Delta First Class, BOS - SFO

I've only flown with Delta airlines a few times, all in the past two years.  The first time is when they introduced a brand new aircraft, the A321Neo, and just happened to be flying it on the route I take to visit my family, San Francisco to Boston.  Prices were dramatically better than my usual JetBlue, so, I tried it.  I wasn't particularly impressed, as you may have read about then.  It just doesn't compare to the experience of having a suite with a door on JetBlue.  I also picked Delta last year for a shorter flight, from Salt Lake City to Orlando, and it was fine, average domestic shorter haul flight, and a much shorter flight, Seattle to San Francisco a few weeks ago, that had no meal service, and thus, no blog post.  All 3 of those flights were fairly delayed, and overall not amazing experiences, so I wasn't planning to pick Delta again ...

But, during my annual summertime visit to see my family this year, the prices were again much better than JetBlue, the flight times were better, so, even if I didn't love Delta, I assumed it would be better than the other similarly timed and priced options with United or Alaska.  And thus, back on the A321Neo it was, this time, the reverse route, from BOS to SFO.

I've reviewed the aircraft before, so I'll skip that part this time, the only difference from my previous flight is that we were given tiny pillows and blankets (waiting on our seat), whereas I didn't have those the summer before.  But, no amenity kit this time.  Not sure if these were intentional changes, or just random.  I was glad to have the light blanket given that it got pretty cold/drafty once underway.

Flight Details

Aircraft: A321Neo

Flight: DL 475

Departure: BOS, 5:05pm (scheduled) 5:27pm (actual)

Arrival: SFO, 8:52pm (scheduled) 8:46pm (actual)

Seat: 03C

We started boarding at the specified time on the dot. I was impressed.  Slight delay pushing back from the gate due to trouble shutting one of the doors, but otherwise, reasonable departure.  Friendly enough crew, some turbulence, but, we were warned about it.  Arrived on time.  Baggage took >20 minutes, but Delta honored their 20 min guarantee, and rewarded me with points for being slow.  Overall, a decent enough flight in terms of logistics.

Drinks

In addition to a few beers, hard seltzer, and usual basic spirits, Delta offers wine and a couple cocktails, which is where I focused my attention.

Wines

• La Fête Du Rosé
• Imagery® Cabernet Sauvignon
• Imagery® Chardonnay
• Une Femme ‘The Betty’ Sparkling Wine
  

Cocktails

• Filthy® Bloody Mary
• Tip Top™ Old Fashioned Cocktail
• Tip Top™ Espresso Martini

Orders for drinks were taken before takeoff at the same time as our meal orders.  No PDB, although there was a small bottle of water waiting at our seats.   Drinks were brought to us fairly soon once underway.

Sparkling Water, Red Wine.

I started with sparkling water (no ice) and the "red wine", which I think was the Imagery Cabernet Sauvignon I saw listed online and I've had before.   I was given a VERY generous pour.

The wine was about as I remembered.  Fine for a airline wine, but not special.  It had a very ... I don't know, rounded taste to it?  Not acidic, not tannic, but a lot going on in a strange way.  Fine, but not something I'd actually seek out.  ***.

The sparkling water was Fever Tree club soda. Lightly sparkling, I do prefer more carbonation.  ***.

Tip Top Old Fashioned.

I moved on to a cocktail later, an old fashioned, not made by the FAs, but, by Tip Top.  It is a canned product, but they pour over ice and serve attractively.  I've had this before, and enjoyed it again, nicely boozy, nicely balanced.  ****.

Dinner

The meal served is dinner.  There was no printed menu, and no pre-order (which is true for all flights with the A321Neo).  This route gets Delta One catering, even though not actually a Delta One route, which no one seems to quite understand why, but, I won't complain.  If you are curious, the difference is that it includes bread and butter alongside the starter salad, unlike most domestic First that don't include bread, and the dessert is slightly upgraded (not cookie/brownie, but still not ice cream/gelato like the competition serves).  There were 3 entree choices, one vegetarian, one chilled. I learned that they always have one chilled, and fewer hot dishes than passengers, because they don't have enough oven space to heat a meal for each first class guest (!!!).  This is why no pre-order is available.  Seems like, um, poor design choices were made.

There were no printed menus.  The flight attendant described the options as "chicken, salad with roast beef, or homemade pasta", no further details, so I was glad I had found the true descriptions online in advance.  She also hadn't seen them before, so when I asked questions about one, she had no idea.

The menu was as follows: 

SALAD: Grilled Vegetable and Mozzarella Salad

"Arugula, toasted pine nuts, balsamic vinaigrette."

BREAD: Sourdough Roll

"Banner Butter."

MAIN COURSE: Please select one of the options below.

• Roast Beef Salad: green beans, tomatoes, black olives, hardboiled egg, potatoes, creamy Dijon dressing. Served with fresh fruit.
• Cajun Spiced Chicken Breast: sweet corn jalapeno gratin, zucchini, sea salt red peppers.
• Homemade Ricotta Cappellacci Pasta: asparagus, morel mushroom sauce (vegetarian).

