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.
There are a few new menu items this month on United Airlines in first class that I will be reviewing in the days ahead. Maybe I ordered it on a bad night, but I was deeply disappointed by the Japanese-style curry chicken on a recent flight from Chicago to Los Angeles.
United Airlines Offers Japanese-Style Curry Chicken In First Class
Officially called the Japanese-style curry chicken bowl, the meal is actually served in a casserole dish rather than a bowl. It includes noodles, sliced chicken strips, carrots, and green onions, with a brown curry sauce sprinkled over it.
I found this to be a very disappointing entree, primarily because the chicken was extremely dry. I also found the curry sauce to have an odd flavor that was sort of halfway between curry and just a simple chicken broth.
The noodles needed a lot more sauce, the carrots were bland, and the onions few and far between.
The flight attendants also did not bother to heat up the bread or cookie, which was probably a good thing because it made it easier for me not to eat them.
United is mixing up its first class menu this month with a number of new entrees and for the first time since the pandemic, different options based on the direction of travel. The ability to pre-order meals is also available, though still limited to narrowbody aircraft.
My advice: avoid the chicken curry bowl. If I order it again and it turns out better, I’ll post an update, but it was certainly a disappointment out of Chicago.
Have you tried the Japanese-Style Curry Chicken bowl on United Airlines?
I’ve had it. It’s bad, and I think I have a pretty forgiving palate.
It looks like they tried to make curry udon but they used linguini and were trying to use as little curry sauce as possible. Absolutely butchered it by the looks of it and not surprised at the lack of flavoring. Personally had my fill of curry udon and curry ramen in Japan and Korea whenever I visit and even the lowest rated noodles place in Seoul or Tokyo would not serve it like this.
In regards to your last post about Scott Kirby saying business travel is slipping, this is a reason why. It’s not a hard fix, just make the food halfway decent again.
The food on United is worse than what they serve in third world country jails right now.
If you just fix the food United is the best airline in the US by far. Come on Scott, it isn’t that complicated.
I agree with you completely Jared, it should really be a very low hanging fruit!! Someone over at UA ‘s C Suite should be shown the door ASAP, it’s truly embarrassing!!
Let me great this right, CEO’s and CFO’s are deciding to cut corporate travel for their employees because the food on the plane sucks?
Might be the stupidest comment ever on this site and that’s saying a lot.
Let me get this right, you are saying executives are cutting down on their employees traveling because the food on the plane sucks? Yea, that is the reason.
Might be the stupidest comment ever on this site. And trust me there have been a lot, from myself included.
No I’m not saying that at all, I’m saying people who are buying J fare are buying other airlines because they don’t want United’s pathetic food. Has nothing to do with the CEO and CFOs, they don’t tell employees what to fly, most employees can pick for themselves.
No I’m not saying that at all, I’m saying people who are buying J fare are buying other airlines because they don’t want United’s pathetic food. Has nothing to do with the CEO and CFOs, they don’t tell employees what to fly, most employees can pick for themselves.
Years ago United served Chicken Katsu Curry onboard and it was actually delicious. I think I had it 3-4x on the ORD-SFO 747 flights that were operated before it was retired and maybe one other time. It was really tasty, lately I’ve actually passed on the inflight meals in F since they have been so horrible. Also, I just flew VIE-ORD on Austrian and had one of the best inflight experiences and meals ever. I’m destroyed after that.
This looks like an insult to Japanese curry.
What a shame – this is a good idea, but it seems the execution is off.
On a plane, I want something flavorful and out of my ordinary culinary routine. And Japanese curry ought to be something that can be managed with the limitations of a 737’s galley.
I hope they will not give up on what should have promise.
I had it for the first time last week. It was effectively inedible. Yes, if I hadn’t had food in 24 hours, I probably would choke it down (possibly literally, it was so dry), but otherwise I would rather have a Tapas box.
A Japanese 7-11 has better food. Sliced frozen chicken breast strips, frozen carrots, freezed dried green onion and a squirt of cheap sauce. It’s embarrassing.
I had it on Friday evening. I did not turn on my light. So, it is very helpful to see your pictures. The chicken was crazy dry and no flavor to anything beyond the small sections of chicken that had the curry sauce. That is the noodles were ok but no sauce, gravy, etc.
I was not sure what the sugary thing served with the bread was. I think you called it a cookie. It was shaped like a tiny pie. They did heat ours. It seemed like a blondie brownie with fudge or fudge brownie in the center. I thought that was very good.
