For an airline as renowned and beloved worldwide as Emirates, I was expecting something relatively breathtaking – indeed, their own menu alludes to wanting to create something extraordinary, not just the usual ‘chicken or beef', and yet here we are, with a menu that leads with options that are either chicken, or beef.
Airline: Emirates EK161
Route: Dubai – Dublin Airport (Approx. 7 Hours)
Class: Business
This was a flight I didn't even intend to be a passenger on, having originally expected to be enjoying a grand slumber on Etihad's EY45 service to Dublin until a pesky misconnection put paid to that hope. To Etihad's eternal credit, they did come up with a solution, comical as it was, which was to put us in a taxi and send us urgently across the UAE to Dubai Airport, to arrive barely in time for this flight, EK161, to Dublin.
After only a few brief hours' sleep, lunch service commenced with a few hours to landing with a choice of lentil soup (no, thanks), Arabic mezze, or seafood antipasti for starters. Seafood right after waking up does not at all seem like my cup of tea, and I knew I wouldn't be able to make it to the main course after a hearty Arabic mezze, so that left us with the choice of no starter, or lentil soup. No starter it was – I did, of course, however gladly start the afternoon's beverageing instead.
On to the main, and I opted for the roasted chicken, having had beef on my earlier flight from Singapore. Overall the meal – and I'm struggling, unusually, to be negative, or really positive – was ‘fine' The chicken was tender, the potatoes (or wedges, as they were more like) and broccoli were all perfectly edible. The sauce was hardly much in the way of ‘peppercorn', and more like lubricant to aid digestion.
It all helped aid the important business of drinking, and kept me full for the hours' ahead.
Dessert meanwhile was a dark chocolate custard cake, very carefully sliced as you can see, with a sum total investment of 1 very thinly-sliced strawberry perched atop.
Thankfully one thing was not being economically meted out were the drinks, and I have to say the crew did a great job both proactively keeping everyone topped up and not in need of anything, and also being most hospitable. This is a complaint I've had with Emirates several times previously – the inconsistency of the crew, who have sometimes been fantastic and other times, been completely uninterested. This time, we struck gold.
The drinks continued to flow until I elected to try (unsuccessfully, thanks Emirates for the ageing angled-flat seats) to have one last hours' power-nap prior to landing.
Overall, a filling, if not inspired, feast from Emirates in their business class cabin to Dublin. Certainly the dining could be considered a little bland, only pulled back by virtue of a great crew and their dedication to keeping the good times rolling – which is something I can always appreciate.
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