Singapore
Headed straight back to Changi Airport for the return home. Decided to pass on a rushed breakfast at the hotel in favor of a slightly earlier arrival at the airport, which turned out to be totally unnecessary. Trading the JW Marriott's superb breakfast for a decidedly small and substandard Hainan chicken rice at Wee Nam Kee Chicken Rice was a poor choice, but at least I got to try a new place? Maybe I'll make it to Swee Choon or Chef Wei HK Cheong Fun next time, or maybe even the employee canteen (which supposedly is both legit and very affordable).
The buy-up to business class at the kiosk was $3200, which I decided to skip; cut it even closer to boarding this time, but literally a minute before boarding was called, my PlusPoints upgrade went through (w00t!). 30 PlusPoints = $3200 worth of value, at least today on UA 2!
Had a forgettable meal on the return flight home. Still odd to me that United serves dinner as the first meal no matter the time of day, but at least they're consistent, both in meal type and in disappointment. The beef shortrib was inoffensive but completely forgettable, it was at least a solid portion size vs. the shrimp machboos (only 2 medium shrimp?) appetizer. After such a meh meal, I decided to cave and get both ice cream and sponge cake. Being catered from Singapore, the ice cream was okay, but the sponge cake was very Asian, not too sweet, and a good choice for dessert.
A mid-flight snack on a nearly 15 hour flight seemed completely justified, and both the almost-but-not-quite laska and the Maxwell Street-inspired Hainan chicken rice were superb. True, the are still grossly short of what Asian carriers (such as Singapore Airlines, ANA, or EVA Air) serve, but for a US carrier, they were damned good. Another seven hours(ish) later, the pre-arrival meal of shrimp congee was tasty as always. Given I had another full day of airplanes and airports after this flight, I was actually pleasantly surprised that I had a lie-flat seat and two pretty good meals on United on the return to the USA.