Dubai
Had a few quirks on the return flight-- clearly some stocking issues in the bathrooms, but overall was pretty smooth. The pre-arrival meal of steak was pretty sad, but good effort on UA, just poor execution, probably due to patiently insufficient budget (read: United is cheap).
Long-ish layover at the Polaris Lounge at EWR. Breakfast was pretty good, lunch not bad. Things clearly showed that the Polaris Lounge is not yet fully recovered from the COVID-19-era hits, with half the hot food stations empty throughout my visit. Was good to see that United is putting some more effort in, tho, as I ran into Michael Covey surveying the worn-out furniture during my visit, and was even better to touch base and say hi to Covey and his team. (since moving on from MileagePlus to customer recovery & premium services, wasn't sure how much passengers like me would see of him!)
Uneventful flight back to LAX, and decided to munch at the Polaris Lounge there for dinner before heading home. Was not as good as the EWR location, although given how much smaller it is, that was not a surprise.