EL AL BUSINESS CLASS

Flying Business Class on El Al is great for the kosher consumer. While other airlines do upgrade the kosher fare they offer when you fly Business, El Al is a kosher airline, so the upgraded food is well worth it.

But, let’s go back to JFK airport and the El Al lounge. The lounge is small and comfortable. There are plenty of outlets for the free wireless service. And let”s face it, what Jew travels without a lap top these days???

Food in the lounge is fresh and tasty. They offer an incredible array of ice cold beverages as well as flavored and regular coffees and many types of teas. The tuna is typical Israeli style dark tuna- not for this Jew! There are crackers and breads and a number of spreads, including hummus and techina. The cold couscous salad is incredible and well worth the carbs! The other salad offerings are all fresh and tasty, too. All too soon it is time to leave the lounge and fight for some remaining shred of dignity as you go through security.

We bought an airport safe belt (ie, no metal). Yup, it looks really dorky, but it keeps the pants up as one goes through the security gate. We got through and then the genius manning the gate stopped me and said that we had to remove the belt. The obvious question was, “Why? After all, the security gate did not beep, so it must be ok.” He was dumbfounded- that really threw him for a loop. He called a boss who looked at the dorky belt (It uses velcrow) and said, “let hm go.” Wow- gotta love the high level of security at our airports!

Once on board El Al, the fun began in earnest. While the plane was loading, we had choices of juices, water, sparkling water, wine, beer and soda. Niiiiiiice! Dinner, served on a table cloth covered table and with full size silverware, was quite an affair. The first course was seviche of salmon (ie, thin lox with spices), green salad with a Balsamic dressing, olive tampanade, and hummus. They offered four choices for dinner: steak, fish, chicken or veggie. We had the steak. It was meat of some unknown cut served in a thick gravy. The meat was tasty, but quite peppery. It came with mashed potatoes. As we said, it was tasty, but we have no clue what the meat was. Dessert was fruit and a choice of pastries along with coffee a/o tea. We had a very good Merlot with dinner. All though the meal, they pour cold drinks of all kinds. Many people ordered an after dinner drink, but we were quite full and ready to hunker down, make the seat into a bed and turn on the on-demand entertainment system.

Breakfast was an herb omlette, lox, salad, fresh fruit slices, yogurt, cream cheese, bagels, rolls, jellies and butter, coffe a/o tea, fruit juice, cold water (or any other beverage) and breakfast pastries.

We did not have the pastry, but we did note that they smelled intoxicating!

All in all, it was worth the points we spent on the upgrade!