United Club, London Heathrow Airport

Normally when i travel, I fly with OneWorld airlines, as long ago, my friend Emil gifted me Gold Status.  I got to enjoy the finer things in life, like the British Airways lounges when traveling through Heathrow - including both the First Class lounge (see prior reviews) and even Concorde Room (which I've reviewed for both breakfast and lunch).  But I lost that status, as I don’t fly nearly enough to maintain it. I still generally fly with One World, although now, I’ve been relegated to the Business class lounge (reviews).

But on my recent business trip through London, flying One World was far too pricey, so I flew with Virgin Atlantic from SFO to LHR (where I got to enjoy the pretty excellent Clubhouse at SFO and a decent flight).  My final destination however was Lisbon, and to get there, I flew with TAP, a Portuguese airline that I didn’t know existed until booking this trip.

I was flying economy on TAP, and had no status, so, I knew I’d have no lounge access for my 4 hour layover, a prospect I wasn’t exactly looking forward to.  Somewhere along the way, I remembered that I had 2 United Club lounge passes as part of my hotel status, so, I brought them along and cashed them in for my traveling companion and I.

And thus, we found ourselves in the United Club for a few hours.  My research showed that most folks feel it is one of the best United Club lounges out there.  Given its level of mediocracy, perhaps I’m glad that I don’t normally fly with United.  It was certainly better than being in the main terminal, and you could tell that they tried to do a few nice things, but, overall, not anything rave worthy.

The Setting

Assorted Seating.

The lounge is medium-sized, certainly nowhere near as large as the British Airways business lounge, but also, not nearly as busy.  Assorted types of seating were available, including round dining tables, smaller square dining tables, 1 token couch, and a few arm chairs.

High Tables.

There were also high tables.

Power outlets were plentiful, and we really appreciated that they had US power jacks, as my companion and I both forgot adaptors.

Bar Area.

The final area housed the bar, with more seating along the bar.

The bathrooms were kinda ridiculously nice, individual little rooms, very large, with an attendant standing by to fold the toilet paper back into a triangle after every use.  This seemed like a waste of both space and staffing.  Interestingly, they had only hand soap, no lotion, which my very dry airplane hands really wanted.

They did have showers, but I didn’t check them out.

The Drinks

Juices.

One side of the space was a drink station, with fairly standard self-serve soft drinks.  More interesting was the juices in dispensers, and a station with cordials you could add to make flavored water.

Sparkling water was available in large bottles.  I took a whole bottle back to my seat and my companion looked surprised, but, uh, I easily drank the whole thing.  I appreciated not needing to get up to get more.

Still water was available on tap.

Tea / Hot Water.

There was also a Twining tea selection with hot water, standard black tea, green tea, mint tea, and a fruity one. No rooibos.

Coffee Station.

A automatic coffee machine made decent enough decaf.

Coffee Condiments.

This station confused me.  

It contained syrups to add to coffee (vanilla, hazelnut, cinnamon, and chocolate cookie), but also little jars of cookie crumbs (ginger nut biscuits, amaretti, and double chocolate cookies).  I was excited to make some sort of decadent dessert-y coffee, and added  the chocolate cookie syrup and some cookie crumbs. 

And then I realized how little sense this made.  Soggy cookie crumbs in coffee?  I really don’t get it.  What were they for?  I could see adding cookie crumbs on top if there was whipped cream or something, but there wasn't.

Negroni.

Alcoholic selections came from the bar, where they were made/poured to order.  A few wines, beer, and basic spirits.  I asked if they had a cocktail menu, as some lounges do have fun cocktail menus, and the bartender kinda looked at me like I was asking a crazy question, and said he could make a classic cocktail.

So I asked for a negroni, and his attitude all changed.  I think he thought I was asking for something fruity and ridiculous?

Anyway, the negroni was fine, and nice to sip on slowly alongside my food.

The Food

Food all comes from a poorly stocked, not labelled, and totally non-hygienic buffet on the other side of the room.

Cold Cuts, Cheese, Sandwiches.

First up was a cold well with sandwiches, cold cuts, and cheeses.  They very helpfully labelled only the meat platter: “Continental sliced meat platter”.  I had no idea what any of the sandwiches were.

Salads.

Next was another cold well, with salads.  Again, only one item was labelled, the coleslaw.

