JAL Sakura Lounge, Haneda Airport, Tokyo

Update Review, September 2019 Visit

It had a several year hiatus in visiting Tokyo, so this review is very past due!  For a more detailed overview, see my original 2014 review and my update 2017 review.

In the few years since my last visit, many aspects of the lounge and the offerings, remained unchanged.  The biggest update? More desserts!  Which, if you know me, is always a good thing. 

Savory

The savory spread at the JAL lounge is fair extensive, with options for whatever mood you are in, ranging from simple soup/sandwich/salad, to dim sum, to hearty Italian comfort food.

The lounge menu changes quarterly, just like the flight menus, and is posted online in advance, so I knew what to expect.  The only thing different was the sushi ... there was none, which was disappointing as it was supposed to feature eel.

Shumai.

The lineup started with shumai, which I remembered from my previous visit.

I did again like the wrappers on the shumai, particularly the ones that were more dried out (I know, its strange, but I like them that way!).  The filling though was just a big hard ball of meat.

I appreciated the soy and vinegar on the side.

Lasagna Style Gratin

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Now this just made me laugh.

"Lasagna"?  It was rigatoni with tomato sauce and cheese melted on top.  I guess that is "lasagna style" ...

The sauce was not remarkable, the pasta was kinda mush, and the cheese was lackluster too.  Lower quality than most buffets.  Not a high point for Japan Airlines.

Meatball Mustard Flavor

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I didn't have the meatball, but I did try the sauce.

It was a mustard cream sauce, not bad.

Beef Curry.

I finally tried the famous JAL beef curry.  People seem to rave about it.  A feature of every JAL lounge.

And ... I'll admit, it has great flavor.  There wasn't much beef in it, but the beef that was there was tender and flaked apart nicely.

Pickles.

I topped it with the provided pickles, and with some tempura from the noodle station, and thought it was pretty nice that way.  I liked it more than I expected.

Undon Station.

I didn't try the miso or borscht-style soups, nor the udon, but I gladly at the toppings - tempura bits, fish cake, pickled things ....

Salad Wrap: Ham & Cheese.

Ok, yes I tried one of these.

No I don't like sandwiches or wraps but ... my office had grab and go wraps that looked exactly like these, same paper wrapper and all, and I kinda loved them, um, because they were like 70% mayo.  Sooo much mayo, delicious Japanese mayo, and I didn't really care what else was in them, as the lettuce/carrots/etc and mayo were delicious enough to carry any sandwich.

I thought this would be the same, and it did have mayo, but, it really was just a ham and cheese wrap, not the most exciting.

Salad Bar.

The salad bar had a couple different salad bases, grilled chicken, and fusilli pasta to add on, a couple dressings, plus shrimp summer rolls.

I didn't try anything from here.

Lounge Snack: Round 1.

For my first round, I opted for a bit of the curry (good!  Particularly with toppings!), a shumai (also good, at least the wrapper), and the aforementioned lackluster "lasagna", plus some of the snack mix (super flavorful rice cracker mix in assorted shapes and sizes, definitely like).

I had a glass of of not very good wine, and then moved on to sweets ....

Sweets & Baked Goods

The sweet lineup isn't really a high point for the lounge, but, it was better than last I was there.

Pastries.

"Apricot Fromage Danish / Macadamia Muffin / Plain Scone / Matcha Green Tea Scone / Madelines"

I love that the baked goods are not limited to the morning hours.  Available all day.  The lineup was entirely different from last I visited.

Maison Kayser Croissants / Baguettes.

Well, besides the basics, croissants and baguettes, which were unchanged.  I didn't try them again.

"

Moderation?

You know me and baked goods .  I had no choice to to try them all.  After all, I knew there were no breakfast carbs available on my flight (!), and the dessert options on the flight all had caffeine, so I needed to stock up.

I know this is technically against the rules, but I did save the muffin and scones for breakfast on my flight, and the danish and madeline for dessert after my meal, so its not like I was hoarding them to bring home ...

Apricot Fromage Danish

,

The danish ... was really not good.  The pastry was incredibly dry and stale, although slightly crispy on the outside, in a dried out way, not a good flaky pastry way.  Really, worse pastry than even standard for airline lounges / hotel buffets / etc.

The filling was fine, kinda a custard that had a decent apricot flavor to it.

But yeah, not a good item.

Madeline.

Madelines are never something I'm excited about, and this was no exception.  A decently moist, but very plain, little cake.

For me, cake is a vessel for frosting or ice cream, and without either ... why?  At least, that is how I feel.  So I brought it on my flight, and added ice cream, which made it better, but this was still pretty boring to me.

