Are you ready? Here it comes:
I am a fussy eater! I like food, I like it a lot and a lot of it. But I like it a certain way – my way!
This may come as a surprise or shock to you, but if you think about it, there were signs!
My attitude to eating out is best described by the title of an e-mail I once got:
“Consider the Menu a Starting Point!
Any respectable joint in the country—even fast-food purveyors—will tailor your meal to your desires, but only if you voice them!”
And this is exactly what I do. The menu does not tell me the food options I have, it merely outlines what the cook has in his kitchen and leaves it up to me to combine the available ingredients to my heart’s desire!
In the past two years, I think I have only once ordered a dish without requesting alterations (and it was probably a soup). Waiters who normally don’t take notes will get a pen once I place my order…
My bare minimum request is usually to have the sauce on the side. Other ones include asking for a dish without mushrooms, salad instead of chips, goats cheese instead of feta, ice cream instead of whipped cream, double veg instead of potatoes or - on a good day - to have the fish from Fish Dish A, but please prepared the way you prepare the fish in Fish Dish B. On a very good day I will then go on and specify my veggie preferences…
To summarise – I am every waiter’s worst nightmare!
On the other hand – I tend to get exactly what I want and am therefore a very happy and most grateful customer!
It may not always be easy to get the food you want in a restaurant, but it is certainly always possible! The challenge of “Getting what you want the way you want it” is much bigger on other occasions – conferences and airplanes, for example.
Airplane food is world famous for being close to inedible and airlines rejoice in their bad reputation and our low expectations and shamelessly continue to serve a bad, undefined and tasteless something they dare to call food.
But on my stubborn mission to get what I want the way I want it, I discovered a cunning strategy to get decent food and preferential treatment on airplanes: Order special meals!
Normally passengers get a choice of two meal options in every booking class. However, most airlines also offer a selection of special meals to cater for different diets and allergies: Halal, Kosher, low sodium, vegetarian, gluten free…
But when it comes to special meals, it does not make economic sense for the airline to distinguish between different classes: There are usually only a few requests for special meals and rather than prepare different ones for economy, business and first class, airlines simply serve the same meal across all classes. So by ordering a special meal, you get the same food in Economy as in First Class and chances are it is fresher too.
Ever since realising this, I have sampled different options to find the best special meal and I think I may have found it on my trip to London – and the winner is... The Seafood Option!
On my way out I had line fish with tomato salsa for dinner and a muffin with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for breakfast. Last night I got a fillet of salmon with broccoli and this morning I woke up to scrambled eggs with prawns. It was actually quite nice and definitely a lot better than the standard economy class options of beef bourguignon or chicken a la king …
PS: I did not take a photo to illustrate my point, but a lot of people do document and discuss their airline meals quite precisely … www.airlinemeals.net
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