Eating onboard Qatar Airways [On the plane]

So I managed to dig out the menu cards from my flights, and I now have a better idea of what I ate.

It has been many years since I flew Qatar Airways that I have no recollection of my flight.

Finally there was a chance to fly Qatar Airways and I was rather curious if the inflight meals would be quite different.

The seat pitch was pleasantly good, and I was surprised by the lack of reading materials such as inflight magazine, inflight entertainment magazine and inflight sales magazine that usually took up a lot of space in the front seat pocket.  The lack of such bulky things perhaps made the seat pockets flatter, hence contributing to more seat pitch.

I had assumed that there would be inflight sales onboard, and was looking forward to see what quirky Qatar Airways-related merchandize such as plane models and stuffed toys, but was stunned when there was absolutely no inflight sales.  I wonder if the crew was affected monetarily with the scrapping of inflight sales, but service was pleasant.

Amenity kits were handled out, and again I was surprised with the ziplog bags.  I wasn't expecting luxury amenity kits ala Business class, but a reusable zippered pouch would have been useful.  Still, the cheery ziplog bags are reusable.

For longer flights, hot meals were served, as well as snack packs consisting of baked items.  The items were not too bad, just that it would have been easier if they came in bags so that I can save them to eat during transit.  A box definitely takes up more space than a bag, and I honestly don't mind eating a flattened muffin during transit.

Most full service airlines offer a choice of two mains, but Qatar Airways surprisingly offered 3 on the menu.  1 of the options was vegetarian, thus special vegetarian orders didn't have to be made in advance, although special meals were still offered where passengers could pre-order them.

For the breakfast service, there was the obligatory omelette and sausage (omelette with cheddar cheese and mushroom cream sauce), accompanied by fresh fruits, yoghurt with passion fruit jam (yoghurt with mango compote), a bread roll (butter croissant) with jam (instead of butter, available on request) and a bottle of water.  I preferred the yoghurt to supermarket-bought ones which sometimes seem too diluted.  I just wonder why there was only 1 sausage...(because the description was chicken sausage - notice there was no 's' to sausage, baked beans and green beans - kinda odd to eat green beans for breakfast).  I honestly remembered the jam on the yoghurt as passion fruit, now I realised it was mango compote)

Pancakes with blueberry compote (Mini pancakes with mixed berry compote) was nice and sweet, and the portion much better than Turkish Airlines' single waffle. 

The vegetarian option was oats and bread pudding (Honey and oats pudding, with vanilla sauce), which was filling but too sweet for my liking after the third slice.

Oriental vegetarian option can also be pre-ordered, but it wasn't too good.  The vegetarian beehoon was cooked in water, and it was bland and tasted odd and unlike the usual beehoon.

For the dinner service, the oriental vegetarian pre-ordered meal was rice with beancurd, which was more delish than the water-cooked beehoon.  Salad was diced ladysfinger, an interesting vegetable which I had never seen offered in inflight economy meals before.

There was also beef stew with some broccoli-something (beef stew with carrots and onions), accompanied by a serving of macaroni (macaroni salad) and yoghurt (the dessert wasn't a yoghurt but a Mahalabia - a Middle Eastern style milk pudding).  The beef stew was a little too salty, and I gave up on the broccoli-something (turns out the green stuff wasn't a broccoli-something, but spinach spätzle - a kind of pasta made with fresh eggs in Southern Deutschland, Österreich and der Schweiz,) which was too weird (and I still think it tasted weird).  The macaroni was overcooked and I didn't enjoy the texture, and so had to wait hungrily for the snack boxes to be distributed as I didn't finish my meal.

The chicken with roasted potatoes and peas were much better, compared to the beef stew.

The inflight meals of Qatar Airways seemed inconsistent in taste and the broccoli-something must be the weirdest I had tasted.  I guess the catering services providing the meals play a part too.  I would be really happy to eat basmati rice onboard!