In a rather daring move, United Airlines will start offering crinkle-cut French fries with its first class cheeseburgers starting later this month. Will United be able to pull off decent French Fries?
French Fries On United Airlines
The domestic first class meals will largely be staying the same this month, though with one important addition on select flights. When taking a look at the menu for an upcoming United Airlines flight, I noticed that the usual cheeseburger was available as a pre-order option, but included French fries! There was even a picture (above).
I thought I’d write about this once I tried it, but someone shared a memo with JonNYC on these French fries, which give us a bit more insight:
- French fries will be available starting on May 10th
- These will only be available via pre-order and only on hub-to-hub flights
- French fries will be placed in a box wrapped in oven-safe plastic in the onboard ovens
- The meal tray will include an empty bowl for flight attendants to place the French fries in
Now git yer french fry on: https://t.co/DAGKWdrrfr pic.twitter.com/xLtivRbM0v
— 🇺🇦 JonNYC 🇺🇦 (@xJonNYC) May 4, 2023
United Airlines does cheeseburgers well and I enjoyed one last week on my way to the Freddies.
The addition of French Fries will sadly mean the elimination of salad with the burger option, though a side of lettuce, tomato, and pickles will be offered.
I’ve had French fires in the air a number of times. Most recently it was on Air Serbia on a flight from Istanbul to Belgrade. The French fries came out soft, but were still quite enjoyable.
CONCLUSION
United Airlines will start offering French fries with its crowd-pleasing cheeseburger in the first class cabin of select flights later this month. At this point, I’m quite curious and will reserve praise or judgment until I try them. But I do appreciate the effort. It’s worth a try…
Have you ever had good French fries on an airplane?
Not gonna lie, I haven’t had fries on an airplane before so it is something. It will either be a huge success or backfire horribly.
I see this going extraordinarily poorly. I can only imagine how soggy and nasty those fries will be.
I hate the processed look of crinkle cut fries, hand cut please. Crinkle have more surface area so shouldn’t be horrible, but tbd
One can hope. But, as you said, TBD. Just oven fries have never worked out for me.
I agree, fries really need to be fried. The closest I ever came to decent with oven were these but I gave up on oven fries myself otherwise. https://i.postimg.cc/rwzPR4Rs/Screen-Shot-2023-05-04-at-12-50-15-PM.png
I will say a rosary that whoever is holding the plateware budget hostage will replace these ugly dishes so we can all move on https://i.postimg.cc/cJpyLCr2/United-Airlines-French-Fries.jpg
Hey United! Learn how to provide decent BASIC food before you try to do French fries! And this is coming from a 1K that packs snacks when I am in Polaris on my international flights.
Well said, Christian… agree completely.
Crinkle cut fries are already soft/soggy coming from many restaurants/fast food places, not thinking an airline version will be well below that standard. They should offer thick cut potato chips instead.
They shouldn’t be if fried correctly but workers probably pulling too early. Not sure how they will fare in the ovens.
You have experience pulling out early?
Fantastic-no, my least favorite NPC in Matthew’s wide and varied collection.
While I can certainly cook, and cook well, sexually, Taureans have no problem with stamina or in the bedroom. I’ll spare you the specifics to keep this PG. I am very picky and selective but BDE is always high demand, so no shortage of suitors and takers.
Now if I was an NPC, different story.
https://i.postimg.cc/Kj0CdSHv/C5515-EB9-B3-CB-438-B-81-CB-7-D501815-FCCB.jpg
I think there are airlines out there who could pull it off. I just don’t think UA is one of them…
So now what are we supposed to eat once we land at LAX?
It does seem the push towards lounge eating is the strategy.
Jerry, I always leave room for In-N-Out.
You said you eat healthy at home lol. Never had it but reviews are mixed. Once Ghislaine Maxwell was photographed there it lost appeal
Hasn’t UA heard of an air fryer?
You get the best fries in an air fryer
Actually good point because that made me think how the lovely Breville Smart Oven works and it has convection. air friers and apparently plane ovens are also convection according to Simple Flying. So maybe there’s hope after all. They must have tested, right? Unfortunate they are removing the salad though but it was rather pitiful to begin with so might as well go comfort food.
Wondering if they can have an airfyer on a plane as that would do the trick. Otherwise it will be soggy.
If they can make leather out of beef I’m confident they can burn French fries to a crisp.
