United Airlines served me excellent cubed steak for breakfast on a recent flight from Chicago to Houston. The problem with its steak and eggs dish?
For this week’s Meal of the Week, I want to highlight a breakfast that I would happily order again, even though one part of it was very disappointing. On a recent flight from Chicago O’Hare (ORD) to Houston (IAH), I selected the steak and eggs, described on the menu as:
Steak and eggs with home fries and chimichurri sauce
The tray was nicely presented, with sliced steak topped with chimichurri, potatoes, and what I expected would be an egg soufflé.
The steak was excellent for airplane red meat. The chimichurri worked very well with the beef, and this was the highlight of the meal.
Unfortunately, instead of the egg soufflé I expected, I received something much closer to bread pudding…in fact, it was the same bread pudding I had out of Chicago a couple months ago. There may have been egg binding it together, but it had virtually no discernible egg texture or flavor. It was like eating bread.
You can see the bread cubes in the photo. This was not simply a soufflé that turned out a little firmer than expected. Bread dominated the portion that was supposed to provide the eggs in my steak and eggs.
That was disappointing, especially because the steak was so good and because I try to limit my carbs. I hope United can address this with its catering out of Chicago, as I’ve seen other reports of the same problem (this wasn’t a one-off). An actual egg component would make this a much more satisfying breakfast and match the menu…
The accompaniments were better. The chocolate croissant was served warm and was excellent. Between that and the bread pudding, I certainly had enough bread on the tray…
The fruit was ripe, and the Chobani vanilla Greek yogurt was decent. I would prefer a no-sugar-added Greek yogurt, but at least this one provided 10 grams of protein.
The coffee was strong, which was also appreciated. I also requested orange juice, though I must confess that was more to add color to the tray for the photo. I did not drink it.
I would order United’s steak and eggs again. The steak with chimichurri was excellent, and the warm chocolate croissant was great. But United needs to fix the egg issue out of ORD. There is a good breakfast here. It just needs the eggs its name promises.
My Meal of the Week feature examines an airline meal from my travels over the years. This may be a meal from earlier in the week or it may be a meal served over a decade ago.
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