Matcha Green Tea Scone.

The scones were biscuit style.

The plain one was ... well, plain, and there was no cream to go with, only butter and jam packets.  Slight tang to it, not awful, but not exciting.  I brought the rest of it on my flight, and had it a la mode with the excellent custard pudding ice cream, and that was quite a winner.

The matcha green tea one was better on its own, although it did have a strong bitter green tea taste.  I liked the little white chocolate chips in it.

Macadamia Muffin

This was the worst of the items.

Odd flavor, tasted very fake if that makes sense, certainly not fresh, and ... there weren't any bits of macadamia in it.

Almond Jelly.

The almond jelly hiding in the salad bar was ... fine.

It didn't actually taste like almond, and the different colors were indistinguishable from each other taste-wise, but it was pleasant enough.

Taiyaki!

I had seen photos of the taiyaki, and was thrilled to see that they were provided during my visit, in two varieties: custard and red bean.

They had instructions to heat in the provided toaster for a minute.

These clearly weren't fresh, but the toaster helped warm and crisp them up.  The exterior pancake was fine, but not amazing.

The custard really was decent - thick, slightly vanilla, pudding.  I'm a sucker for custard though.

The red bean filling was less exciting, just standard sweetened red bean, which I had a lot of on the trip, so I was kinda over.

So, mediocre taiyaki, tasty custard, standard red bean.  Uniquely Japanese, and I was glad to see it in the lounge.

Update Review,  September 2017

The Space

The JAL lounge is huge, made up of many different rooms, on two stories.  Much like the entire Haneda airport, it felt strangely vacant, not in a deserted way necessarily, just in a not really being utilized way.

It offered every style of seating (comfortable lounge chairs, dining tables, high tables, counters, desks, a quite room, a tv room, etc), and was well designed with power outlets everywhere.  Clearly very modern. 

Free Lockers!

Right when you walk in to the lounge, there is a large section of storage lockers.  Complete with locks and keys.  Free of charge.  It was easy to get a locker, there were plenty.

Um, wow.  Why do all lounges not have these?  It was such an amazing feeling to be able to walk around unencumbered, and not worry about my belongings.  A single locker easily fit my roller bag and laptop.  

There was a second room full of these on the upper floor.

Window Seating.

The number of styles of seating was amazing, and each area, completely wide open.  Along the windows, with a stunning view of the runways at night, was a high counter with bar stools.

This was wonderfully designed space, with plenty of power outlets, and a nice standing option for those who were sick of sitting on flights.

Interior Seating.

Of course, if you prefer to sit, there are plenty of options for comfortable seating as well.

More Seating.

The round semi-circles were particularly fascinating.

Dining Area.

Even the dining area had power outlets at every seat.

Drinks

Drinks were all self-serve, no bar.

Soft drinks, juices, tea, coffee, beer, wine, sake, hard alcohol, an impressive collection overall.

Hard Alcohol, Wine, Sake.

A nice selection of hard alcohol, chilled white and red wine, and two types of sake were laid out.

I enjoyed the sake.

Beer on Tap.

Two types of beer were on tap, with chilled beer glasses in the fridge.  They clearly take the beer seriously!

Drinks.

The middle shelves held pitchers of JAL's signature Sky Time, Water, Tomato Juice, Iced Tea, Iced Coffee, and a sweet drink. On the bottom was tonic, on top, the aforementioned chilled beer glasses.

I was impressed with the iced coffee offering.

Soft Drinks.

The soda dispenser had an interest assortment: Coke, soda water, Canada Dry Ginger Ale, Real Gold (an energy drink), Minute Maid Juices (orange, and ... melon?), and something that looked like tea.

I appreciated the soda water dispenser, although would have preferred bottles.

Food

The food selection was very extensive at my mid-afternoon visit.  Japanese selections, Western selections, soups and salads, and even some shockingly good dim sum.  Dessert was the only meager offering.

Everything was exceptionally well labelled, in Japanese and English, with full nutrition information on every card.

Udon Soup Broth / Pickled Plum / Pickled radish.

The first station was an area to make your own udon soup bowls, with broth, noodles, and toppings.

I tried a bunch of the assorted pickles, here and at subsequent stations.  None were particularly good.

Udon Noodles & Toppings.

The second half of the noodles station had the noodles themselves already in bowls, and more toppings: seasoned and sliced deep fried tofu, fish cakes, boiled mountain herbs, and bits of deed fried tempura batter.