DESSERT: White Chocolate Raspberry Tart

Orders were taken before we took off.  I was in row 3, and so I got my choice (the pasta), but they ran out of the pasta in my row, and the chicken in the next.  Row 1 and one side of row 2 had only the salad as an option.  This is standard, as I mentioned, they can't actually heat a meal for everyone.  Pick your seat accordingly, depending on the direction you are flying.

Dinner.

Meals were delivered from to back, even though orders were taken back to front.  Meal service was quite fast, with the first row eating within 25 minutes of takeoff.  I was impressed with the efficiency of our crew.  Everything arrived on one tray at once, including dessert.  No nuts or starter.  Salt & pepper packet rather than shakers.

The meal looked good at first glance, and people talk about how good the Do & Co catering is out of Boston, but, it really did let me down.

Bread & Butter.

"Banner Butter."

The bread was not served warm, but at least it didn't seem to be sourdough as I had expected (per the Delta One published menu online).  It had a nice shine to it, and was fluffy, but didn't taste particularly fresh.  Pretty much standard quality airline quality bread, that I only had about half of before discarding it.  It was useful to slather with cream sauce from the ravioli, but otherwise, it wasn't actually good.  **+.

The butter was nice quality Banner butter though.  

Grilled Vegetable and Mozzarella Salad.

"Arugula, toasted pine nuts, balsamic vinaigrette."

I had decent hopes for the side salad, with grilled vegetables, as others really do praise the Do & Co catering out of Boston.  The "salad" had a few stray leaves of arugula that were fine but really only ... 4? in the whole dish, two slices of zucchini, one slice of summer squash, and one of eggplant, all "grilled", mushy, and not tasty, plus two forms of tomato: one slice, and a few halves of grape tomato, all of which were mealy and definitely not good, and then some tiny bits of olive and pine nuts.  It seemed really random, with some cohesion at first glance with the grilled veggies and mozzarella, except the olives made no sense, nor did the two different forms of tomato.  I appreciated that the dressing was on the side, as I don't tend to like vinaigrettes.  

I really didn't like this, no matter how much I tried.  I wanted to use the roast veggies in my pasta, but, they just really weren't good.  The mozzarella was not particularly ripe, and not really wanted given all the cheese and richness in my pasta dish, but perhaps was more welcome with the chicken entree (the salad entree didn't include this salad, it had fruit salad instead)?

Pretty disappointing.  *.

Homemade Ricotta Cappellacci Pasta.

"Asparagus, morel mushroom sauce."

For my entree, I went for the pasta.  It was a fairly easy choice, as I had read a few good reviews of it, plus, I really like asparagus and morels.  I don't like chicken, so that was essentially out, although I almost ordered it just for the sides, a tasty looking potato gratin with corn and other veggies, and almost went for the roast beef salad, just as a "safe" option.

I had to laugh at the "homemade" tacked on to the description ... what does that imply about the other 2 choices?  And, at some level, what does "homemade" even mean given that this is mass produced catering ...

The portion was quite generous, with 7 large stuffed patties ("cappellacci").  It actually looked good at first glance, with the asparagus spears nicely lined up, and the bits of morel.   The asparagus was actually quite good, and I did like the morels on top.  But the rest, um, well, not as successful.  Asparagus and morels: ****.

The pasta itself I didn't care for.  It was reasonably well cooked, not too mushy, although not al dente, not dried out, and was decently stuffed with ricotta, but, it was just generic ricotta ravioli basically, just, a bit fancier looking with a different shape and crimped edges.  It wasn't seasoned at all, the filling very bland, and the pasta had no flavor to it.  Cappellacci: **.

Broken Sauce.

The real issue I had with the dish however was the sauce.  It was entirely broken.  The very top looked ok, but, once I dug in, I basically had a pool of butter, and a pool of grainy mushroom sauce.  It wasn't appealing, and the part that was just the broken butter really didn't taste good.  I tried to mix it back up, but, a broken sauce is a broken sauce.  I think the mushroom cream sauce could have been pretty good, and did use some bread to soak up the parts that were less broken, but, it was basically an oily, rich mess.  Potential, but, not properly prepared. **.

White Chocolate Raspberry Tart.

Dessert was definitely the highlight.  It didn't look particularly special, and I didn't think it was really a "tart" as described, but, it was a decent white chocolate mousse, sweet but not cloying, slight complexity to the mousse, nice creamy texture.  It had a very thin compressed base, and raspberry gel inside, like the dot of raspberry sauce on the side.

As they served it, ***+, and enjoyable enough.

Dessert: Upgraded.

But of course I had to embellish it a bit, and came prepared with my own fresh raspberries and strawberries, and rainbow sprinkles.  I was pretty pleased with myself, and quite enjoyed my final creation.  Sweet, creamy, fruity, fresh ... what's not to like?  **** as I had it.