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.
Last week I scored a rare “battlefield upgrade” on my flight from Los Angeles to Denver, which gave me the opportunity to sample the “smoked 5-spice tofu bowl” on United Airlines in first class.
Smoked 5-Spice Tofu Bowl In United Airlines First Class
It may not seem like it based upon the airline meals I review on Live And Let’s Fly, but I’ve made a conscious effort to curb my meat consumption this year and find protein from other sources (mostly yogurt, fish, and nuts).
My love for red meat makes this difficult, as does my general aversion to plant-based protein sauces…like tofu. Nevertheless, I thought I’d use the opportunity to order United’s version of tofu for lunch (the other choices were a beef and broccoli plate or a glass noodle salad with beef).
Here’s how the dish was described:
Smoked 5-spice tofu bowl
Smoked 5-spice tofu bowl on a bed of long grain rice with broccoli and roasted peppers, topped with cashews in a teriyaki sauce.
It was with some trepidation I dove into this dish because I also don’t care for teriyaki sauce and don’t each much rice (I’m not incredibly strict, but still try to avoid carbs).
The dish did not look very appetizing and for whatever reason, no side salads were loaded with it, making the tray look rather bare and carb-heavy.
I do not have much to compare it to, but the tofu was not bad…it was edible, for lack of a better term. The cashews and vegetables were also a nice accompaniment.
I left most of the rice, the bread, and the dessert behind…though I did eat the warmed mixed nuts.
CONCLUSION
I’m not sure I would order the tofu dish on Untied Airlines again, but I am glad it offers a vegetarian alternative to passengers onboard and don’t think it was so revolting that I could not stomach it. Now I need to experiment more with tofu in my cooking at home.
On a recent flight to hawaii, they served me a meal with rice in both the main course and the “salad”. United has the worst business class meals of the US majors. In both cases the rice was dry.
Hideous
Ewwww
Seriously, if you try to cut both carbohydrates and meat out of your diet, you won’t be left with many options. Tofu only contains 8% protein (as a point of comparison, chicken liver contains just over 24%), you’re better off sticking to almonds.
Nope your protein percentage for Tofu is way off. More like 18%
In the US most people eat far more protein than is needed by the body, so I always find the fixation with getting enough of it to be odd.
If this was your meal of the week how bad were the other choices?
He must have been eating at your house the rest of the week.
When, on your days off?
I’ve never been much of a tofu person but my wife has made this a number of times and I find it to be delicious – good luck expanding your cooking!
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023194-black-pepper-stir-fried-tofu-and-asparagus
Another inferior meal option by United for most passengers. Hopefully, there was a further option available! I’m not into tofu which is also a very inexpensive food item! As a United Lifetime 1K with decades of travel, the airline continues to be mediocre in premium cabin meal service. Even before the Pandemic, United was ahead of current service levels! Other foreign airlines are much beyond United in providing exceptional meal options with inviting presentations and service! Dining in the air can be welcoming and enjoyable. With United, it’s generally unpleasant and disheartening! I do give a major PLUS to Polaris dining at United’s major hubs! Always a superb experience!
I’ve tried it, I’m afraid I had to leave half of it respite my best efforts 🙁
You should have ordered the other option, which was the beef and broccoli with Rice. It was rather tasty!
I really don’t like that dish, but will review it this week.
Sorry, but why does everything UAL serves these days looks like someone threw up on a bowl????
At least the tofu dish was colorful and identifiable. If one was served this on any other airline there would be no complaints from the nut gallery.
I had tofu for the first time as a child staying over with a friend and I am continually appalled that it is still out there masquerading as a food. It is an abomination. There are so many ways to prepare tasty vegetarian dishes without resorting to cubes of soy mush not fit for a horse.
Can you do a story on who at United picks the meals? Would really love to know their background given the lackluster state of meal services.
At least your tofu was seasoned and cooked. I know UA economy meals are rare and uninspiring, but a January 2023 OGG-DEN flight featured “Tofu with noodles.” The F.A. knew nothing about it, but I said yes (other dish was chicken with quinoa, I think).
A cold box plunked down with plain, unseasoned, right from the container tofu cubes over plain cooked, wide egg noodles. No restaurant on earth would put these two together. And no cook – even in a home kitchen – would serve something totally, 100% unspiced & unsauced. Totally, horribly plain. Not even a 10 cent ‘kikkoman’ soysauce packet. The worst offering I’ve ever had, and I ate some truly tragic PanAm transatlantic econ meals in the late 70s early 80s!!
(The kicker: my partner said the chicken+grain dish seemed decent. Oops)
That sounds horrible!