Overall, Glad I had a cheese steak at the airport. Thank you for the review.
This was served on a recent flight I took to IAH. It smelled and tasted bad and the person seated next to me just haded it back to the flight attendant and asked for a Diet Coke. United continues to offer some of the most inedible, disgusting food in its premium cabins. Even at the height of the mess that was the integration of UA and CO, the food then was better. That’s saying something.
I admire your ability to continue flying United for year after year, even when their food quality would not pass muster in a college dorm.
I was just thinking it looks like something from the college dining common back in the day. Like when they served “chow mein” using spaghetti noodles.
I’ve had it a handful of times now, and it’s average at best. It might be better if they actually cooked the chicken in the sauce. It leaves me longing for the meatballs.
However, credit where credit’s due. I don’t want to go all negative on United Polaris without giving them due credit and praise where it belongs. I’ve been extremely critical of the
Polaris catering product ie. food, however there is an area where they do excel. Their wine, champagne and port cellars has to be one of the best in the sky. No joke. Their selection, options and price puts All US carriers and some European carriers to shame! Certainly the likes of AA that pours nothing short of liquid piss!! and don’t even get me started on Delta…Try them out, I mean it, you won’t be disappointed!!
So instead of BYOB it should be bring your own sandwich! And at the price of good spirits could they not budget in slightly more palatable food? because it’s getting hard to imagine anything worse
I know what you mean and are trying to say, but the beverage options certainly don’t match the menu. It makes no sense. However, they’re really good at it. They just need to go that extra mile and just improve the food a little, not even by a long stretch, just a little bit. Presentation and taste matter!!
Why don’t they let you order a snack box from coach as an alternative??!!??!!
They do – but this was my first time trying the dish.
I doubt UA reads these comments, but if they do, please get a hint and improve the food. Domestic first food is bad, and when I am paying $6,000 for a ticket, I expect a menu, courses, and quality food in Polaris. Instead, I get mix and match salad and dressing (Asian salad with honey mustard, caprese with sesame ginger, etc.), mediocre food all served on the same tray, no cheese course, no wine list, etc. I remember flying before the pandemic and earlier. I remember Dom Perignon and caviar. I remember warm nuts. I remember a choice of salad dressings and appetizers. I am paying far more for tickets, and getting far less for it,
Absolute garbage. I believe the Russian convicts in Ukraine are eating this pathetic food to increase their anger and frustration. What is UA thinking? They need to fire their food service team who clearly are being bribed to purchase this 3rd rate junk. Stick to the boring snack boxes.
Looks more like ‘skid mark chicken’. Not particularly Japanese either
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.
Amen!
I’ve seen you post several meal pictures from United and I have say, I have not seen one appetizing meal yet. While none of the US3 are stellar on catering, I do have to say since DL switched to Do & Co. for DTW based catering, I have seen a marked improvement in the catering out of DTW.
I was just on a flight to and from Vegas starting in Newark, and they served this dish both ways. On the way out to Vegas, the noodles were so dry you could break your teeth on them. The chicken was also very dry. It was just a disaster meal. Horrible flavor. However, the little cookie muffin looking thing was actually good.
On the way home the meal was more moist and the noodles were better, but it was still not good. The quality of chicken was not good. They truly need to do a better job with their meals in business class.
Why it is so difficult for United to get it right? Because they are lazy and cheap. If that food was served on their HQ cafeteria, people would bring food from home. That looks disgusting as all things served by United. There are lots of ways to get good quality, healthy food on planes at decent prices. All they need to want it. United doesn’t care.
The FA should bring you all and empty plate then slap the hell out of you.
Nothing is going to be good enough anyway.
The preparation had a lot to be desired. I think if you like the flavor, it might have been tasty, if not served Luke warm, very dry, without much of the sauce. The roll was pretty good, so was the Blondie, or whatever it was supposed to be, stuffed with chocolate. Fortunately, washed everything down with a double Jack in the rocks!
Had this on my flight from Chicago to San Francisco this week. Was looking up reviews to see what other people’s thoughts were.
I actually quite enjoyed it. The side of some kind of cous cous salad seemed an odd combination but was quite tasty. The noodles were properly cooked. The crunch of the carrots were a good contrast to the soft udon. I felt there was just enough sauce, though it needed stirring to distribute.
The chicken itself was indeed slightly dry and not very good quality. But overall this was an interesting meal that might be the best meat dish I’ve had in United first in a while. Not that that’s saying much…