"airplane" news and stories

Just when it seems that we'll never get any decent food on an airplane again, Southwest Airlines has introduced a special on-board snack. Produced by Nabisco, "golden airplane-shaped crackers" mark the airline's 35th anniversary. The unique crackers come in commemorative packaging.

Since Nabisco makes Ritz crackers, which already come in various non-circular shapes, Southwest's crackers will probably be very similar to them. The last time I flew Southwest, they were serving mini-pretzels, which I quite liked for an airplane snack. I'll be sad to see them go, even though Ritz are tasty, too. I'm just hoping that they decide to go with mini-airplanes, because the only thing sadder than not getting a snack on a plane is getting one lone Ritz cracker.

Source

Michelin-starred chef, Marcus Wareing of the Pétrus restaurant at the Berkeley hotel, in the UK, said that the standards in airline fare were higher than that of the average pub. While many pubs rely on canned soups and old sandwiches with little sign of improvement orver the years, the airlines are constantly trying to "up their game." Wareing takes a rather optimistic view of the recent discontinuation of food service on many airlines, however, seeming to imply that the reason they have done this is because they don't want to serve sub-standard food in an effort to cut costs.

Does anyone agree with this? Granted, some of the airlines do try to serve quality foods, but they know that people will eat just about anything on planes and readily take advantage of that fact. The quality of the food may be better from a freshness and food-safety standpoint, but that doesn't change the taste.

It sounds like Wareing needs to frequent some different pubs.

Source

MSN has posted a list of the top 10 cities for foodies, as determined by a travel site. The cities chosen are all over the globe, picked for a combination of unique dishes, celebrity chefs and all-around good cuisine. Barcelona, Brussels, Lyon and Rome were lauded for their long standing traditions, while Las Vegas and New York were included for having just about everything. While San Francisco did get a nod for its non-Asian cuisine, it seems to have been selected mainly on the availability of good Chinese food. Asian flavors are what put Tokyo, Vancouver and Hanoi on the list, too.

It appears that the definition of a foodie as someone who is willing (and possibly desperate) to eat anything has been put into play with this list, as along with Asian flair, Hanoi was picked for "unusual delicacies like dog or snake," including "fried snake skin, snake spring rolls, snake soup, and minced snake dumpling." Weird meats are all well and good, but to plan a whole trip around them seems a bit extreme.

Nevertheless, their list includes:

Source