AirAsia Malaysia (AK) Inflight Hot Meal Review 1: Ginger Fried Rice with Vegetarian Chicken

Hello readers and welcome to the first of (hopefully) many other hot meal reviews from Southeast Asian LCC giant, AirAsia. 

It's no secret that most of us don't bother ordering food on-board when we fly with AirAsia unless we are really hungry and the sweet aroma of the food being heated in the ovens wafting throughout the cabin surrenders us helpless to the temptation. But why do people not often order food on-board? Is it because they may not live up to expectations just because it's airline food? Or is it because they are pricey? Well I'm gonna give you a little helping hand here, just in case one day you may be flicking through the menu wondering what to try and what to stay away from. Also, if the price of the meals bother you, you can always prebook them online together with your ticket!

AirAsia has revamped their inflight food services menu in what they call Santan. And recently they've come up with the Santan Combo Meal offer with prices as low as RM10 when you book your meals online! Each meal comes with a complementary choice of mineral water, coffee or carbonated drink. Find out more here.

So I will start with something I've never had before and which I assume is less popular. AirAsia's Ginger Fried Rice with Vegetarian Chicken. 

Here's the illustration on the menu:

With AirAsia, prebooked meals and on board purchases have different packaging styles. The on-board purchases usually come in a red aluminium container with an illustration of the meal on the cover. Prebooked meals come in a black microwaveable container with no illustrations of the product.

Allergen information should be very useful to people with allergies. 

Vegetarian Chicken does not sound very convincing to me, given my personal accounts with vegetarian meat. I just can't bring myself to take a huge liking to them. But I was excited and curious about the fried rice.

Safe to say the actual product was represented quite well by the menu illustration. Opening up the package, it did not seem to have a very strong distinct aroma. Keep in mind that I had this microwaved for a good 4 minutes before.

The rice was cooked well. What caught my interest was the presence of capsicums in the dish. A mix of an Asian staple with ingredients normally found in Western cuisine proved to be quite interesting. However I thought it went well with the ginger flavors. The fried rice itself was average. It didn't have any 'wok hei' to it but it did have a gingery taste to it, which it should. The capsicums complement the ginger pieces well and introduced a welcome crunch to the dish. 

The chicken, however got me a little apprehensive. At first glance, the 'chicken skin' looked very convincing. However when you take away the skin, it is just a roll of fake meat. The texture felt slightly rubbery but not hard to swallow. It actually tasted like 'ngoh hiang' (five-spice pork rolls wrapped with beancurd skin). I can reaffirm you this will not change the mind of someone who's not a fan of vegetarian meat.

Overall I find the meal to be rather decent. It tastes like a menu item which you won't bother ordering but at the same time won't mind eating if there aren't much choices left. Just...put some real meat in there please.

Overall verdict: 3/5