NW Airlines Food

I flew coach from PDX to Amsterdam in May. Service on the way was dinner (full meal), breakfast, and snack. I'd put it on the lower end of quality for airline food - sustinance, but not gourmet by any stretch. Dinner was typical pasta/chicken choice, salad, roll, dessert. Breakfast was cold stuff (yogurt, fruit), the snack was a wrap of some kind that you could take off the plane with you (we landed around 11 a.m.). Return food was actually worse - not sure what the Dutch caterers were thinking, but it wasn't very good.

My advice: pack snacks, eat a big meal at the airport before departure, and you should be ok.

Bless them they do try, and, figure out how hard it is to serve a hot tasty meal at 30,000 feet. Anyway, I've posted this before but here goes. I'm been taking my food onboard for 20 years. You can pack a gourmet lunch, dinner etc. with a third of the calories and a fraction of the sodium. I pack up sandwiches, boneless chicken yada yada, freeze them and then carry my lunch/dinner on board. I fill up my water bottle after security. (Oh and yes I do pay for a bottle of wine to go with my meal...I'm not a complete barbarian.) I eat when I'm hungrey and my legs don't swell up like mellons from all that sodium in the airline's prepared meals. (In their defense your taste is diminished at altitude so salt helps alot in that department). I use lemon juice, vinegar or hot sauce to make up for the taste deficit.

We flew DTW/AMS RT. Food on the way over was dinner (awful chicken and vegetarian, which my daughter said wasn't that bad) and a breakfast sandwich, which was sorta good.

On the way home, we had a wrap sandwich which all three of us thought was the best airline food we ever had. Frankly, if I could buy it locally, I probably would, every now and then. We may have had something else on the way home, but if we did, it was totally forgetable.

My husband and I flew from Portland, OR to London and then back from Amsterdam to Portland in June on NWA. Not only was the food terrible, but the flight attendants were like nazi generals. We were afraid to ask for more water, coffee, or anything.
KLM, KLM, KLM...it's the only way to go after our flight from Rome to Amsterdam. The seats are bigger, there is more leg room, the flight attendants and pilots are beautiful people and they actually seem to like their jobs....and get this- the food is excellent and ORGANIC. No joke!

Good luck and take your own food!

As much as I like NWA, their food is not the greatest. It is even worse if you are a picky eater like I am. I usually pick at what I can tolerate and leave the rest. We always take a bottle of water on board and snacks such as Kudos bars, Cheez-its, Pringles, and various nuts. Granted, DTW to AMS is not as far as Seattle to Amsterdam so I'm not sure if they would include something extra. Good luck and come prepared.

I flew Detroit to Amsterdam last fall. Don't remember what I was served but do remember that it was not good. I was served a sandwich coming back that was actually wet bread - inedible. I'd advise you to bring something especially on the return trip. I usually leave Detroit around 8-9pm after I've had something at the airport, so I don't need a meal. Other than the food, I like NW.

what about the food in first or world business class? i'm travelling to london using miles in october. fortunately, i had enough miles to go first class.

or do they serve the same food in first that they do in coach?

You are all scaring me!!!! I'm flying NWA to Paris next week...not only do I have a serious fear of flying, nothing makes a flight worst than a rude flight attendant, and of course turbulence! Bad food, I can deal with - I've never experienced 'good' food on an airplane.

Usually I always bring something of my own to snack on. I will say that my flight to and from Italy via Delta was not all that bad. I remember the pizza was very edible, but not great. Breakfast was typical European breakfast. The other meal I don't remember what it was, obviously not memorable.

I just look at an airline flight as a chance to renew my pledge to lose weight! ;)

Good point Norm, a good chance to save on fat and calories, and save room for all that great food on the trip!
I often try to have a good meal before a long flight. I just hope they wont weigh the passengers before getting on the plane! LOL!

This June we flew on the Seattle-London route just begun by NWA. The food was exactly the "quality" that I remembered from back in the day when you got meals on domestic flights! Luckily, the flight leaves quite late in the evening, so we had a fine dinner at home before the flight...