This food review of the special meal vegetarian oriental Cathay Pacific in Economy Class was conducted by Accredited Practising Dietitian, Dr Gloria Leung
This was the second leg of my journey from Seoul (South Korea) back home to Melbourne, after a much-awaited holiday in South Korea with my siblings and cousins. We had a blast and had so much yummy food. Although for me, that was after spending the first 3 days of the trip feeling bloated and gassy. I did expect this before the trip, because my gut usually acts up when I’m stressed or when I don’t get enough sleep. And sure enough, it was chaotic trying to wrap up work to go on holiday and to add on top of that, we took a red-eye flight. But the gut discomfort ended up being so much worse than I expected. So I did all I could to prevent this from happening again on the way home.
I usually don’t go for vegetarian meals on flights, because I’m lactose intolerant and the vegetarian meals typically replace meat with dairy products as the main protein source. So I was definitely intrigued when I saw this ‘Vegetarian Oriental Meal’ on the check-in website, which was described as ‘Vegetarian food prepared in East Asian style, along with fruits and vegetables. No meat, poultry, fish, seafood, eggs, dairy products, roots or bulbous vegetables including ginger, garlic, onion, spring onions, etc.’
First Meal Service
The flight departed at 12.25am from Hong Kong. I also had this special meal on my way to South Korea, which I was pleasantly surprised by and hence raised my expectations. My supper was served at 1.30am, and in the typical special meal fashion, it didn’t come with a menu, but it looked to include:
- A hot main meal – braised shitake mushroom and stir-fry choi sum with dried gluten, served with steamed rice (mixed with corn kernels!)
- A cold dish – blanched carrot sticks, (more) shitake mushroom and dried bean curd, with a soy-sauce type vinegarette
- Some diced melon
- A wholemeal bread roll
As per usual, the special meals were served first. I don’t like eating alone, so I thought I would wait for my brother’s meal to come out. But this took another hour. By this point, we were all nodding off and didn’t really feel like eating. Despite of this, I was satisfied with my meal. Although if you’re not a fan of shitake mushrooms, you’d be in trouble, because there was a lot of it. The hot dish wasn’t bland, which I somewhat expected it to be considering the meal is stated to not include ginger, garlic, onion or spring onion. The mushrooms were most likely braised in soy-sauce-based gravy and maybe seasoned with vegetarian oyster sauce.
Nutrition comment
One of the most surprising elements of the meal tray would be the corn kernels mixed into the rice. As a dietitian we often suggest addition of diced root vegetables or legumes to white rice, to boost its fibre content, however corn is another great option which I thought was good to see. And it wasn’t just used as a garnish. Besides the couple pieces of dried bean curd, there were no other protein foods in the meal. Tofu, beans and legumes would have been a good protein option for a dairy-free vegetarian meal, which could have been added to the braised mushrooms. It would be ideal to have the first meal service as early as possible on red-eye flights as our gut is not programmed to deal with food during the night, which means that we are more likely to feel bloated, groggy and nauseous after eating. Besides, by the time meal service was complete, it was already 3.30am when the lights went off, which meant we only had around 3 hours to try and get some sleep.
Second meal service
My breakfast was served about two and a half hours before landing. As we only had lights out for about 3 hours, I was so sleepy that I wasn’t even hungry at this point. Other passengers on the flight seemed to be feeling the same way, with many putting their blankets over their heads to try and get some more rest, rather than eating. My breakfast included:
- Congee (hot rice porridge), served with shitake mushroom, corn and goji berries
- Some diced fruit
- A coconut yoghurt
- A white bread roll
Congee is a very common southern-Chinese breakfast dish. It’s also a comfort food for many of us – it’s what your mum made for you when you were feeling unwell as a kid. So I must say, I was quite pleased to see this at breakfast. Something hot, plain and non-greasy was probably the only thing I could stomach when both my brain and gut were feeling groggy. As you could see, the topping on the congee was almost identical to what was in the hot main served for supper. The lack of variety meant that if you didn’t like shitake mushroom or corn, you would have had very minimal to eat for the entire flight.
Nutrition comment
Congee is a high GI (glycemic index) dish, as it’s made from white rice and cooked down. So, it’s easy for our gut to digest and absorb. We tend to discourage people to have high GI foods as a day-to-day staple, due to the effects on blood sugar levels. From a travel health perspective our body is also better at processing big hits of carbohydrate during the daytime hours, so it was ideal to serve this at breakfast on flights rather than supper. but in this situation when my gut was struggling already, it’s actually a pretty good option. Our body is also better at processing big hits of carbohydrate during the daytime hours, so it was ideal to serve this at breakfast rather than supper. Similar to supper, this meal tray was lacking in protein. What about the yoghurt though? Isn’t yoghurt a great protein source? Usually yes, but as this yoghurt was coconut-based, it only has ~1g of protein per 100g, which is about ¼ of what a dairy-based yoghurt contains. A soy-based yoghurt would have been a better alternative.
Final words on Special Meal Vegetarian Oriental Cathay Pacific Economy Food
I was intrigued and surprised about the special meal vegetarian oriental offered by Cathay Pacific from the get-go. Being an airline based in Hong Kong one could guess that this option was designed for their East Asian passengers. I was impressed with the dishes that were served as the hot meals, both of which had flavour and tasted great. Since I do not fly regularly, the lack of protein on the meal tray was not too much of an issue however if you fly often or are heading on longer flights then having meals with higher protein content is important. You may also have noticed that drinks were not served with the meal tray – I had to wait until the drinks were served with the regular meal service. So I had the option of having my meal without a drink, or wait for an hour for the drinks to be served with the regular meal service. Offering bottles of water at the beginning of the flight would have been a good alternative, especially as it is difficult to keep hydrated during an overnight flight which typically has a significant lights-out period.
For more special meal reviews see review of special meal gluten free Emirates economy and special meal low lactose Cathay Pacific. If you are flying on Cathay Pacific or out of Hong Kong you might be interested in other reviews
