Gotta love Anthony Bordain...

[wsuffa]

Those of you who watch the Travel Channel know who Anthony Bordain is. He's a chef that has a travel show, where he travels to all kinds of places with a very keen (and sarcastic) sense of humor. One of the best shows on TV, IMHO.

In any event, he's a guest judge on Top Chef. And he has a blog. Apparently one of the Top Chef challenges was for the contestants to produce an "airline" meal. Bordain's comments in his blog are priceless. For example:

It was not a happy week for me on Top Chef -- nor, I suspect, was it good for most of the contestants. New Jersey may be my childhood home and the cradle of American culture, but who wants to spend more time than they have to at Newark Airport? While I like the fact that I can climb into a big, winged metal tube and be carried anywhere on earth I choose, eating on planes is, for me, most of the time, only marginally preferable to a colonoscopy.

Those of us who travel a lot will find the entire blog entertaining.

http://www.bravotv.com/blog/anthonybourdain/2007/09/8_miles_high.php?page=2

I take a lot of airplanes. Many tens of thousands of miles a year in the air. Reluctantly, I have become, I'm afraid, something of an expert on the subject of air travel. And I have, to say the least, low expectations of what to expect when the slop gurney comes rolling down the aisle -- even when in business class.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

I guess he flies international- the only place to get even the "slop gurney" now.

 

[t0r0nad0]

Yeah, I watched that episode (the better half and I love Top Chef and watch it every week)... he made some funny comments during the show. Of course, I can't remember any of them right now, but they were pretty good.

The challenge was for the chefs to prepare a new BusinessFirst meal using the supplies found in the Chelsea/Continental kitchen at EWR. They then had to heat and serve those meals aboard a COA 772 that was parked in a hangar to the judges and several "air travel experts"... which turned out to be a group of COA Flight Attendants! In all, a very good and entertaining episode, though many of the chefs failed miserably... I guess it proves that the crappy airplane food isn't entirely the airlines' fault.

On a side-note... COA does still give you food on domestic flights during mealtimes - even in "poverty" class. On the longer flights (New York - Houston or West Coast - Houston) they typically even serve hot sandwiches, a salad, chips, and a dessert candy of some sort. The medium-length flights typically get a cold ham or turkey sandwich, chips, baby carrots, and dessert.

IMO, the meals up in domestic BusinessFirst aren't too bad, especially for airline food.