Big menu has its ups and downs Flight Club airport restaurant offers eclectic options and healthy dishes By: Alison Gillmor Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Wednesday, Jun. 6, 2018

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/06/2018 (2893 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s usually an element of compulsion about airport dining. You’re there because you have to be; you’re waiting for a flight, coming in or going out.

Flight Club, a new restaurant at the Winnipeg James Richardson International Airport, wants to change that. With an ambitious but over-extended menu, the results are up-and-down — sometimes disappointing, sometimes promising and sometimes (in the case of the resto’s astonishing liquid nitrogen-cooled ice cream) just fabulous.

The venue, on this side of security and open to the general public, goes for a cool, contemporary look that subtly references the airports of the 1960s — you know, the era when flying was actually glamorous and fun. The lounge section of the restaurant fronts onto the arrivals area, which can be full of human drama, kind of like the opening scene in Love Actually.

Flight Club — the first rule of Flight Club is: you do talk about Flight Club — is part of an Asia-based chain that specializes in airport dining. (The company also operates the pay-per-use Plaza Premium Lounge on the other side of the security gates.) Right now, the only other Flight Club restaurant is in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Reflecting its airport origins, the restaurant’s mandate is to connect the distant and the close. The small plates and mains combine some fresh local ingredients — Prairie-style beets and black barley, for example — with an international range of flavours. There are several Asian options — from Filipino pancit to Indonesian nasi goreng — a brief Italian section, and a few dishes straight out of YWG, such as the Manitoban breakfast poutine.

It can be hard to eat right when travelling, so the restaurant also offers many healthier options, including fresh cold-pressed juices. A sampled Happy Tum-Tum with apple, cucumber, celery and bitter melon is green, gorgeous and bright.

The all-things-to-all-people menu is almost bound to be uneven, however. Too many of the dishes shoot for fine-dining status, with intricate presentation and alluring ingredients, without arriving at their destination.

The plating of the tomato and beet salad is almost too precious, with three small clusters surrounded by little drizzles of vinaigrette spread across a long rectangular plate. The taste is good, though, with properly ripe tomatoes and roasted beets offset with a light, herb goat cheese and caramelized pistachios.

The ahi tuna tartare could use more taste from the pickled ginger and lime, but the accompanying deep-fried nori is intriguing, with a musky umami flavour.

Seafood soup, a daily special, is hearty — maybe a little too hearty, the aggressive and too-salty tomato-based broth overpowering the small bits of scallop and squid. A better choice is the wonton soup, which features tight shrimp dumplings simmered in a miso broth with the underlying flavours of shimeji and shiitake mushrooms.

Nasi goreng is listed as spicy on the menu but doesn’t pack much heat. The sticky, slightly sweet rice mix is topped with a fried egg and accompanied by two small skewers of chicken satay.

The pasta con sugo di carne features a nice, homey ragu made from braised short rib, chuck and bacon, but the spaghetti had a reheated consistency. Veal cheeks seem more elegant than they actually are. The accompanying truffled mashed potatoes are too dry, though the accompanying ratatouille is rather lovely.

There are also more casual options, including sandwiches and wraps. French fries are nicely crisp but slightly dry.

Finally, the desserts. The tiramisu is a little watery, but never mind. The thing to try here is the aforementioned better-living-through-chemistry ice cream. I’d read about liquid nitrogen-cooled ice cream before but never tasted it. And it really is different from the standard product. Because the freezing takes place very quickly, the ice crystals stay small, yielding a very cold and super-creamy finale.

At Flight Club, the made-to-order chocolate option combines silky-smooth texture with intense chocolate flavours, ramped up with bittersweet chocolate shavings and a milk chocolate sauce. A complex organic green tea option is garnished with love-it-or-hate-it red-bean compote. Portions are big and rich and could easily be split between two or more.

And one more sweet treat to finish: the restaurant offers validated airport parking.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca

Alison Gillmor
Writer

Studying at the University of Winnipeg and later Toronto’s York University, Alison Gillmor planned to become an art historian. She ended up catching the journalism bug when she started as visual arts reviewer at the Winnipeg Free Press in 1992.

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