Japanese Bento on UA Biz Class

United had a Japanese bento as one of the lunch selections on today's flight to Tokyo. Seeing that I've gotten pretty sick of the usual United meals, I went ahead and got this instead.

That turned out to be a mistake. This was one of the more forgettable airplane meals that I've had. The centerpiece fish was boring (and carried a bit of a not so pleasant odor). In fact, its ingredients and preparation seemed more Chinese than Japanese. I could hardly even finish one piece. The other items (all cold, BTW) were all dull too and not worth eating. Even the green soba in the starter had a funny powdery yet stiff texture, as if it had been sitting there for a while. The only things that were half-bearable were some form of cold cubed meat (beef?) with mushrooms as well as maybe the seared tuna in the starter, but that's all relative to the rest of the meal and were definitely nothing that I want to remember. This was basically like eating unheated leftovers from a bad kitchen. (Even the tea needed reheating). What a bummer. I seemed to have taken more pleasure in the cheese and crackers that swung by later with the cheesecake trolley. I probably should have grabbed the sesame chicken or short rib meals instead.

Again, what a letdown. I doubt that I'll ever order the Japanese meal on United again (I seem to remember SQ's being somewhat better...and that was in economy class). This definitely paled in comparison to bento boxes that I've had on trains in Japan too. At least those were tastier.