United Polaris Lounge, EWR

The week before I took a flight from Newark to San Francisco, United changed the branding of the flight to ... Polaris.  No longer just considered a "premium transcon", this was full fledged Polaris now.  Which yes, meant Polaris lounge access.  I was of course thrilled by the opportunity to check out the Newark Polaris lounge for the first time.

My visit was from about 11am until 12:30pm on a Saturday.  It was not busy at all.  

The space was tranquil, and seemed nice enough, however I found myself actually liking the food, and the natural light, more in the much smaller UA Club near Gate C74.

Setting

The lounge is large, and was not crowded at all when I visited.  It had shower suites that I didn't check out, and large, nice individual bathrooms.

So Empty.

There were many styles of seating, and sooo much of it was vacant.

So much space!

The lounge really was expansive, with many different sections.  It felt very open, but had considerably less natural light than the smaller UA Club at C74.

Dining Area.

There was a large dining area for those who choose to eat from the buffet.

Soft Seating.

And soft seating large individual armchairs.  Most seats had power outlets including USB.

Dining Room.

A signature feature of Polaris lounges, the main dining room.  It was also not busy at all.

Dining Room Menu.

The dining room menu sounded great, for both breakfast and lunch. I wished I was hungry for a real meal, as there were not one, but two dishes featuring asparagus, which I was really craving at the time, and all three desserts sounded great to me.  But alas, it wasn't a meal time for me, so I didn't partake in any of it.

Breakfast

I caught the tail end of breakfast when I arrived.  I saw basic breakfast scrambled eggs and sausage, but narrowed in fast on the sweet carb offering, gleeful to have the chance to try it before the lunch swapover.

Maple Baked French Toast Casserole.

I was excited to snag the maple baked french toast casserole, but it wasn't actually very good.  Extremely aggressively spiced, and very dry.  Fruit was mediocre, syrup was unlikely to be real maple syrup.  2/5.

Lunch

The lunch swapover took a while, with different elements brought out in strange order (e.g. the toppings for the crostini bar were there for a really long time before the actual bread to use as a base).  The lineup seemed decent enough, but I didn't actually really like anything I tried.

Salad Bar.

The salad bar had mixed greens or arugula for a base.  The mixed greens were brown at all the stems and didn't seem very fresh.  There were two pre-made, pre-dressed, additional salads.  I plucked some toppings out of them as the rest of the salad bar was so meager. 

Salad Toppings.

The salad toppings were a bit of an odd assortment.  Other than raw red onion, no fresh veggies.  Instead, there was marinated beets, roasted tomatoes, roasted edamame, and mushy mushy mushy asparagus (I had hope! I was craving asparagus! But wow, so mushy).  The pickled radishes were fine.  

Salad Toppings: seeds/cheese/dressing.

The remaining salad toppings were pretty uninspiring to me: some seeds, cheese, and dressing.

Shrimp Cocktail / Gazpacho.

Poached shrimp with cocktail sauce (and random marinated artichokes?), and shots of gazpacho came next.  If I was hungry, I would have tried the shrimp, but, I wasn't, and had been nibbling on other things, so random shrimp at questionable temperature didn't really seem worth trying.

Cheese / Charcuterie.

Interestingly there were only two types of cheese offered (compared to more extensive lineup in the UA Club), and no grapes, in the cheese & charcuterie section.  And no crackers?

Crostini Toppings.

An interesting offering is a build-your-own crostini bar, with several different kinds of spreads.  I didn't try the fig jam nor green olive tapenade, but I wanted to try the brie + chive spread ... and couldn't tell which that was, and which was lemon herb goat cheese spread as items are not individually labelled.  So I took a tiny bit of both, and sadly picked wrong to start, blegh, goat cheese!  The brie spread was fine though, not memorable.

Shrimp & Chicken.

The two main dishes were chicken or shrimp, neither of which I tried.

Carrots & Green Beans.

For a hot veggie, they had a dish that was mostly carrots, with a few token green beans.

Couscous & Rigatoni.

There was a base cous ous for a grain, and pasta dish of rigatoni with mushrooms, peas, and a creamy tomato sauce that I tried, but truly did not like (mushy, not very complex flavor).

Chocolate Chip Cookies.

The "famous" chocolate chip cookies made an appearance in the buffet, presented in a bit more of a classy style than the UA Clubs where they are just laid out on a platter.  They were the thin crispy style everyone raves about.

I see why people like these cookies. They aren't really my style (I'm not a big cookie person anyway), but they were pleasantly crispy, had a nice buttery richness, and did seem a bit unique. The chocolate chips were regular size, and it wasn't loaded with them, but they were fine. I'm glad I tried this, and if I really wanted a sweet treat, I could imagine getting another.  3/5.

UA Club Cookie (Top) / Polaris Lounge Cookie (Bottom).

Interestingly, the ones here in the Polaris lounge were nearly twice the size (diameter) than the ones from the UA Club down the hall.   I didn't notice any real difference in taste despite the very different look.

Lemon Vanilla Budino.

I love all puddings (enough that my blog has a label for them on it after all!), so even though I'm not into lemon desserts, I still tried this.

It was way too lemon curd for me. Tangy in not a way I enjoy. Thick and gloopy. Just, not for me. And far too little whipped cream on top! No textural element like crumble or nuts. 1/5.

Berry Crumble Bar / Seasonal Berries / Golden Oat Streusel.

The dessert bar was slightly more inviting, but was also not enjoyable. It was extraordinarily dry. So dry. The base, the topping, all of it. Dry, dry, dry. 1/5.

Snacks

I'm a sucker for all snack mixes and candies, so I was happy to see the lounge did feature a few.

Snacks!

The Polaris lounge had far more snacks than the UA Clubs, with 5 offerings: yogurt covered cranberries, trail mix, wasabi peas, pineapple, and gummy bears.  I tried the yogurt cranberries, but wasn't really into them.  The rest were standard.

Below these were self serve soft drinks, basic Coke/Sprite/Ginger Ale.  No sparkling water.

Godiva Chocolates.

"GODIVA continues to reimagine chocolate with our NEW Gold Collection: the beating heart of our praline savoir-faire. Each piece in this iconic collection embodies Belgian craftsmanship. Enjoy delicate ganache, nutty pralines and smooth caramels.."

A relatively new (I think?) collaboration between Godiva and United meant there were self serve fancy chocolates, from the new Gold Collection, with little tongs to serve them that made it nearly impossible to pick them up without dropping.  I of course tried both and appreciated the relatively premium offering.