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Restaurants in Airports: Which Hub Do You Prefer?


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I try to hit Good Dog Bad Dog in Terminal C at PDX whenever I come or go. They are building connection walkways between the terminals so I'll be able to hit it even if flying other than Alaska Air. Yea! The reuban brat is my standard.

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It's not a connection everybody gets an opportunity to make, and when I've been there I haven't stopped for lunch, but I have heard that one of the restaurants at Nice-Cote d'Azure airport can compete with restaurants actually located off the airport. I think this is the place, and now, I think every major airport should offer something equally wonderful, for those occasional 3-hour layovers every frequent flyer encounters.

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

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Schneier -

Do mean Tokyo - Norita Airport? If so I don't remember all that many choices but I do remember a great bento box with, soup, chicken, rice and shumai and a cold Kirin Ichiban draft. That was pretty darn good.

No one has mentioned the Figs (Todd English) in LaGuardia Airport. It is by far the best airport dining option on the east coast.

I was once going to Colombia and my flight (out of JFK) was delayed for 5 hrs so I took a cab to Don Pepe in Ozone Park which, if it qualifies as airport dining, would beat figs.

SLC International does suck! I was once all alone in SLC on Xmass eve (a long story) and I couldn't find any open restaurants, including Chinese. My only choice was to go to the airport and eat one of the bars. Horrible!

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I vote for BWI (the terminal that American West flies from in particular) as my least favorite. Just nothing you want to eat.

The Southwest terminal in Las Vegas is awful too - especially if you're leaving Las Vegas with a raging hangover and looking for something tasty-greasy to get you through the flight.

I travel via DC's National (Reagan) Airport with great frequency and it's not bad. I don't often sit down for meals there, but for those who do, the airport has a Legal Seafood outpost and (less exciting) The Cheesecake Factory. Usually I only have time for a McDonald's sausage biscuit as I race toward the Shuttle!

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What is good besides hot dogs (meh) at O'Hare? I will be there Friday. Oh, I think I had Popeye's there once, in a pinch. Again, meh.

If you are stuck in Philadelphia Int'l go to the central area (between terminals B&C) and buy a sandwich at Assouline caviar... good stuff. They also have some sushi stuff to takeaway, I get the sense tourists don't realize they have anything besides caviar.

I guess I prefer being stuck in Heathrow -- I love Pret a Manger's BLT and their fruit spritzers. And their coffee. In general I don't go to restaurants in airports but I was stuck alone in Heathrow 2 years ago during the world cup game between england and (denmark?) and watched it in the pub there, with a pint and a bunch of screaming fans, that was really fun.

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I hate Salt Lake International Airport with a hate I feel for few other things on this earth (or any other planet, for that matter). :angry::laugh:

Can you even get a beer there? Martinis and peanuts will sometimes get you by. :laugh:

Bruce Frigard

Quality control Taster, Château D'Eau Winery

"Free time is the engine of ingenuity, creativity and innovation"

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

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Schneier -

Do mean Tokyo - Norita Airport? If so I don't remember all that many choices but I do remember a great bento box with, soup, chicken, rice and shumai and a cold Kirin Ichiban draft. That was pretty darn good.

Yes, Narita Airport in Tokyo.

The American Airlines terminal (I forget which one) has a huge array of different restaurants to choose from.

Bruce

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I'm enjoying this topic.

If you are stuck in Philadelphia Int'l go to the central area (between terminals B&C) and buy a sandwich at Assouline caviar... good stuff. They also have some sushi stuff to takeaway, I get the sense tourists don't realize they have anything besides caviar.

There is Assouline in the Philadelphia airport?! I may have to get stuck in there and buy a sandwich or sushi or .... ! I'm flying in and out there next month. I feel a delay coming on! Thanks for that heads-up.

Life is short; eat the cheese course first.

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Can't say much about O'Hare, because when I land there, my next thought is how close my kitchen is... often I can pick out my complex as we're coming in to land.

To add to the list of bad airports, slide Cincinnati in somewhere near the top. After bad weather stranded me there overnight, with no chance of a connection, causing me to miss my grandmother's 90th birthday, getting a return flight took so long that all the food options had closed up by the time I was done, and we weren't allowed on to a terminal with vending machines.

Bradley International, located nowhere near the Hartford, CT it claims to fly in to, has a Sam Adams place which is not terrible when waiting for your ride to cross the state and pick you up. Luckily, it's a small state.

--adoxograph

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Can't say much about O'Hare, because when I land there, my next thought is how close my kitchen is... often I can pick out my complex as we're coming in to land.

Brilliant! I'll be there around 9pm. What are we having? :wink::raz:

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There is Assouline in the Philadelphia airport?! I may have to get stuck in there and buy a sandwich or sushi or .... ! I'm flying in and out there next month. I feel a delay coming on! Thanks for that heads-up.

Susan, if you find yourself getting stuck there for a while, take a tour of the art exhibitions. A few friends of mine have curated over the years and they have shown some pretty interesting stuff...they really put a lot of effort into that. (The information booth across from Caviar Assouline should be able to tell you where the exhibits are).

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Hmmm, I usually fly in and out of Philadelphia when I have to fly... and that airport is pretty bleak in all regards. On the rare occasion when I get my flight cheaper from baltimore I seem to recall BWI having a couple chain style places in each terminal, which while not good, is still better than fast food, or even worse, airport-specific overpriced fast food.

IIRC LAX has some pretty spiffy places to dine though.

The Caviar Assouline shop at PHL airport between Terminals B/C has caviar and cream cheese sandwiches and smoked salmon to die for. That not good enough?

I've also heard there's some Asian place (Sky Bistro?) at PHL that has an interesting wine-by-the-glass list, but I haven't been there.

