'A joke': Qantas passenger shares photo of hideous business class meal

First world problem, or flippin' atrocious? A vegetarian meal on a recent Qantas flight has sparked an age-old debate. 

Business class passengers love to nitpick. And every time a new gripe starts trending it sparks the same debate: is this a storm in a tea cup, or an earthquake in an ergonomically-designed bed?

Given everything going on in the world, what right do you have to complain about some wilted spinach or a scuffed seat?

Regardless of the optics of complaining about a luxury experience, some people are determined to do so.

And flying business class is a holy grail experience for many people. Something you look forward to like Christmas, or your Woolworths Points finally getting you $10 off a shop (wild!).

For this reason, when it turns to ash in their mouth, disappointed passengers tend to be quite vocal.

Enter: Reddit user Medical_Wheel8715. Taking to the Reddit group r/QantasAirways the Reddit user recently posted an image of a wilted-looking vego meal with the caption: "Qantas business class is actually a joke."

Reddit users quipped that this meal looked like "someone had raided a buffet blindfolded."

"Midday flight from Melbourne to Singapore, and this was the business class lunch on offer," Medical_Wheel8715 added.

"Premium cabin, budget vibes. And if you’re in the last row, don’t bother choosing — most of the menu’s already run out."

The reaction on Reddit was swift and brutal. 

"The taste of... disappointment," one commenter wrote. 

"So much beige it's like a Byron Bay mummy influencer," quipped another. 

"Looks like something out of my compost bin," said yet another comic savant. 

"It’s not about how vegetables look in general but I doubt any other airline would serve them looking like I raided a buffet blindfolded," said yet another. 

Others agreed with the "last row thing" with one claiming: "Last time I was on that flight I was offered an economy class meal with a side serving of Karen attitude that only Qantas knows how to dish up."

See also: RBA crackdown on credit card surcharges set to kill the value of your frequent flyer points

Was the meal really that bad?

Not everyone thought it was awful. Some people pointed out that - just as bad as the 'Qantas is the best' group, who love everything Qantas does just because they're Qantas, is the reactionary thicket of 'Qantas is the worst' people, who hate everything Qantas does simply because they're Qantas.

You know the type: the ones that read The Chairman's Lounge once and now think they are experts on soft corruption and write things like: "They are simultaneously penny pinching and alienating the customers that spend the most on airfares" and "the only saving grace has been the stranglehold Qantas has on the Australian market."

Not to say there's nothing to those points, but there might be more to this story than this. 

A Qantas business class passenger's 'first world problem' has started trending on Reddit.

What the more moderate crowd says

Elsewhere in the thread, some Redditors rode to The Beleaguered Roo's defence. One wrote: "I had this dish this week and it did look a lot more appetising than yours."

"It was a really nice vegetarian dish labelled as pan fried polenta with braised greens, wild mushroom ragout and salsa verde. It was very tasty. The other option to this dish was Tamarind Prawns, sticky rice and vegetables."

"This guy clearly messed it up, took a photo, whinged online," said another commenter. 

See also: 'First world' business class complaint sends Internet into meltdown

"I always find it amusing when grown adults with the capacity to fly business class throw a tantrum about how vegetables look," added yet another. 

"As usual, no description of the dish, the alternatives, the issues or how you attempted to address this on the flight. Literally just 'EWWW THE VEGETABLES ARE GREEN!'!" typed a further soul.

Others said they fly Qantas mainly for the lounge, not the food, and questioned what colour the complainant expected their mushrooms ragu to be, if not mushroom-coloured. 

What are the worst airline meals in history?

If you've got the taste for terrible, have at this. Austrian Airlines once allegedly flopped the following monstrosity onto plates at 40,000ft, leaving viewers wondering if: "Somewhere two castrated horses are wandering a countryside."

Get a load of this. Picture: Reddit.

Snowpeas boiled to the colour of military fatigues alongside "naked" pasta (not even a sauce to protect its modesty) and two white sausages on another unspecified airline also makes the worst airline meal hall of fame list.

This one is impressively bad. Picture: Reddit.

And who could forget this dim sim disaster, allegedly served on a Air China flight, which looks more watery than a sailor's grave and more grim than a grim reaper who can't find his scythe. 

Introducing: the essence of sadness. Picture: Reddit.

And, bringing us home with a phallic bang, is this delightful shot of six shamelessly wanton wantons, accompanied by a charred, limp eggplant. You beaut. Served in domestic Aussie business class no less. 

Wrinkled as your grandfather's... well. Nethermind. Picture: Reddit.

Stay classy, Australia. 

Originally published as 'A joke': Qantas passenger shares photo of hideous business class meal