I’m live-blogging my SAS EuroBonus SkyTeam Million Mile challenge this week. Click here for background and route information.
Augustine and I enjoyed hot meals on TAROM in economy class while traveling from Madrid to Bucharest, but it cost a pretty penny.
Taste Test: Hot Buy On Board Meals On TAROM
TAROM is the flag carrier and state-owned enterprise of Romania, offering airline service across Europe via its hub at Bucharest Henri Coandă International Airport. Up until the pandemic, TAROM was one of the few carriers that continued to offer complimentary meals in economy class, even hot meals on flights more than two hours.
During the pandemic, though, TAROM reduced its meal service to water only in both economy class and business class. When it brought back meal service in 2023, it eliminated free meals in economy class. It now sells snacks onboard and hot meals can be pre-ordered at least 24 hours in advance.
Just as I did with SAS the day before, I ordered lunch for Augustine and me on our 3.5-hour TAROM flight to Bucharest. The TAROM website was easy enough to navigate (when you pull up your reservation on the website, you can click to add meals) and I selected one pork chop and one baked chicken breast at a cost of €16 each.
During the flight, the meals were not served proactively.
While the flight attendants were selling snacks and drinks, I asked about our meals and was told, “Oh, those are yours? They were not labeled. We figured the people who ordered them would let us know.”
Alrighty then…
The meals were served on trays in large boxes.
Opening the pork dish, I found a covered container along with a cake, beet salad, bread, and eating utensils.
Removing the aluminum, I found the pork dish included green beans and mashed potatoes…it did not look like a pork chop to me, though.
Augustine wanted the pork, so he got this and I got the chicken breast.
The cake was from Dr. Oetker, a German company, and was decent:
I know those are two really unsightly main dishes, but the chicken and the pork were quite decent…it helped to pass the time on a long flight with no wi-fi or power and certainly helped keep us full considering we would have no lounge access in Bucharest Airport.
Is 16€ a bit much for this lunch? Sure. But I was glad I tried it.
Each week, 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.
€16 for THAT?!
Wouldn’t make more sense to maybe order some decent sandwiches from the airport in Madrid that you could eat while on board? I am assuming there was some better food since you were in Spain. The meals you ordered did not look good at all and I would definitely pass on that processed cake.
That is what I would have done. But this is a blog which covers airline meal service. Kinda needed to be ordered even if there was no intent actually to eat it.
It makes sense. I am wondering if Matthew and Augustine will need a detox from all the processed food they are eating during this mileage challenge. Eating on planes, airport lounges and hotels cannot be good for them.
I wanted to see what the airline offered and was happy to try it. Would I order it again? Nope.
Santastico, you must be having a field day with all the food reviews on this trip…if I recall you once mentioned working in the food industry.
@MikePS: Yes, I have been in the food industry for a long time. I am huge proponent of healthier food options and truly believe our food system is broken. I am very specific on things I buy for my family, read all product labels and try to eat as healthy as possible.
You took one for the team.
Thank you.
That pork chop looks like… a pork chop :confused:
Doesn’t a pork chop have a bone?
Looks like a slice off a pork lion roast.
Well, at some point in every pork chop’s life it has an associated bone.
But they are regularly marketed without, especially when someone wants to prepare a butterflied chop or pound them down to make a stuffed, rolled, delicacy.
See:
https://wildforkfoods.com/products/pork-new-york-chops/
It’s a pork loin roast ( not lion as auto correct wishes it to be ) This is also a traditional Romanian dish.
Don’t lose any sleep over not having lounge access at Bucharest Henri Coandă International Airport – it’s not much to write home about.
@ps241 … Not even a quick post card to your enemy ? .. ” Wish you were here, ingesting this slop & drinking dishwater !”
@ Matthew — THIS.
What was the green stuff with the half chicken breast? It looks like either mushy peas or avocado…
It was smashed peas and mashed potatoes.
I am late to reading this story but why is “Million” spelled incorrectly? (Day after day)