Independence Brew Pub has great beers and decent bar food.

Katie M. Loeb
Booze Muse, Spiritual Advisor

Author: Shake, Stir, Pour:Fresh Homegrown Cocktails

Cheers!
Bartendrix,Intoxicologist, Beverage Consultant, Philadelphia, PA
Captain Liberty of the Good Varietals, Aphrodite of Alcohol

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  • 7 months later...

I recently dined at Airport Grille, a restaurant that's aptly situated smack in the middle of the airport in New Bedford, MA. The quality and variety of the food--linguini with shrimp, veal scaloppini and the like--pleasantly surprised me. Has anyone else been to an airport recently where the food was surprisingly satisfying?

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Not recently but a year ago I was in Bush Airport in Houston and was pleasantly surprised to find edibles on offer in the new wing.

Nothing overwhelming but appealing Green Salads and a well made veggie Pizza really helped put me on track after a flight from Bogotá and a long wait in the older part of the building.

Considering the horrors I had glimpsed on another place's menu-fried Caesar Salad :wacko: - I was pleased to find a civilised option that I hadn't been in expecting in deepest darkest Tejas.

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Not necessarily the best... but just some of my experiences in airports:

Singapore - went to the secret (maybe not so secret) staff dinning room, so much cheaper and the food was decent. I had the fried loh bak goh, barley water, Hokkien shrimp noodles, and a mixed fruit/vegetable dish with a kind of sauce that I never tasted.

Hong Kong - went for dim sum(decent) at a Chinese restaurant, also had pasta and pizza in another restaurant. The pizza was thin and crispy and the pasta is not soggy. I was quite happy with the food quality in the airport and the price is not too bad.

Hokkaido - this got to be one of the best airport for shopping....... we brought most of our souvenirs in the airport. There was so much food, sampling, gifts, and restaurants everywhere. I had one bowl of ramen, starbuck coffee, and a really nice bento for the plane ride(although the ride was really short :wink: ).

San Francisco - kind of bad, I have been there over 10 times and it is still that bad. :hmmm: I had some "Mexican" food where the nacho was worse than the packaged chips from 7 -11.

Just a warning to everyone, once you pass through the security check point, the food usually gets worse and the price just goes up. Please try to eat before going through the security.

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I think Austin has some of the best food at the airport. It's all run by local restaurants. It's not nearly as good as the original places, but beats your run of the mill airport joints.

Austin does have pretty good food. When they built the airport, they promised to use popular local restaurants only, no chains. It's not the best food around, but it's really not bad at all.

I don't understand why rappers have to hunch over while they stomp around the stage hollering.  It hurts my back to watch them. On the other hand, I've been thinking that perhaps I should start a rap group here at the Old Folks' Home.  Most of us already walk like that.

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Narita is definitely at the top of my list--had great Japanese curry and noodles there a couple of years ago.

As for Cincinnati, there's an excellent Japanese restaurant outside of the airport, a few miles east on I275, called Jo-An. My parents think it's one of the best Japanese places outside of LA. Great tempura, reasonable prices. So as long as you're not snowed in at CVG, keep that in mind as an option!

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Narita is definitely at the top of my list--had great Japanese curry and noodles there a couple of years ago.

Narita does have some great food. We had an awesome tempura-and-soba meal right before we got on the plane - it held us over so we could get by with snacks and didn't have to eat the vile airplane food. The Barcelona airport has some good food and I just liked that airport - all that glass and open space. I don't know why American airports can't be like overseas airports; almost every overseas airport we've been in has had great food, great shopping, etc. Whereas over here it's mostly McDonald's express and tacky souvenir shops.

Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson (is that right?) has some good options for food, especially stuff you can carry onto the plane - I had a great chicken Caesar salad there from a cart in the international terminal. We usually fly out of Dallas, though, and I think the food options in the Dallas airport are terrible, unless you really like T.G.I.Friday's - I think there are two in every terminal.

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I try to leave as little time as possible between flights, so I'm not a great source of information for this thread. I do agree with a couple of last year's posters: Wolfgang Puck's at O'Hare is decent but not as good as one might expect; the Sam Adams at Bradley is a pleasant place to kill some time.

It looks like some good choices are available at the post-renovation Detroit - Wayne County airport, including branches of two well-established local restaurants, PizzaPapalis and Musashi Japanese Cuisine. Has anyone tried these? I was sorely disappointed that Zingerman's backed off their original plan of opening a place there.

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It looks like some good choices are available at the post-renovation Detroit - Wayne County airport, including branches of two well-established local restaurants, PizzaPapalis and Musashi Japanese Cuisine. Has anyone tried these? I was sorely disappointed that Zingerman's backed off their original plan of opening a place there.

I haven't tried either, but I'm always tempted by Musashi. Unfortunately, when I'm there this Wednesday morning, it will be 8am. Do they have any breakfast options, you think? My best airport meal ever was a noodle breakfast at Narita.

If nothing else, I'll end up at Starbuck's - I like to bring their sandwiches on the plane for a mid-flight snack. Not as good as Zingerman's, but it's better than anything NW can offer me.

Danielle Altshuler Wiley

a.k.a. Foodmomiac

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I go through 5-6 airports each week and have been doing so for far too many years. Try as I may, I cannot recall any facility in any airport as somewhere where I would want to dine. But then, I don't consider an airport as dining destination. It's a place to get on or off a plane.

Only positive off premisis experience was a few years ago when I had a delayed departure from the tiny St Bart's airport (pilot overslept). Walked accross the street to a little market, bought an excellent quiche, salad, and a half bottle of wine. Strolled to the beach at the end of the runway and had a lovely meal.

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