Virgin Australia has made a long-awaited upgrade to the preflight meals at its airport lounges, with "six original menus" to be rolled out over the coming months.
The airline promises that these will in turn "continue to be refreshed to ensure variety and choice to the broad range of taste buds that enter the lounges every day."
Next month will also see the launch of themed 'Afternoon Pop Up' menus including options such as classic Vietnamese bahn mi with roast pork, pickled carrot, cucumber chili torched salmon nigiri with teriyaki sauce, seasoned sesame seeds and Japanese mayonnaise.
Virgin Australia exec Mark Hassell says the new menu features "well-balanced dishes that are fresh, unique and full of flavour."
In addition to classic bacon and eggs, Virgin's new lounge menu includes baked beans and hash browns...
... a 'pie and pea mash'...
... and roast beef rolls.
Travellers can also look forward to mid-morning serves of 'Greek yoghurt shots with muesli and fresh fruit toppings' plus cold-pressed vegetable juices.
Also on the menu are:
- Roast Peking duck pancakes served with cucumber, spring onion and hoisin sauce
- Fresh pumpkin tortellini with creamy pesto sauce and shredded parmesan
- Authentic Vietnamese beef pho with noodles, bean shoots, coriander, mint and chilli
Qantas has long held the lead in the domestic lounge stakes with its Qantas Club and Qantas Business Lounge network, both of which have offered more substantial meals and a greater variety of dishes from month to month, including daily 'Island Dining' specials of a morning and evening in the business lounges.
If you're passing through a Virgin Australia lounge and have a chance to try the new dishes, let us know how you rate them!
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David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
25 Jul 2013
Total posts 69
Great to see!
QF
11 Jul 2014
Total posts 997
looks good, I don't think the Qantas menu has ever been that flash anyway, except for the first class lounge
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
22 Aug 2013
Total posts 171
Tried the bahn mi 2 months ago in MEL. Was awesome. I'm glad they are finally rejigging their lounge offerings.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
10 Nov 2011
Total posts 129
Now if only they'd bring back the New York Sandwich ....
Definitely like the look of the pie. One of those will match nicely with a peroni after a day of meetings!
14 Jun 2013
Total posts 352
About time VA lifted its game for lounge food. Look forward to trying it out soon.
VA
25 Aug 2014
Total posts 42
This looks very nice indeed. The food does need updating/variety in the VA lounge I think. Bacon and eggs sounds deadly. Nice work Virgin.
26 Aug 2011
Total posts 20
This comment is so far off "Qantas has long held the lead in the domestic lounge stakes". Virgin lounges have been much better in the last 3-4years overall.
Don't forget VA were the first to bring in baristas, and Qantas followed [VA's coffee still better]. Qantas only used to do the dodgy spring rolls in QF Clubs until VA came along with some competition. Sure the QF business and first lounges are great but for gold frequent flyers Virgin's lounges are far better [and don't forget the Peroni].
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