Starlux Airlines – LAX-TPE-FUK

Didn’t expect to be back in Japan so soon but my dad wanted to go to Hokkaido for the first time to eat all their amazing seafood and needed a tour guide. No free flights in business and JAL/ANA were ridiculously expensive out of Seattle. I’d been wanting to try Starlux and it wasn’t too bad to fly them to Japan, I did use points to get to LA. I’ll be flying a different airline home. I was very impressed by Starlux, helped a lot by a very light load on the way to Taiwan, only seven other passengers, so had great service and a very quiet cabin. Didn’t really need the door close to add more privacy. The row in front of me and two behind were empty. Hope this startup airline becomes successful and looking forward to them adding flights to/from Seattle in August.

My favorite type of seat with lots of storage and privacy

Door for even more privacy

Very thick mattress pad, almost 1″, very comfortable

Two types of smoked salmon. Parsnip truffle soup with dehydrated apple

Wok Fried Ginger and Scallion Maine Lobster, stir fry noodles, chili garlic sauce
Only available online preorder and was quite good but hard to eat with the pathetic butter knife without serrations

Beef noodle soup – best noodle dish I’ve had at 30,000′ ever. Broth very flavorful and a generous portion of beef, wish this had been the after departure meal to get to sleep faster.

Plain congee – this wasn’t good to me as it was more like slightly overooked rice with a bit of extra water unlike the Cantonese style I’m used too with much more liquid and longer cooked grains. Char siu pork and scallion fritters Stir fried snap peas, shiitake, red pepper Cantonese Soy Sauce braised chicken (this was my favorite item on the tray) The egg still had the shell on which was quite the surprise when I put one end in my mouth and bit down – the yolk was very firm so this is no bueno

Osaka in the middle of the night

Had a nice 4 hour layover in Starlux’s lounge opened a few months ago, not crowded unlike Eva since only two US flights and not many flights to other parts of Asia that early in the morning. The buffet was ok but the two out of three on demand dishes I got were good.

Danzi Noodles – Taiwanese minced pork, shrimp, lean meat slice, yellow noodles

Mini wagyu burger with fries

I was the only passenger in business for the short flight to Fukuoka, they closed the curtain after landing so I could get off without being crowded, good service and hope to fly them again.

Very nice meal although too much miso butter on the fish, I scraped half of it off, and the onigiri wasn’t tight enough and disintegrated when picked up with chopsticks, there was no spoon and just a very small 2 tine fruit fork that did nothing on grains of rice