I tried the later two, and again, not really very good.  To be fair, I had spent the entire past two weeks eating these sorts of items daily at breakfast and lunch, so, I might have just grown tired of them, but these didn't seem to be of very high quality.

Miso Soup / Pickled Scallions / Sliced Vegetables  Pickled in Soy Sauce.

Next came miso soup, and more pickled stuff, again, not remarkable.

Rice.

And of course, steamed rice.

Chuka-don (Chop suey on rice).

The chop suey didn't look particularly good, very, buffet steam tray quality, if you know what I mean.

Fresh Salad Bar.

The salad bar wasn't very extensive, just mixed greens, mini tomatoes, shelled edamame, corn, 4 types of dressing.  And fruit cocktail, the kind that looks like from a can.

Parker House Rolls, Ham, Mayo.

This was a build-your-own sandwich station, complete with instructions ... I'm not kidding.

Step 1: "Please take a parker-house-roll and ingredients".
Step 2: "Open a parker-house-roll".
Step 3: "Put ingredients.  Enjoy your parker-house-roll sandwich!"

Uh.

Creamy Tomato Soup / Japanese-Style Soup with Mushroom and Potato.

I did not try either of the soups, but they had a western option (creamy tomato) and a Japanese-style soup.

Tatsutaage Fried Chicken (Ginger Soy Sauce)

I didn't try the fried chicken bites.

Spaghetti with 5 Mushrooms.

I love assorted mushrooms, so this was actually pretty exciting looking to me.

The pasta was fine, not too mushy, but not particularly good.   But those mushrooms?  Super slimy, and not enjoyable.  I wished it had more sauce too.

On the side was parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and hot sauce.

Shrimp Dumplings.

The dim sum however was shockingly good.

The shrimp dumplings were great.  The wrapper was soft and pliable, the filling flavorful, with crispy bits of veggies in the mix with the shrimp as well.

I was impressed with the quality of these items, and with the fact that they had soy sauce and vinegar on the side to make dipping sauce.

Pork Shumai.

The pork sui mai was extremely greasy, but the wrapper was great.  Again, really impressive for a buffet. 

Maison Kayser Breads & Toaster Oven.

JAL has a partnership with Maison Kayser for baked goods, served both on board and in the lounge.

The lounge lineup was: Croissant, Baguette, Strawberry Danish, Cinnamon Roll, Takana Bread, and Mini Apple Cream Bread.

A toaster oven was on the side for warming if you wished.

Cinnamon Roll.

This I tried warming up in the toaster oven, which was actually kinda nice, although it got strangely moist.

The cinnamon roll wasn’t great though, not flaky, not laminated, and, well, it didn’t have any icing, a key component to a cinnamon roll in my mind.

Mini Apple Cream Bread.

This one was actually wonderful.

A soft, slightly sweet bun, shiny outside.  Inside was a lovely custard cream and bits of apple.  Apple isn’t what I would choose, but, the cream filling was so good I didn’t mind.

Quite tasty, the best thing I ate in the lounge, suitable for breakfast, alongside a coffee, or even as a dessert.

Takana Bread.

This was … a surprise.

A soft bun, not sweet like the apple cream bread.  Sesame seeds on top.

The real surprise was the filling.  It was not sweet.  It was very savory.  Bitter even.  Bitter greens, spiced with curry perhaps?  I clearly didn’t know what “takana” was.

It turns out, it is pickled mustard leaf, which I learned much later.  Yup, that sounds right.  Bitter greens, that seemed spiced.

This was actually pretty good, just entirely not what I was expecting.

Cookies.

The only dessert offerings were cookies.  Hard style, chocolate chip and butter.

Rice Cracker Mix.

Finally, snack mix, located on the side with the drinks.

Rice Cracker Mix!

As you often read, I love snacks.  American Airlines probably generally wins this category for the snack mixes in the lounges, but, I'm generally just a fan of anything salty and crunchy.

The snack mix was a fairly generic offering of soy (?) flavored boomerangs and a few crunchier rice seasoned rice crackers.  Nothing extraordinary, but not stale, and I certainly enjoyed munching on it alongside a drink.

Original Review, September 2014

As you've been reading on Tuesdays for weeks now, I went on a business trip to Tokyo.  It concluded with what I am sure will go down as history as one of the most memorable experiences of my life: a flight back, via Hong Kong, on Cathay Pacific, First Class.

The start of my epic journey began at the Haneda airport.  I was glad to fly out of Haneda, as it is much closer to Tokyo than Narita, and, much, much smaller.  While there wasn’t much to do once I got through security, I appreciated the fact that there were no lines to check in, no lines for security, and it was all a relatively calm experience.

