We haven’t flown an international flight on Polaris (I guess we’ve always been cheap and were ok with economy since travel is inconvenient regardless, but yeah, lie flat seating and the extra room is very nice). I generally have found food on United to be worse than other carriers, esp. on international and I was curious to see how much better their food was in Polaris.

I normally never drink while flying since I don’t want to get dehydrated, but figured I may as well live it up (and it’d help me fall asleep) and their wine selection was decent considering we’re on a plane, so I did start with a glass of champagne, which was a Heidsieck Monopole Blue Top. Hey, it was best (and only) champagne I’ve had on a plane, haha.

We did start with a salad which really wasn’t much different than what you would get in other cabins on the plane other than having it served in a bowl. I picked the brown roll hoping for some more flavor, but it was pretty blah. I did enjoy the other fresh veggies though.

Before the flight we had an option to pre-select our meals (or you could just select on plane with perhaps a slight chance what you wanted wouldn’t be available if you were seated further back in the cabin). I went with the Asian rib although I was skeptical about the quality of meat on a meal on the plane, but Andrea was getting the chicken and I was super skeptical about halibut for a meal on a plane. As it turns out, my concerns about the meat quality were unfortunately accurate and it was kinda gamey. It was reasonably tender, but it was on the dry side too. I did like having the sweet potato cake instead of rice or potato, although texturally, it was of course just mush. I did have a glass of the Chateau St. Jean Cinq Cepages (had fond memories of some bottles of this we had decades ago) and it was decent. The salt and pepper shakers reminded me of 3-D printed death stars (I didn’t use them at all, but I wish I had taken them).

Andrea’s chicken dish look ok, esp. since it had a sauce and rice to soak up some of that, but I don’t know how much she liked it.

For dessert, I did try the ice cream sundae and I had the option to add whatever toppings I wanted which was pretty nice although I only had almonds. It was fine. Andrea had the cheese plate. Nothing special.

Breakfast wasn’t any better than the other cabins other than the better dishware and cutlery. Eggs as you can see are reconstituted powdered eggs (ugh). Sausage was remarkably bland (although I do know food tastes more bland on a plane, but this was really boring/bland). I did enjoy the fruit which I ate with the yogurt (would prefer it wasn’t flavored and sweetened though) although again, this isn’t much different than what you would get in economy, although probably more fruit. I didn’t try the pastry at all. Andrea had the brioche French toast.

All in all, I’d say the food was not impressive and only marginally better than economy. They service though was better and the wine was decent.