Apparently they do https://simpleflying.com/how-food-is-cooked-on-an-aircraft
Plane food is designed to be reheated. These on the ground facilities will prepare, cook, and package large quantities of meals. Depending on the type of food, after cooking, it will either be chilled or frozen until it is reheated onboard (usually within ten hours of preparation). A lot of food, including most meats, are carefully partially cooked. The reheating process will then take over the final part of the cooking.
Once onboard, the chilled food needs to be heated using the aircraft ovens. Each type of dish will have instructions for its re-heating and preparation. For most economy meals, reheating simply takes places in the provided tray. For more luxurious premium cabin meals, they will often be reheated in a provided tray and then transferred to other dishes for serving.
The ovens on an aircraft are specialized convection ovens with food heating using hot air. Microwaves are not used (although some early 747s did have them onboard). The meals are loaded on trays into the oven. Most meals take around 20 minutes to heat, and of course, they are heated and served in batches.
–Perhaps this answers my question about eggs..chilled then reheated? Also I wonder how true the 10 hours thing is.
You are correct about the convection ovens onboard planes. At Continental when I was flying, we’d have filet mignon boarded barely cooked – just browed on the outside with grill marks. Trick to cooking a good filet onboard was to take the lid off the aluminum pan, and only cook for about 15 minutes on 300 – came out medium rare every time. However, if you didn’t take the lid off before cooking the meat would steam, turn gray and overdone. Eggs benedict was never cooked in the oven. Hot water from the coffee maker was poured into the pan to warm, then with the muffins & hollandaise heated in the oven, they came out perfect. Only problem was the flight kitchen didn’t always board poached eggs. Cleveland station was notorious for boarding fully cooked eggs. Our early 747’s had microwaves as well as our DC-10s that were industrial strength – 10 seconds in those microwaves would turn most everything into molten lava. If UA crews do it right, the fries should come out okay.
Very interesting, thanks! Appreciate the info on the eggs, too. I’ve heard that those types of tips for cooking the filet and many other service related items are not currently in the (very short) service section of FA training–not sure if accurate–but that overall most employees (if they put in the effort) pick up the type of knowledge you’re speaking of on the line. Either way. I really don’t know how they do it on narrow bodies alone with such limited storage space and room to work. As a server who dropped a tray of 10 cokes all over people a large party at Pizza Hut when I was 16, kind of fascinating to hear about they work.. thanks again.
Also was the benny ever served with the well done eggs? Meaning were any pax requesting ever culinary creations? Please write a book on your career and promote it here when ready. Love reading this kind of thing.
were any pax ever requesting culinary creations?* must be dyslexic or needing to wear my stronger rx glasses
The arrival meal on ORDHNL back in 2021 featured a hamburger with sweet potato wedges. They were absolutely gross in texture and overcooked…..can’t really see french fries holding up much better. I’ve come to the conclusion overall there is no way to properly replicate restaurant french fries in any sort of air fryer…..I expect to be disappointed with these as well and would much prefer potato salad or a green salad as an accompaniment.
Matthew how was the cheeseburger this month? Think the current one is called the four cheese skillet cheeseburger. It doesn’t look that appealing in the pictures as previous ones, and there are actually some good preorder options this month, so I haven’t gone with the burger but curious if you enjoyed it.
I had the beer cheese burger a month ago or so and it was fantastic, probably the best of any of the UA burgers. Was hoping they kept it around for longer but they seem to always change them out.
They all look and sound pretty good and iirc Matthew loves them all. I’m all for the comfort angle with the overall menu but also with a some elegant healthy options. Comfort and healthy, but make it Martha Stewart.
Matt FYI check the Flyertalk let’s eat thread…
UA has seriously upgraded the wine in Polaris, at least on Europe – USA as of May 1 – even a printed wine list
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/35215105-post848.html
Saw this (and also a memo from UA). Story coming!
There is no first class in United neither on any US based airline
That may be true in practice, but not in marketing:
https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/travel/inflight/cabin/first.html
“Fires in the air” are always dangerous, whether French or from anywhere else. Scaring to hear that you have already experienced that several times. 🙂
I just got off a flight where they only had Chicken Katsu or Jackfruit on Polaris. Chicken with rice and a side of rice. FA said they haven’t had burgers in a long time. Not even in economy. I love that burger in a pretzel bun. Better than any entrée. I love United but the food is barely edible.