The fruit platter wasn’t available on my Sunday afternoon Sydney-to-Brisbane flight QF536 (flying for work, too, so that’s depressing), but for dinner on the Sydney-to-Brisbane QF563 flight back Monday night it was! The 1.5-hour flight was delayed.
QF563 Qantas domestic flight fruit platter
The fruit platter had: 1 strawberry, half a kiwi, 4 slices orange, 4 slices pink grapefruit (a first in fruit platter for me!), 2 halves passionfruit and a banana. And of course soy milk. No apple this time, though.
It was a late overnight flight and the second leg of our journey home from a wonderful but exhausting ski trip at the Sahoro Ski Resort (that’s a lot of context in one sentence), and I’d already brushed my teeth and totally determined to just sleep when we got on our flight. The QF26 Tokyo-to-Sydney flight turned out to be super empty.
QF26 Qantas international flight breakfast: Cheese bacon egg wrap
QF26 Qantas international flight: Sushi!
QF26 Qantas international flight menu
QF26 Qantas international flight: very empty cabin!
QF26 Qantas dropoff at freight terminal
This empty:
QF26 Qantas international flight: very empty cabin!
We didn’t embark early; the plane took off like that!
We were told we could make use of any space and sleep horizontally if we wanted despite in economy class. We were also handed this flight menu:
QF26 Qantas international flight menu
Oh sushi… It’s pretty late and I’d already brushed my teeth. Do I or do I not? Yes. Yes I shall!
QF26 Qantas international flight: Sushi!
And that was the right decision! The meal came with a great fresh sushi selection and a panna cotta for dessert. My only complaint is instead of the traditional raw salmon nigiri, they used smoked salmon; and that’s hardly a complaint.
Next morning, I informed Richard, who decided to skip dinner and went straight to sleep, of the awesome sushi I had and showed him the photo. He regretted it.
Breakfast time!
QF26 Qantas international flight breakfast: Cheese bacon egg wrap
The wrap wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but when I asked for a banana, the flight attendant gave me 2! Win! This has literally been the best flight in economy class. (I’m pretty easy to win over with food.)
There was a slight delay because a woman died at the terminal just before our flight, so after a long while, they decided to drop us off at the freight terminal instead. Minor inconvenience.
QF26 Qantas dropoff at freight terminal
Was getting a sushi meal worth it on a Qantas flight? YES!
In unprecedented vickie.life history, for the first time ever, Vickie did NOT order the fruit platter special meal on a Qantas flight! How was that possible? Well, I took the bait and ordered the non-online-exclusive salmon option on Q-Eat (get it? Bait? Fish? No?) for our QF25 Sydney to Tokyo international flight.
QF25 Qantas flight breakfast: Spinach and feta toastie
QF25 Qantas flight menu
QF25 Qantas flight Q-Eat selections
Q-Eat said: Salmon fillet with sesame soy sauce, green beans and rice: Salmon fillet gently cooked, dressed with a flavoursome Asian inspired sauce and served on a bed of fragrant rice with green beans.
QF25 Qantas flight Q-Eat selections
On the flight, it was… a very disappointment meal. The salmon was overcooked.
QF25 Qantas flight dinner: salmon fillet
I should have known and had some of that pumpkin on pumpkin action instead.
Richard pre-ordered the online-exclusive Barramundi with lemon dill sauce and roasted winter vegetables. It’s much better than the salmon.
In the morning, I’d also taken the flight QF411 from Sydney to Melbourne, and also ordered the fruit platter. I’d neglected to take a picture of the content because I didn’t eat it straight away, but I’m 90% sure it’s the standard apple, banana and soy milk. Anyway, here’s the box…
Qantas 747-400 QF128, Hong Kong to Sydney international flight.
QF128 Qantas fruit platter dinner
QF128 Qantas standard dinner
QF128 Qantas fruit platter breakfast
QF128 Qantas standard breakfast
QF128 Qantas Carman’s muesli bar
I ordered the fruit platter, as usual.
QF128 Qantas fruit platter dinner
There’s a big tray of fruits for dinner and a small tray of fruits for dessert; I suppose I did order a fruit meal. But! Can I point out the small REAL MILK sitting in the tray? REAL MILK! NOT SOY MILK!
For breakfast, there’s another fruit platter (one tray). This time it came with a sugary yoghurt, more REAL MILK, and a punctured orange juice that leaked everywhere and made everything sticky.
