I’m live-blogging my SAS EuroBonus SkyTeam Million Mile challenge this week. Click here for background and route information.
After we visited the Air India Lounge and both JFK T4 Delta SkyClubs, we returned to Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse ahead of our Virgin flight to London for dinner.
We were warmly welcomed back to the lounge and had a couple hours before our flight departed. Agustine said he was hungry so we headed over to the restaurant and grabbed a window seat looking out on our aircraft, a sleek Airbus A330-900neo that had just arrived.
The food in this lounge is very good. I began with a salad featuring baby kale, shaved Brussels sprouts, and quinoa with toasted almonds, roasted New York apples, squash, and a sherry – dijon vinaigrette. It was a delicious appetizer.
For my main course, I ordered roast Atlantic salmon, served with a brown butter parsnip purree, harissa roasted carrots, and pesto…it was perfect…the sort of onboard airline meal I can only hope for.
I also had a side of mac ’n cheese with it, which included truffled wild mushrooms and a parmesan breadcrumb topping.
Augustine, meanwhile, decided after examining the menu that he only wanted dessert…and ordered a Clubhouse signature cookie with pistachio, dark chocolate, and sea salt, and vanilla ice cream.
Yeah…not the type of diet we are trying to encourage…but this is a special trip and at least he had eaten a bowl of chicken noodle soup with vegetables in the Delta Lounge.
I had a Negroni with dinner but skipped an after-dinner coffee so that I could fall asleep faster on the flight.
I was very happy to spend so much time in this lounge and look forward to returning. The SkyTeam Elite Plus status I have with SAS is going to make this mostly economy class trip much more bearable.
Brilliant dinner. That looks really good.
Did you status match to SAS gold? I see it mentioned elsewhere.
Yes, I did. So glad I did.
Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at LHR is one of my favorite lounges by far.
JFK one is certainly not as good, but still an excellent lounge.
Good for Augustine. Dessert is often the best part of a meal and it’s terrible when you get to dessert and you’re full. Makes way more sense to eat dessert first, and then appetizer/main/sides, or maybe even a second dessert. A meal like that every once in a while has no significant impact on overall nutrition. I’m now much more of a fan for you allowing it (once in a while) as you did.
I’m in shock you passed on the burger. Next time try the crispy skin salmon with warm molasses barbecue sauce and fried rice.
A rare example of a solid Plaza Premium lounge. I wonder how much Virgin spends because I’ve seldom seen good food or drinks at Plaza Premium. Their Heathrow lounges used by KLM and Air France are awful.