Cathay First Class Lounge (The Pier) – Review

After having the extra luck of managing to book first class tickets by redeeming AA miles from Hong Kong to Milan for both Ms. Buddha and I, we were very excited on the day of the flight. Given that it was a night flight, we made our way to the airport after work to have dinner at the latest first class lounge. But before visiting The Pier – bath Ms. Buddha and I managed to get a quick shower at the Wing.

Whilst the normal lounges are adequate in terms of the food selection, especially the noodle bar – the First Class lounge has sit down service – so when we got there, we inspected the menu.

I selected the Cream of mushroom and Truffle soup and Ms. Buddha went for the Seared Tuna – both had good flavour, except – typical for Cathay, the food itself is a little salty for my taste.

For mains, Ms. Buddha went for the Wo Bar (rice crackers with soup) and I went for the Lamb Stew because I saw that it came with cous cous. Ms. Buddha said that the soup was disappointing because it was apparently incredibly salty – and didn’t finish it. My lamb was actually reasonably tasty – although the meat could’ve been that slightly more tender and less overcooked.

To top off the evening – Ms. Buddha had the pudding for dessert and I just had the cheese plate – Ms. Buddha were quite pleased with the pudding especially when it wasn’t overly sweet; the cheese they had were actually really good, especially the blue cheese, figs were delicious!

After a relatively nice meal – we decided to go for a spot of exploration, and frankly, the new lounge theme is really quite beautiful. Unfortunately, given some delays, the massages were overbooked so we didn’t get a chance to visit, instead we found ourselves a very comfortable spot and I continue the exploration.

Because of boredom (yes, boredom makes you eat – I decided to try out the self serve food area – which had some Chinese tea options – I went back to Ms. Buddha with some more food and she looked in disbelief – although she ended up digging into some of the food as well.

The lounge itself is quite nice, although the food can be improved – they say that they have saltier food during the flight because your taste buds goes numb – but when you’re on the ground, the food could do with a little less flavouring and be more natural.