QF128 Qantas fruit platter breakfast
Not a super fun experience when I barely slept in the shorter 8-hour flight.
I didn’t keep notes so I have no idea what Richard ordered. Funny how little you can tell what’s in a flight meal from the photo, huh.
Qantas has a new Q-Eat programme available for pre-selection for international flights departing from Australia. I wasn’t quite curious enough, but Richard took up the online exclusive offer when I pointed out to him that there’s duck! On a flight! Economy class! This was available on our 9-ish-hour QF117 international flight from Sydney to Hong Kong.
QF117 Qantas Q-Eat: Duck option
QF117 Qantas garlic bread
QF117 Qantas Rhubarb and apple trifle
QF117 Qantas special meal Fruit Platter
QF117 Qantas snack Weis ice cream bar
QF117 Qantas flight dinner: Beef, spinach and cheese gozleme
QF117 Qantas flight dinner: Beef, spinach and cheese gozleme
QF117 Qantas flight menu
QF117 Qantas Q-Eat online pre-selections
Lunch order: Duck a l’Orange brussel sprouts and creamy mash potatoes (online exclusive) – “Classic French dish in which duck breast is roasted and served with orange sauce, consisting of herbs, vegetables, orange zest and juice. The duck is then accompanied with brussel sprouts and creamy mash potatoes.”
That description. So fancy.
QF117 Qantas Q-Eat online pre-selections
It arrived like this:
QF117 Qantas Q-Eat: Duck option
So it sounded a little fancier than it looked…
QF117 Qantas garlic bread
QF117 Qantas Rhubarb and apple trifle
Over here, I stuck to my very safe, reliable and/or boring fruit platter. (Mostly boring.)
QF117 Qantas special meal Fruit Platter
“Later in the flight” snack for all: Weis ice cream bar (as usual).
QF117 Qantas snack Weis ice cream bar
“Prior to arrival” meal is a Beef, spinach and cheese gozleme.
QF117 Qantas flight dinner: Beef, spinach and cheese gozleme
QF117 Qantas flight dinner: Beef, spinach and cheese gozleme
Evening flight from Melbourne back to Sydney, QF466, after a whole day of inter-state work. The flight was later than I’d hoped and it was pretty empty at the back of the plane.
QF466 Qantas domestic flight fruit platter
Not the freshest fruit platter I’ve had. I was also pretty exhausted at that point, having been up since 04:30 on the day.
QF466 Qantas domestic flight dark chocolate
Not even the 70% dark mint chocolate could keep me up.
Sydney to Melbourne short domestic flight QF407; a full flight filled with business people, including yours truly. Special meal fruit platter was still available for order.
QF407 Qantas domestic flight fruit platter
Breakfast: a predictable small apple, banana and soy milk.
I still don’t entirely know why they think people who choose to eat fruits would want soy or to avoid dairy. But there you go.
QF121, Qantas short-haul international flight from Sydney to Queenstown, economy class. The flight was just over 2 hours, but I could still order the special meal fruit platter.
QF121 Qantas Fruit Platter
QF121 Qantas Main Meal: Smoky barbecue beef with veggies
QF121 Qantas Weis ice cream bar
QF121 Qantas Lindt chocolate truffles
QF121 Qantas Boeing 737-800 USB Port
QF121 Qantas view out the window
Fruit platter: main platter in bigger chunks than usual with skin and rind; side bag contained small Red Delicious apple, small banana, dried cranberries (donated to Richard), soy milk (discarded/returned).
QF121 Qantas Fruit Platter
Meanwhile, the rest of them had a good 3 options, which I was quite impressed with:
Smoky barbecue beef with veggies
Roast chicken salad with couscous
Barramundi curry with rice
QF121 Qantas Main Meal: Smoky barbecue beef with veggies
There was a minor beef sauce spillover incident. (The barramundi would have been my choice if I hadn’t ordered the fruit platter.)
After the main meal, there’s Weis ice-cream bar:
QF121 Qantas Weis ice cream bar
… as well as Lindt chocolate truffles.
QF121 Qantas Lindt chocolate truffles
USB charger port available on the front of each economy seat of the Boeing 737-800.
