater is SVP Inflight Services
Seriously though, whomever heads up their catering should have been fired long ago. Whether it’s on the E145 (same biscoffs, stroopwafels or pretzels as the back – gee thanks, Mainline Domestic (one slice of bread French toast) or Polaris across the Atlantic (the smallest A-cup chicken boob I’ve ever seen), the one common denominator is that the catering is just downright laughable.
Fire the person and up your game, UA!
*E175
Glad you found it tasted well, because, visually? It doesn’t look very appealing.
Let’s just state the obvious.. the United premium cabin meals that they have rolled out of late look like watery slop thrown on a plate. A horrible presentation that is not appetizing (and certainly not worthy of being in a premium airline cabin – even a US carrier).