ANA Flight Seattle to Tokyo Food

I was playing around with flights when I noticed an ANA flight deal that flew Vancouver -> Seattle (layover) -> Tokyo (layover) -> Tawain and then Taiwan to Tokyo with a return direct flight from Tokyo to Vancouver. It’s a bit much but we figured for around $600, it was a steal to be able to fly ANA to two cities in Asia. This also meant we ate a lot of airplane food and obviously we had to review it and share with you!

REFRESHMENTS

First off, when we were looking at the refreshments list, we saw that there was a huge page dedicated to promoting their corn soup. We had never had corn soup on a flight before and so when they wheeled the drink cart around, we asked to try it. We saw them bring out a big plastic pitcher filled with yellow liquid and our hearts sank because we thought there was no way it’d be good.

We were so surprised that it was actually good! The soup was still very hot which was unexpected because we were one of the last people on the flight to be served. I had to wait a minute to drink it. It came in a small paper cup and it was about half filled. “Tastes like corn soup,” was Howie’s first reaction to it. It had a nice corn flavor that didn’t taste artificial and warmed me right up. The only weird thing was that there was not one bit of pulp in it and the soup slides thickly down your throat. There’s nothing to chew which was unexpected.

Howie ordered two drinks (which they seem very happy to serve you): sake and kabosu. We had no idea what kabosu was but we looked it up afterwards and it’s a citrus fruit used in a lot of Japanese cooking to enhance flavors. The kabosu had a nice fruity taste along with a tinge of honey. It was cool and refreshing – perfect for a long flight.

Howie said the sake wasn’t very good and wasn’t going to finish it at first but then he came up with a brilliant idea. He mixed his sake with the kabosu for an in-flight cocktail!

THE FOOD

For lunch/dinner, Howie ordered the miso-grilled Spanish mackerel set (left) and I ordered the beef meatball with onion sauce. We were both also served a mixed beans salad with ham and cheese, kobachi (spinach crab meat and baby shrimp), Japanese soba and a salad mix. I also got a bun with butter served with my meal.

We both agreed that the soba was very well done. Actually, better than the noodles we had a few days ago at Dinesty. They managed to be chewy and the soba sauce was delicious. They put shredded egg on top and gave us packages of wasabi and seaweed. It was these little details that made the dish taste great.

We also loved the koachi. We didn’t expect to get baby shrimp and crab meat (even though there wasn’t a ton!) so we were impressed.

I tried a bit of the bean salad and while it was good, it wasn’t that special The cheese was a bit hard for my liking. We both skipped on the green salad because we were starting to get full.

Howie enjoyed his mackerel while I tried a bit and I thought it wasn’t salty enough. He thought the seafood flavor came out very nice considering it was plane food. He loved the mushroom, bamboo and fish cake that came in his meal because they soaked up the sauces for a nice umami flavor. It was also a nice bonus that they added furikake on top of his rice.

As for my dish, my meatballs were pretty good! They were full of flavor and they were generous with the gravy. There were also potato tater tots on the side and I thought they’d be a disgusting soft mess but they had a slight crunch to it. The vegetables weren’t overcooked but they didn’t have much taste and I dipped them in the gravy for more flavor. I passed on my bun since it was just wrapped in plastic and wasn’t heated up.

DESSERT

For dessert, everyone got a cute little cup of Haagen Daaz vanilla ice cream. We both agreed that ANA had the best food of all the airlines we’ve flown.