On our new quest to try every restaurant at Miranda Fair, we stopped at Mejico Miranda for dinner tonight, which I was feeling a little ambivalent about. On one hand, I’m not a huge fan of eating with my hands in public; on the other soon to be dirty hand, we do love our spicy food and Richard always liked Mexican.
Mejico Miranda, Aug 2015: Scallop Ceviche
Mejico Miranda, Aug 2015: Tuna Tostadas
Mejico Miranda, Aug 2015: Jalapeno Poppers
Mejico Miranda, Aug 2015: Tacos
Mejico Miranda, Aug 2015: Chicken Tacos
Mejico Miranda, Aug 2015: Pork Tacos
Mejico Miranda, Aug 2015: Lamb Adobo
Mejico Miranda, Aug 2015: Our Table
Mejico Miranda, Aug 2015: Our Bill
The place was quite full on this Friday night, but we managed to grab an outdoor table without booking. The waitress explained the “Feed Me” banquet as she handed the paper menu to us. For either $55 per average person, or $80 for someone really hungry, the table would get this, and this, and this, and that… a whole heap of dishes, as she recited the actual menu. I was thoroughly impressed with her excellent memory, but for someone not already familiar with the food options, we just couldn’t follow and would do much better with a printed version of it. We settled on the fact that the banquet was “basically a little bit of everything”, and even though I’m always really hungry (as we all know), I wasn’t interested in the desserts and we opted to order our own dishes.
Mejico Miranda, Aug 2015: Scallop Ceviche – Avocado, pomegranate, jalapeno, crispy eschalots on house-baked tostadas ($16)
Scallop ceviche on house-baked tostadas ($16) and tuna ceviche on hand-cut tortilla chips ($16). These bite-size gems were super fresh with the right herbs to give their own distinct flavour, and a nice contrasting crunch from the toasted tortilla chips. I preferred the scallop ceviche and Richard the tuna, but both were very good.
With the maximum 3 chilli icons on the menu and how much I love hot food, I was really, really looking forward to the feta-stuffed jalapeno poppers, served with chipotle mayo ($14). The small plate dish unfortunately received what Richard dubbed the “Shire treatment”. Crunchy, greasy, cheesy – yes, but the jalapeno peppers were very carefully scraped clean of any seeds, resulting in zero detectable heat. Zero, my friend. They should know not to deceive Vickie with 3 chilli icons!
(By now Vickie should also know better than to expect many foods in Sydney to live up to 3 chilli icons, which often only just set her up for disappointment.)
Mejico Miranda, Aug 2015: Jalapeno Poppers – Crumbed & stuffed with feta & herbs, served with chipotle mayo ($14)
Back to eating with hands, our tacos arrived. The achiote chicken taco ($12) came with chorizo, cucumber, cumin and chives just to keep up with the alliteration, and maybe also taste; whereas the slow-braised lean pork taco ($12) had chilli caramel salsa and aioli with extra pork scratchings. I liked that they weren’t modern cheese-covered abominations, but the soft shell tortilla tasted overpoweringly floury to me; to Richard the tacos just lacked a certain kick.
Mejico Miranda, Aug 2015: Chicken Tacos (top) and Pork Tacos (bottom) ($12 for each dish)
The only main we ordered was the lamb adobo with house-made chimichurri ($29). The rare lamb was super tender and fatty on the sides, and I thought it was nice enough with the adobo and didn’t need the accompanying oily and subtle-tasting chimichurri. Not the biggest of main in volume, but definitely good enough to be a winter night dish if you didn’t skip the green sauce and trim off the fat like I did.
Mejico Miranda, Aug 2015: Lamb Adobo – Chargrilled Hunter Valley lamb, house-made chimichurri, snow pea tendrils, pickled onion ($29)
Looking back at the menu, I discovered a few of the dishes we ordered that weren’t spicy at all were actually given 1 chilli icon. I also don’t know if we would get better value from the banquet menu or if it’s just designed for the less picky. Overall, apart from the “Shire treatment”, I was quite happy with the meal and service. Eating with my hands might not be so bad after all?
Mejico Miranda
Address
Westfield Miranda level 2 Shop 2202, 600 Kingsway, Miranda NSW 2228, Australia
Speciality / Cuisine
Mexican
Price (2015/2016)
Entree (ceviche, Small Plates, tacos): $12-16 Main (Bigger Plates): $24-32 Dessert: $10-12 Set Menu (Feed Me): $55 per person (classic) / $80 (deluxe)
