United Red Carpet Club Lounge

The United Red Carpet Club Lounge is making an effort to improve its image by providing food beyond the soda, juice, cheese, crackers, nuts fruit and paid bar it offered in the past. There was a write up about it in Hemisphere Magazine where Washington Dulles was referenced as one of the first airports to take part in this upgrade.And so I present the long awaited upgrade...As we entered the lounge the gentleman in front of me said "oh look, they have fruit and mints."There is also coffee, hot water, and iced tea.You can have cold water and something like lemonade in a plastic cup. There are also skittles which can be self-served in a plastic cup with the beverages if you would like.To the left there are some powdered Chocolate mixes and some selections of tea for a bit of variety.Moving on to the other narrow, dark display counter where the rest of the selections are located, there are now salads but don't be fooled by number of dishes--there are only three choices--a cooked red pepper, a couscous with wheat (so I couldn't eat it) and stewed olives. Underneath there are a few sodas selections in the small refrigerator.There was a vegetable soup with glass bowls but plastic flatware.But wait, if you were not already disappointed and slightly grossed out enough, you could move to the end of the food options and find the cheese and crackers (now unwrapped instead of in neat packaging) and some in rolls in stacked baskets.There are also dried nuts and fruits all mixed together so that they are nicely moist and soggy which can be served in plastic cups by the skittles or on a plastic plate shown.Under this display is another small refrigerator with pineapple juice, V8 Juice, and two other mini juice selections.There is a full bar in the lounge where you can get free soda in a real glass with ice but you have to pay for your alcohol.Just to compare to the Etihad and the Virgin Atlantic lounges at Dulles airport, both of these lounges have menu service and full service dining service preflight.Just simply comparing the pictures of food choices with the Lufthansa lounge (more on that tomorrow) speaks volumes to quality.