Often the best inflight meals are soups. That’s something tough to mess up in a galley. They can be heavily seasoned to counteract the taste bud-dulling affects of cabin pressurization, and they just need to be heated.
While the very best soups I’ve had inflight have been on Asian airlines, even United Airlines has done a really good job with their Polaris soups.
Thai Airways Duck Rice Soup
Singapore Airlines Laksa
ANA Ramen
Soups work well in club lounges as well. You don’t have to rely on actual skills from Sodexho or other outsourced employees to prepare a good dish, and they sit well too.
Delta Sky Clubs serve a Thai chicken rice soup that’s surprisingly good. Supposedly though it’s just Campbell’s Thai Style Chicken and Rice Soup which you can buy at Amazon. Seriously?
FlyBitcoin discovers that what Sky Clubs are serving is actually Campbell’s Reserve Wicked Thai Style Chicken and Rice Soup, the Campbell’s Food Service variant not the kind you buy in cans.
Naturally, since the soup is pretty good a serving has 260 calories (versus 150 for the canned version) along with 18 grams of fat (not 5). You think it’s delicious and good for you, too, but…
@Gary – whaaaaat?! I can (theoretically) buy Wicked Thai soup???
I was connecting at 10PM on a Saturday night and the ATL flagship club was packed – like a nightclub with the new bar layout and fancy lighting. I was pleasantly surprised to see my all-time fav SkyClub fare. They had it paired with heat your own breadsticks (feed into one of those bagel toasters). OMG the carbs. Not to mention Sweetwater 420 IPA on tap. Mmmmmmmmm….
Someone thought they made it fresh? All food companies have huge food service divisions. Just heat and serve.
It doesn’t have rice in it (so not this same product), but the Admirals Club Thai chicken soup is one of my favorites – the flavor profile is surprisingly on point for something that comes out of a bag.
ANA Ippudo ramen is the best inflight soup that I’ve had IMO better than Roast Duck Noodle Soup on Cathay.
It is weird to me that the prepared soup you can buy in supermarkets is generally much worse than the soup made by big manufacturers for commercial establishments. You can definitely make great soup in factories! This company, for example, supplies many fancy seafood restaurants with their “artisanal clam chowder.” Apparently, making homemade soup is an expensive PITA and restaurants don’t want to bother — especially since their results are often not superior. Kind of a dirty little secret in the business.
http://www.kettlecuisine.com/
I’ve seen them wheel the cases of Campbell’s into the lounge before. 100% Campbell’s commercial version of all the soups.
I’m not complaining. Those delicious soups are half the reason I keep my lounge membership!
I was not a big fan of the ANA Ippudo ramen myself; I don’t like bean sprouts in soup.