The back row had fruit salad (I avoided due to melon), potato salad (cubes of potato, way over dressed), and the slaw (also ridiculously overdressed).  I love mayo based things, but both the slow and potato salad were just so over the top that I couldn’t enjoy them.  They also had no seasoning.

In front was a mixed bean salad, cous cous, and a cold pasta salad with corkscrew pasta and tomato sauce.  I tried the pasta, it was too tangy.

Random Stuffs.

Next was a very interesting section.  Keeping in theme, only one item was labelled … the butter. Thanks, United.

The back row had chips, dressings and other condiments, and sunflower seeds.  There was no serving tongs for the chips, or even a spoon for the seeds.  Gross. (There are tongs in this photo, they were not there when I actually went to get them).

Once I didn’t find anything else in the lounge I wanted to eat, I went back to try the chips, and hoped that somehow others hadn’t touched them all.  The chips were really strange, not chips exactly, more like fried tortillas, but not like tortilla chips as we know them.  They were crispy yet soggy if that makes any sense.  Chewy.  Oily.  They weren’t good, but, honestly, everything else was so bad that I asked my companion to get me more, and he brought me a big platter, which I somehow finished, dunking in all sorts of things.

The dressings and condiments were in bottles, and, you guessed it, not labelled.  I was thrilled to find sweet chili sauce though, which I used for my chips (and wedges), and my companion used for his chicken.  There was also an herby oil that wasn’t bad.

The front row was breadsticks, butter, and crackers.

Taco Toppings, Condiments.

Next was another condiment station.  It had tomato sauce and brown sauce, tabasco, salt and pepper, salsa, shredded cheese, pickled jalapeños, diced red onion, brown wilted lettuce, and what I think was sour cream.  The sour cream like substance was chunky and super strange, but we still tried it with the sweet chili sauce and wedges, pretending to be in Australia.

There were also … croutons?  Note that there was not any salad ingredients, besides the wilted lettuce which was intended for tacos, and the croutons and dressing. It made no sense.

Hot Foods: Taco Bar.

Finally, the hot foods.  Yes, as you may have guessed, it was … a taco bar.  Taco shells and tortillas, and two types of chili to fill them with, along with the condiments from the toppings bar.  At least those items made sense once I saw this section.

The other hot foods bar, which I somehow didn’t get a photo of, had rice, steamed veggies, potato wedges, and crispy chicken.  While I was there, another guest wanted some wedges, and noted that there was nothing to serve them with.  The staff member just grabbed tongs from the chicken, and said to use those instead.  Awesome cross contamination!  But, that certainly explains how the tongs wound up in the chips later on too.

Bread.

There was a very picked over selection of rolls, I guess to go along with the meat and cheese?

Desserts.

The dessert selection made me quite sad: cookies, brownies, some kind of bar, and muffins that were likely left over from breakfast.  As you know, I don’t really like cookies and brownies, and barely consider them desserts.  Couldn’t they have thrown in a least a token cake or pie?

Anyway, of course I had to try things.

I skipped the cookies and brownies entirely, as they just didn’t look good at all.  Ok, not that the other things looked good, but, my sweet tooth needed *something*.

I started with a muffin.  The muffins were all what looked like banana nut (boo), except for one hiding in the back that looked like a crumb topped blueberry muffin.  I quickly snagged that.

It was awful.  Yes, a little crumb on top, and yes some tiny little blueberry bits inside, but it was dry and the flavor was horrible.  The berries didn’t even add moisture, they were dry and hard too.  I gave it to my companion, Mr. Blueberry Muffin, and he took a single bite and threw it out.  Not a winner.

The random bar thing however wasn’t bad.  I have no idea what it was though.  It was … sweet.  It looked like a plain granola bar or something, but it certainly wasn’t.  It was soft, it was sweet, it was buttery, but it wasn’t a blondie.  I think likely a flapjack, now that I am familiar with those.  Anyway, it wasn’t earth shattering or anything, but, it was tasty enough.

Bar Snack: Wasabi Peas.

At some point, I saw others at the bar with little bowls of wasabi peas and pretzels.  Yes!  Snack foods!  Finally!

So I marched up to the bar to ask for some wasabi peas.  I have no idea how you were supposed to know they existed, I'm guessing they normally just give them as bar snacks for those who choose to dine at the bar.  Given the lack of any self-serve snack mixes, or bags of chips, or anything, this was most welcome, although the wasabi peas weren't actually very good.