After quickly poking around the very few shops, I headed to the the JAL Sakura Lounge. Unfortunately, the first class lounge was closed for renovation, and Cathay Pacific shares the JAL lounge.

My only other comparison point for JAL lounges is the one in SF, which is ridiculously unimpressive, so the Haneda one was a welcome surprise.  It still wasn’t really the calibre I’d expect from the lounge of the flagship operator of the airport, but like I said, Haneda is a small airport, and I’m not sure JAL even has First Class flights out of there.

I think there were showers, but I didn’t check them out.  Bathrooms were nice enough, but standard.

Window counter seating, table seating.

I was stuck by how large the lounge was, particularly for the small airport.  It wasn’t even remotely full.  There were many seating options.  Counters along the window with viewing areas of the runways, all with power jacks.  Tables, mostly for 2, with assorted types of seats.

Soft Seating Area.

Softer seating of armchairs and couches took up the rest of the main area, along with space for workstations, and a large section deemed the "quiet area", not that it was loud anywhere.

At the entrance was a bar, but there was an additional bar area with the food station, which I went to explore, even though I wasn't that hungry.

The food station was quite large, particularly compared with the SF one.  It had a rather strange assortment of food.  I was particularly surprised that it didn’t have onigiri, as the SF one did, and this seemed to be the most common snack food all over Tokyo.  I had been looking forward to having one final one!

Rice, toppings, sushi.

Starting at one end were steamers full of rice, with toppings like ume and pickles.  And sushi rolls … but beef sushi only.  Is this normal?  (Sorry for the blurry photo, I was trying to take photos quickly so as not to look like a wierdo ...)

Soups, noodles

There were also a couple soups, noodles, and ... cornflakes.  Odd items to have grouped together!  I guess they all go in bowls?

Hot Dishes.

Then there were strange hot dishes that I couldn’t identify at all.  Honestly, no idea what these were.

Steamed Veggies.

Next, cold steamed vegetables.

I tried the winter squash, since I love squash.  It was well cooked I guess, but just squash.

Salads.

The next station was a bit more familiar to me, with salads and dressings.

Most impressive were the salads.  I had one with hijiki seaweed, beans, and some veggies.  It was fresh, well seasoned, and a great last taste of Japanese cuisine.  A bit fishy from bonito flakes, but in a good way.

I also had the lotus root, pumpkin, and apple salad.  Such a strange combo.  I love lotus, and this was fresh and crisp.  The pumpkin was mushy, a bit like a sauce.  I liked that too.  The apple was crisp, but I’m not really a fan of apple, and I don’t see how it fit in here.

My favorite station of the lineup.

More Hot Dishes.

Next were hot dishes, a beef curry and assorted dim sum.  All had ingredients I didn’t like, and I wasn’t hungry, so I skipped these.

There was also a bread selection, which I’d read about previously, since they feature selections from the Parisian bakery Maison Kayser.  Unfortunately, since it was afternoon, the lounge didn't have any of the pastries I’d read about, and just 3 types of bread instead: ciabatta, le delice blanc, and baguette monge.  Boo.  I skipped these.

Savory Baked Goods.

This area also contained tuna pizza.  What?  Beef in the sushi, tuna on the pizza ....

And a tuna bread thing.  The only thing I tried from this area was a blueberry pastry, but it was dried out, burnt, flavorless, and not good at all.  Presumably left over from breakfast?

Snacks, coffee, tea, soda.

On the final side were little snacks, like generic chocolate covered graham crackers, and snack mix.  I love snack mixes, but this wasn’t very good, mostly fairly plain rice crackers, with a few peanuts, and not particularly flavorful wasabi peas.

Overall, nothing that great here, but a far better selection than the SF lounge.

The drink selection was also better.

Juice, milk, beer.

There was beer on tap (I know this is what my co-workers must have gone for!), with cold beer glasses in the fridge.

Also in the fridge was juices, and pitchers of their famous Sky Time cocktail.  I had to try that, and it was good, not too sweet, refreshing.

Hard Alcohol, Wine, Sake.

 There were also a couple red wines, a small but decent hard alcohol selection, and sake.

Chilled  Sake.

And chilled sake.

I spent about an hour in the lounge, and it was comfortable enough, but not really notable.  An announcement was made that my flight was boarding, so I jumped up, and went to my gate.

Massage Chairs, in a Separate Room.

Right before boarding, I spent the last few minutes in the massage chair room.  Not as nice as other lounges that have real massage services, but a nice touch.  The chair was highly confusing however, even the attached manual didn't help much.  No food or drinks allowed in this area.