KLM and Schipol

In the times I've flown with KLM, I've usually had pretty good experiences. Flights have generally run to time, food has been totally passable, and as a transit hub I've always really enjoyed Schipol.

Today, I had an early flight from Istanbul's excellent Ataturk Airport, leaving at the ungodly 5.50am. This meant that KLM were going to feed me more of a Breakfast Quest, but let's apply a little in-flight poetic licence.

The coffee beat the shit out of Air France, almost resembling something you might be comfortable drinking on terra firma. Their breakfast was a little more problematic.

First off, the attendant handed me the cellophane-wrapped item with no indication that was what contained therein was hot. Not a good move, particularly given my sensitive, girlish paws.


Next up, the item was a real mystery meal. As I bit in, I was pretty sure it was some sort of sweet pastry, perhaps an apricot croissant. By halfway, I would have said perhaps simply a "fruit" croissant. Then the next bite had a little stringyness to it. Cheese? Indeed it was. An inspection of the label revealed it was a cheese and tomato croissant.

Given that I was flying back from Turkey, where kunefi (which I tend to refer to as cheesy bird's nest) is a popular dessert item, perhaps this was some curious attempt at satisfying a multi-cultural audience with something that could be perceived as both a savoury or sweet breakfast item, depending on the training of your tastebuds. But then a piece of carrot cake arrived afterwards to undermine my generous interpretation.

So, basically KLM have managed to give cheese and tomato the taste of jam. Well done them, but I'd really rather they'd kept this remarkable breakthrough to themselves ;-)

The carrot cake, one of Cake Quest's "Big Three" was very moist, but had a rather disturbing sugary crunch to it, that felt like rawness. I suppose I should admit that this is the first piece of carrot cake I've ever eaten (I don't really do dessert, as you may have heard), so I don't have a frame of reference, but it was pretty good aside from the curious crunch, although way too sweet for anything beyond occasional consumption.


On this first part of the journey, KLM provided me with a couple of memorably weird items. I was wide awake with the intense sugariness, so that might be considered a positive for anyone who might want to be awake at this hour. For me, I could have lived without it.

Onwards to Schipol, where I initially stuck to my initial routine: head for Murphy's, drink beer and phone home. But four hours in the boozer from 8 until 12 is pushing it even for my liberal tastes, so I decided to venture off in to previously unexplored regions of the airport.

I'm bloody glad I did, as the place was extremely impressive. First priority was to see whether my comprehensive failure to find some quality items of Istanbulian tat for MJ's delectation could be addressed with the acquisition of some clog/tulip/windmill-based Dutchness. Aside from a brief dalliance with mugs in the Rijksmuseum shop (I know - in the frickin' airport!) that had two big handles that had something to do with your grandparents' ears, it soon became clear that the answer was no, sadly. My failure to engage with Old City tourist tat is something I will seek to rectify on the next visit to my favourite city.

I digress. My wanderings led me to 'The Brasserie', which was a fairly standard looking place, but I had a feeling it would suit my needs pretty nicely. Their 'intercontinental breakfast' was a poorly concealed Full English. I opted to augment the offering with a side of scrambled eggs and a glass of cava (why should't baked beans be served with sparkling wine?!). The real joy here was the proper cripsy bacon, which is something you rarely see in The Netherlands. The rest was good stodge which I was grateful to devour.



Further wanderings led me to a cafe which served me a cappuccino that did the job. This rounded out a really good stopover, which flew past in a couple of hours of wandering, appreciation, and enjoyment.

It firmly reinforced my view of Schipol as an enjoyable airport, far in advance of the shitstorm that is CdG, where you can happily spend a couple of hours with minimum fuss and maximum relaxation.

For the short hop home to Edinburgh, we were once more thrust back in to decided mediocrity. How difficult is it to get people on-board the plane?! The staff didn't have clue one. The service was as poor as you could possibly imagine.

Given that this was a lunchtime flight, we were in coffee and pretzels territory. The coffee was the same quality as the previous flight, so pretty decent, and the little salted corn chips were really very good.


So, overall KLM have some weaknesses, but they're so well served by their hub at Schipol that you can forgive them some of their whimsical forays in to the land of culinary weirdness.

I ate: hot cheese and tomato croissant, carrot cake, intercontinental breakfast, corn chips.

I drank: coffees, sparkling water, cava.

I wore: linen travelling suit.

Air France, International Airspace

Why shouldn't we review airplane food, as well?!

From Edinburgh to Istanbul, I had to negotiate two short , with a little stop in Charles de Gaulle.

The initial hop to Paris takes around 90 minutes, and allows only time for a little light snack. This took the form of this little array of goodies:


I have to say that the rose wine was very acceptable. Its light crispness coupled with a real sense of pink grapefruit gave this a really refreshing quality. If I were to be so bold, I might suggest that it would make an ideal breakfast wine, if you were ever looking for such a daring item. The pretzelly things were standard saltiness. The 'coffee drink' was so appalling that Air France should be ashamed on themselves for even bothering, particularly given that they seemed more than capable of producing a much better approximation of an acceptable beverage on my next flight. I decided to forego the biscuits.

Upon landing in the horror dimension that is Charles de Gaulle, I had the obligatory bus ride to the woefully poor terminal 2F. Here, you are given two culinary choices: bad sandwiches in the brightness; or bad sandwiches in the less bright. Having spotted a couple of friendly-faced fellow travellers testing merlot on comfy sofas, I turned to the dark side ;-)

I saved myself the agony of the woeful food, sticking to leisurely drained pints of adequate Heineken.

Basically, CdG is to be avoided, unless you're planning to bump in to people who will ensure your time there is enjoyably spent in easy banter and light boozing, or if economic conditions make your trip there pleasingly pecuniarily prudent.

The flight to Istanbul is around three hours, meaning you have a chance to play with an airplane food tray. My great guilty pleasure in this regard is the sense in which I feel compelled to eat dessert, a course with which I have an uneasy relationship, and with Air France this usually means something rich and chocolatey. Imagine my horror on being confronted with this:


Where's my blinkin' cakey treat?

Oh well, on with the game of identify the mystery attempts at food. The starter veggie thing, like a little caponata, I guess, was pretty good. The courgettes retained a little crunch, and there was flavour in evidence. The cous cous main had that flavour, too, although it probably shouldn't have bothered. The roll was bad, the cheese was good, but no butter, not even upon request! Sacre bleu! ;-)

The red wine was pretty ordinary, but they did get the coffee much better, and they finally produced a piece of fruitcake to ease my lack-of-dessert torment.


Overall, Air France aren't great. As a national carrier for a nation of gastronomes, they're a complete disgrace. People must sit in CdG scratching their heads thinking 'this is supposed to be France, non?' Their airplane food is OK, with their wine generally decent, but nothing can make up for the woeful airport experience.

I fly KLM on my return journey, so look forward to another slab of Dutch butter cake with my rubbish coffee, next week.

I drank: red and rose wine, lager, coffee, "coffee drink" approximation.

I ate: pretzels, caponata, cous cous, bread and cheese, fruit cake.

I wore: linen travelling suit.