Singapore Airlines Silver Kris Lounge, SFO

To begin my most recent journey to Sydney, my first stop was the Singapore Airlines Silver Kris Lounge at SFO.  I was flying aboard Air New Zealand, but they do not have their own lounge, and us thus share the Singapore lounge.

The lounge is very small, with limited offerings, but, sadly, that is pretty normal for SFO.  We don't really have any flagship lounges here, as I noted in my review of all the different OneWorld lounges.

The Space

Since the space is small, and serves so many airlines, they have strict entry requirements.  The entire time I was inside the lounge, all I could hear was the front desk attendant, saying over and over, "from the hours of 6pm to 9:45pm, the lounge is reserved for Air New Zealand passengers".  People's reactions to this news was fun to observe; some were polite and said they'd come back, others were adamant that they had United status, and blah blah blah, they should be let in.

Seating Area.

The main area is made up of brown soft armchairs, mostly in pairs.  They look perhaps comfortable, but looks can be deceiving.  Soft, yes, but plastic-y, strangely deep, and with arms that were too high to reach over.  I put my food and drink on the provided side table, and had to awkwardly reach up and over to get to my items.

I was eager to get out of the chair, and actually imagined the seat on the plane would be more comfortable (indeed, it was).

Side Seating, Bathroom.

Besides the one main area, there are a few more tables on the side, and a trio of bathrooms, all individual and unisex.  No showers.

Drinks

The drink area is ... limited.  Yes, there are hot beverages, cold beverages, and alcohol, but within each category, your options are few.

Nespresso Machine.

For warm drinks, there is an automatic Nespresso machine with a decent selection of 6 pod types (yes, 1 decaf), plus a hot water heater on the side with Taster's Choice instant coffee (because someone prefers that?) and two varieties of tea bags.

Cold Beverages.

The cold beverage selection is basic soft drinks (Coke, Diet Coke, 7 Up, Diet 7 Up, Ginger Ale, and Tonic), juices (pineapple or tomato), and beer (Heineken or Tiger).  Only still water, no sparkling.

Wine.

The wines on offer were a single red and a single white, from Jossda, in Napa.

I tried the red and it was highly unremarkable.  Not bad, not good, a decent table wine.

Bar.

The bar was stark with only 6 items: vodka, gin, campari, Bailey's, Grand Marnier, and scotch.

Food

Ok, moving on to what I always care about, food!

Buffet

Food is arranged in one buffet.  Plates are strangely at the other end.  It seemed like we must have entered from the wrong side, since it ended with cookies and began with plates, except, it was totally awkward to get to the other side, and the flow really didn't start there.

Chocolate Chip Cookies.

The only sweet item was chocolate chip cookies.  I don't really like cookies, and I already had full dinner and dessert before arriving, but Ojan took a cookie, so I of course tried it.  It was everything I hate in a cookie: hard, crispy, not buttery, just not good.  Sadness.

Jam and Butter.

Next were platters of generic packaged jam and butter.  I have no idea why.  Do people put jam and butter on their cookies, ever?  I am guessing they were left out from breakfast?

Snacks.

Next to the jam and butter were snacks.  The jam and butter didn't go with these items either.

Basic Chex mix in a big bowl, crackers, vegetables and hummus.  I went for the Chex mix, mostly because I love my mom's Chex mix, but this was just the standard stuff, and I never actually care for it.

Cereal.

Down below were some cereals, including Kellogg's granola and a bunch of Kashi cereals.  Since there was no milk anywhere I'm sure this is just where they stock them from breakfast hours, but, it was a decent selection of Kashi, and I do love Kellogg's granola.  I probably would have been happy enough with their breakfast lineup.

Salad, Fruit, Cold Cuts.

Moving along was a Caesar salad station, with romaine lettuce, dressing, parmesan, and croutons, so you could mix your own.  Kinda nice to do it this way rather than pre-mixed, so those who are gluten-free can avoid croutons or vegans the cheese, and the dressed lettuce doesn't get soggy.  There was also an asian noodle salad that I think had chicken, along with a dressing for it.  Nothing was labelled.

I quickly kept on walking, as the next platter was fruit, including watermelon, and I'm deathly allergic.  I glanced at the cold cuts, but they were adjacent to the watermelon, so I most certainly didn't give them another thought.

Soup, Chips.

I was amused by the next offering: cup of noodles!  Presumably you could get hot water from the drink station to prepare your noodles.

There was another soup as well, in a big soup bowl, but without a heat source.  Why wasn't it in a hot well of some sort? I guess they had no way to keep anything hot.  It too was unlabeled, but I tried it.  It was a thick, rich chowder.  It had little bits of fatty bacon and celery.  I'm not sure what else was in there, I didn't find much.  It was warmer than I expected given that nothing was keeping it hot, and it was decently seasoned.  I actually enjoyed my little bowl of soup.

The chips were just plain, salty chips.

Sandwiches.

And finally, sandwiches.

One on a decent looking bread, one on regular sliced bread, one wrap.  None were labelled.  I didn't try any.