In Business there is a decent looking menu, with a good slip in drinks list, with the wine list on the reverse. Meals are laid out with a scrappy and faded tablecloth, on top of which is placed a tray - and then a trolley comes along the isle on with the food and a stack of plates, rather like a moving buffet. You can select the food you want - and the plate of food is then placed on your tray.
In First there is a comprehensive menu, in a menu holder. Courses are brought to you individually, and when you have finished with the previous one. On shorter flights there are canapes, a first course, main and desert. On longer flights you also get a soup course, and the offer of a cheese plate. Breakfast is frequently a disappointment.
Cold beef with olive on a lettuce leaf on dried bread.
Tomato, obegene, and radish, on dried bread
A woeful introduction to Thai First, this lets you know what you are in for.
Nuts.
This is Thai reallying pushing the boat out... alas, it's not by very much. Burnt prawns. Toast. Then have a nut. Hmmm.
Garlic Bread.
On longer flights you will be offered soup between the First course and the main.
Garlic Bread.
Amazing stuff, this is done really well. Odd, perhaps, having beef with a thick layer of pesto on top, but in context it works. It really does!
The garlic bread - a Thai speciality - is potent. It's mostly garlic, with a little bit of bread.
Rocket salad leaf. Garlic bread.
Minimalism comes to the fore with this rather poor offering from Thai in First Class.
It's great - don't get me wrong - but there really isn't much, if anything, to get your teeth into.
The garlic bread is tough enough to sink a duck.
Garlic Bread.
Just like you'd get from a Thai takeaway in the back streets of Shepherd's Bush, this looks cheap and nasty. And indeed it is. Now, don't get me wrong, if you'd only paid 200 baht for this, it would be OK, maybe even alright after 20 pints of cheap lager. But in First Class? It even comes still in the shape of the container it was cooked in.
Garlic Bread. Nuts.
Light delicate flavours, a small piece of salmon, and even some decent pate (although, admittedly it looks like spam). Brilliant stuff from Thai in First, this would be a great starter. Alas, it's the main, and if you order it, you'll go very hungry.
Four Jabob's cheese crackers. Dried fruits. Grapes.
Okish, in a basic economy type way.
Grapes. Two crackers.
More minimalism in Thai. Oddly, the crew were tucking into loads of cheese in the flight: I do wonder if they took most of it, and left the poor passengers in First to take the remains.
Great stuff, in a strange puff pasty shell.
Very small, perfect flavour, but it'll leave you desperate to get off the plane for some more food.
Tomato. Garnish.
Hmmm. There is just enough here to make a decent cheese roll, but that's about it.
Plate of fruit salad with one slice of melon (crinkle cut) one half of pineapple, one sliver of grapefruit, one strawberry, and nine grapes.
One croissant (hot), a tub of butter, a tub of marmalade, and a peach yoghurt.
The fruit is kind of ok, with one lovely segment of grapefruit - if only there was more fruit! Some of the grapes had, however, seen better days.
The croissant was rock hard, and made out of normal roll pasty. Each time I have a croissant in Thailand it seems to be made the same way, out of normal pastry, with no air in it at all. I don't know why Thai's have a problem making croissant - they just do!
Scrambled egg, with a chicken sausage, a chicken burger, mushed tomatoes, and one sliver of onion.
This poisonous looking concoction should - according to the menu - come with the eggs on toast. Alas that idea had bitten the dust by the time it came to me, and the eggs looked like some sort of gluttonous soup. However, in context, it worked. It really did. True, it needed plenty of salt, but thankfully Thai put lovely cute salt and pepper pots on the tray, so that all works out.
The chicken sausage and chicken burger are bizarre. However its noticeable that Thai and Singapore normally serve their hot breakfasts with chicken... a strange oriental custom. They tasted odd, and most people in the cabin left theirs alone.
Three slices of ducks liver, a stuffed tomato with wasabi mustard, a lettuce leaf sprinkled with sweetcorn and peppers, a square dollop of smoked apricot salmon, and two slices of garlic bread.
A bowl with Thai curry fish mousee cake, containing three artichokes and four slivers of cucumber. The packets of salad dressing - thousand island, and salad cream.
This looks pretty decent - and indeed so it tastes. There's plenty of variety in here, and the salad is done just right. I'm not sure about the salmon, its a bit too weird, but the duck is great. The Thai fish mouse cake takes some getting used to, but its thankfully not too spicy.
Note the plastic packets of salad dressing, which just look cheap. And indeed they are.
Broiled Tournedos Steak with Teriyaki Sauce. Buttered Egg Noodles, and stir-fried vegetables.
This is foul. A hard boiled lump of some indistinguishable meat, served with noodles that are a rock hard mass. Even the vegetable had all their flavour boiled out of them, and then its left in the oven for days to ensure even the sauce has gone rock hard. Avoid.
One packet of four cheese biscuits.
A plate with two slices of processed cheese, and a very small sliver of Brie. 12 grapes.
It just gets worse. This even looks cheap. Ok, the brie is good, but its tiny. The packet of cheese biscuits wouldn't look out of place in economy. And the processed cheese had every inch of flavour processed out of it.
Nice grapes though. No Port or Dessert wine is available.
A mini french chocolate pastry. A cup of coffee. A glass of Hennessy.
At last something decent - the pastries are very good, and Thai can even make a decent cup of coffee.
The main desert and aperitif trolley.
After the main course a trolley comes along with lots of little pastries, and four liqueur bottles.
These are Kahlua, Drambuie, Hennessy VSOP, and Grand Marnier.