thai express, changi airport

okayish neo-thai food at this across-the-island chain at changi airport’s terminal three. I have a soft spot for this place – much as I did busaba in london – it’s not the most authentic, and doesn’t bear comparison to my favourite thai place in singapore – but this place reminds me of years-long-past relaxing after-a-hectic-schoolday meals with friends.

so while I may have outgrown this place – I return ever-so-often. it’s to thai food what sushi tei is to japanese (though the latter has higher standards), and rather cheap and cheerful.

cafe rouge, heathrow

decent frenchish at london heathrow’s terminal four. gone are the days when I expect airport food to be mediocre – there are multiple decent chains in the london airport, and even singapore’s changi airport is turning itself out to be more like a mall that so happens to have some runways by the side. this was our last meal in london before we flew back to singapore, and thank goodness it was pretty good as we were in the middle of a great british airways fiasco.

we had got on our original late-night flight from heathrow, woke up after 10 hours of travel time for the customary before-touchdown breakfast, only to be told by the captain that we were on the way back to london due to engine failure – and that we had been on the return route for 6 hours by then. we had to queue up for more than 3 hours to try and get a return ticket home (24 hours after our first one) and by then we were famished, and not very happy people.

oriel grande brasserie, heathrow

decent diner in heathrow terminal 3. so airport and airplane food is typically bad and not quite worth paying too much for, which is why I usually stick to sandwiches but this time it was like sort of saying goodbye to london and so we decided to go for something more special.

oriel’s has a large bar in the front, and the inside was a mock-up of a retro-style paris bistro. it has a medium-sized menu typical of restaurants in this style, ranging from all-day breakfasts to french ‘classics’.

airport food, warsaw chopin airport

airport food in most european/american airports are on par with the stuff you actually get on planes. it’s like as though their acclimatising you for mediocrity since you’ve been locked in a place and have no alternative for food.

we stopped over at warsaw chopin airport on our way to danzig, and we found what we thought was a corner ‘deli’ that looked the most appetizing. most of the airport seems to be under construction so there is only a canteen-like place, a salad bar and one or two bar-type places and this ‘deli’.

I never really understand having bars in airports – do you really need that much fortification before taking transport that really is as prevalent as the bus?

in any case, half a chicken and a pint of beer set my partner back nearly 20pounds, which makes this the most expensive meal we’ve had in poland. we would have been happy to pay about 10, but this was ridiculous. the chicken as dry, the skin as rather soggy, and the vegetables boiled to an inch of its life. why do people still do this to vegetables?!

so I went for a chicken salad that was strange – the chicken had been battered but it looks as though it never had a chance of being crisp, and it seemed to have lost the fight to try. but 3pounds for sweetcorn, some vegetables and a portion of protein (no matter how dubious) makes this indistinguishable from many salad lunches I’ve had.

they really should learn from asian airports – which have less bars, more cafes and much better food. yes I am making an overriding generalisation, but really no one speaks for joy about stopping over in europe unless they get to leave the prison that is confines of the airport.