Day 28 - PH disaster and Macaron Review. Airline review

When we got home, we found the Pierre Herme macarons we bought from Paris arrived in a very bad shape:



Macaron Review
As promised, here are some thoughts from Mr and Mrs Chan about our Macaron crawl

Macaron lady in Aix-en-Provence
She was trained in a michelin starred restaurant, so her techniques were great. All flavours and tastes were excellent, but the appearance was a little inconsistent (who cares!). Some of them had air pockets. Loved the banana, Earl Grey flavours.



Dallayou
Ordinary macs, so no need to waste your time, money and wasteline.



Fauchon
Slight better, but still ordinary macs. Also no need to go.

Laduree
Appearance not as good as PH, but shells' texture was very good. Tastes and flavours were good too. Their tea rooms were worth going, and it certainly doesn't harm to try a few of their macs.



Pierre Herme
IS THE BEST. Appearance, taste, flavour combos were all the best. Mrs Chan liked the Rose, Jasmin, Choc-passionfruit. Mr Chan loved the salted Caramel - much better than the above brands.



Hope Mrs Chan can imitate some of the flavours :)


Airline review
Just a bit of wrap up for the 4 airlines we travelled. Obviously I can't include Vueling budget airline!!! terrible experience.

Best Seat
1) Air NZ - most comfortable seat and bed
2) Air Canada - also horizontally flat
3) Lufthansa - not bad for a "last generation" seat, but no match for the new flat ones. I found the seat narrow too.
4) SQ - had more slope than LH, but I believe these seats (well.. the 747s) are being phased out in the next few months.

Best Food
1) and 2) NZ and SQ tied because both were great. Only tasted a light meal on SQ, so can't compare with NZ fairly. NZ was consistent in all courses and wine was terrific.
3) Air Canada
4) Lufthansa- crap

Best Inflight Service
1) SQ - very good crew
2) NZ - mostly excellent, barring 1-2 aged males who looked a bit like..... a waiter in a street corner cafe. Sorry... can't find a better description. But this is true! we had a guy like that on both NZ flights.
3) Air Canada - better than US airlines, but still way behind Asian airlines
4) Lufthansa - OK, but unpolished.

Best Lounge
1) SQ Singapore T3 - Huge and luxurious lounge like a 5-star hotel. Excellent food quality and choice. Excellent facilities.
2) NZ Sydney - Nice lounge, decent food.
3) AC Toronto - Nice lounge, just crappy food.
4) LH Frankfurt Terminal C - If I paid full fare for my J ticket, I would have been very disappointed at the facilities and would never fly LH again if I had a choice. Well, even from a redemption tix point of view, I would also avoid them if I have a choice.

Best Inflight entertainment
All airlines had on-demand video and audio, so they were all good. SQ and AC choices were better I felt. But NZ was close behind. LH was average.

Overall
1) Air NZ for an all-rounder
2) SQ - very close 2nd, and would have been first if I was on their new J seats.
3) AC
4) LH

OK... that's it from Mr Chan and hope you enjoyed our trip as much as we do. It's time to get back to work, as well as getting replacement credit cards, lodging insurance claims etc...