Air France Business Class from Paris-Boston 777-200
Air France Business Lounge
Once arriving at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris, after mucking through passport control and taking the bus around the winding terminals, I finally arrived in Terminal 2E, Hall M where I found the beautiful business class lounge. It was truly gorgeous! Originally I’d had a 3 hour layover, but with delays with my plane, and then shockingly massive lines to get through passports, my time for spending in the lounge had dwindled down to only 1 hour. I was kinda bummed about that. Apparently no amount of time is too much when it comes to scheduling your layovers.
Not that at this point I’ve been in a ton of lounges, but based on what I’ve experienced I’m going to say that so far Air France has the nicest lounge I’ve ever been in. The buffets were beautiful, and full of fresh looking food like cheeses, salad greens, shrimp, and vegetables. Desserts were lemon tarts, cheesecakes, and puddings. The wine and liquor was plentiful. It’s too bad I was already full from my connecting flight, or else I could have done some damage. I made myself a little plate of beautiful herbed chicken (rosemary!) with some great looking risotto and a wedge of brie, and a pretty lemon tart. Of course I also found room for a couple of glasses of red wine.
Sadly, it was all over too soon, but after my initial impression of Air France’s lounge experience, I was excited to see what was in store for the transatlantic flight!
Boarding the Flight
Boarding the 777-200 was a fun discovery. Thanks to Seat Guru I had chosen a perfect single seat for myself, seat 03A. I was comfortable immediately, and I love these little cubbies under the monitor to put your feet up, which I found very relaxing after a week of pounding the cobblestones in Rome.
Immediately after takeoff, the drinks started coming, and the menu came around, and they passed out the cutest amenity bags (which I forgot to take a photo of). We were offered a choice of three colors: aqua, khaki, and dark blue. They were very soft like suede and contained a comb, shoehorn, toothbrush/toothpaste, eye mask, earphone covers, and 2 little samples of Clarins moisturizer and lipbalm.
A little Mise en Bouche was served, and it was a lovely taste. Mini bowl of scallops and crunchy vegetables, along with cashews and cranberries. Enjoyable! I also really enjoyed the red wine, a Vallee du Rhone Rouge.
Next up was the starter course: Poached shrimp, tonnato sauce (a creamy, tangy sauce made with tuna), and an apricot fois gras square! I admit it was my first time trying fois gras, and I didn’t like it, but I did give it an honest try. The bread was wonderful with the delicious origin-protected butter.
Moving on! The food just kept coming out……. Dinner was Poultry glazed with citrus honey and rare peppers, carmelized pineapple and mango, vegetable sticks. Described in the menu as: An incongruous combination, with unexpected mixtures, this dish balances all flavors. Sweet with the sweet-and-sour honey, savory with the five different peppers, the acidity of the carmelized fruit and the bitterness of the chosen vegetables (celery stalks and white radish). A harmony of different flavors that enhances the fine poultry meat.
Holy moly. How could I resist that?? Like a piglet I had eaten up all my butter on the first course, but the broth in the dish was so good I just sopped it up with my roll. The cheeses were Chaource AOP and Saint-Nectaire AOP. Wonderful.
Oh my gosh! So full after this point and like 3 glasses of wine already…… still there was dessert. The wonderful flight attendant kept encouraging me to try a different wine throughout my meal, but I was kind of stuck on that Rhone that I liked so much. So when dessert came around I thought I’d do a fancy digestif and had a nice Cognac Tesseron. Along with chocolate-caramel baton cake and coffee. The ridiculous factor was off the charts at this point. I felt like a queen.
Finally, time to take a break from all that wonderful eating. I had finished watching Hidden Figures, so I then reclined my seat and kind of dozed for a while. The flight was 6.5 hours, so not enough for a really good sleep after the meal service ended, but I did rest for a while before sitting up and turning on LaLa Land because guess what? Time to eat again. Woohoo!
The “light snack” was also beautiful: Goat cheese clafoutis tart, chicken tortilla, tomato, mozzarella and black olive skewer, spiced apple compote, and a little dessert selection of Verrine with strawberry and basil coulis, apricot shortbread biscuit, and vanilla choux pastry. They also came around with some cute little boxes of treats with chocolates, candy, or lemon cookies.
Sadly, it was time to arrive in Boston at 5:15pm. This was a wonderful flight, and my first time on Air France, and also my first time eating any kind of French food. I am basically now convinced that France must be put on my short list of future trips to take.
This return portion of my Rome trip, including the Rome-Paris leg on Alitalia, was made possible once again through the amazing hobby of collecting travel points and miles. This beautiful experience cost me 62,500 Chase points transferred into Flying Blue miles, and $286 cash. Truly a bargain.