In early November 2019, we made our somewhat biannual visit to Japan — this time, to Kyūshū, the southwesternmost of Japan’s five main islands. At Sydney Kingsford Smith International Airport, we took advantage of both the American Express Lounge as well as the Qantas Business Lounge. So this is an overview of our experiences in the lounge, before upcoming posts cover our experiences in Japan.
Sydney
American Express Lounge
The new American Express Lounge located in the T1 International terminal is near Gates 50-63 down an escalator. Flying with Qantas though, the lounge was a fair trek — almost 15 minutes walk — from our gate.
The lounge replaced the previous one near the Qantas gates and opened just a week before we visited. It’s three times larger than the previous lounge at over 600 square meters. This was the ‘private resting space’.
This was the ‘social area’ situated towards the right with multiple LCD displays, bench seating and self-serve beverages and snacks.
We’re here for a late lunch/early dinner, so set up camp in the ‘public dining space’. There’s hot food in bain-maries and soups in cauldrons.
This was a slow cooked shredded beef ragu pasta. D enjoyed the strong meaty flavour of the pasta, although it was a bit dry.
I tried the chicken and corn soup with a bread roll. The soup was more of a Chinese style, having a prominent chicken soup base with whisked egg rather than the thicker Western type.
There was also a Pizza Bar (not available on a Wednesday) as well as a Live Station where we could order dishes off the menu.
This is the Spiced Plum Chicken Stir Fry, ‘stir fried chicken in a fragrant sweet plum sauce, served with rice’. The bulk of it was carrots and eggplant in an enjoyable plum-based sauce, but that made it more of a vegetable stir fry with just a few pieces of chicken.
And this was the Fettuccine Pomodoro, ‘fettuccine topped with a sauce made from tomatoes, garlic and olive oil, sprinkled with Parmesan’. This one hit just the right spot for a tomato-based pasta, although I’d have preferred less cheese.
There was a dedicated bar area with numerous beers on tap.
We went for our usual favourite with a Lemon Lime Bitters, made with real Angostura bitters.
The bar also served a variety of non-alcoholic drinks, including coffee.
This is the choc mocha, ‘rich chocolate mixed with single shot espresso, steamed milk & a fine layer of foam’. The chocolate wasn’t prominent but it was a decent coffee.
With an overnight flight, I avoided coffee and instead went for a hot chocolate, ‘rich chocolate with steamed milk & a fine layer of foam’. The sweetness and chocolate came through better in this hot chocolate.
Housemade corn chips were available in the self-serve section. They tasted like less salty and less oily corn chips from the supermarket.
To go with our snacks, we found cans of moscato and prosecco in the self-serve fridge. Both were a bit too alcoholic for our tastes.
Qantas International Business Lounge
With our boarding gate a good 15 minutes away, we made our way back and headed to the Qantas International Business Lounge to sit out the rest of the evening.
The Qantas Lounge was about twice as big as the Amex lounge, but also about 10 times busier.
Much of the lounge felt quite tired compared to the brand new Amex lounge, but nevertheless there was plenty of seating left despite the crowds.
We were glad we ate at the Amex lounge as most of the brain-Marie’s had been picked clean other than the extensive selection of salads.
Instead we dropped by the gelato stand for some green apple (left) and hazelnut (right). While the green apple tasted artificial with a foamy mouthfeel, it was still tasty. In contrast, the hazelnut was a winner, delivering a prominent hazelnut flavour without any chocolate to interfere.
D tried the chocolate brownie with chocolate sauce. The brownie was dense and moist with a generous amount of hazelnuts. The chocolate sauce, though, tasted cheap.
We enjoyed these puffs, which were crisp and lightly salted.
And with that, we finished our time in the lounges. Overall the Amex lounge was more comfortable and less crowded despite being situated at the literal other end of the airport. Given the choice, the Amex lounge was less tired and the food on offer was more inviting.
Flight QF25
Our flight departed at 9:35 pm and not long after, we were served dinner. Each option came with a citrus matcha cheesecake, which was not palatable with an off putting dairy flavour and a quinoa base, and focaccia.
This was the smoked salmon option, which was enjoyable, with the noodles going well with the beans and pine nuts for some crunch. The dressing was a bit much, though.
This was the rice option with chicken and black sesame sauce, which was the heartier and more enjoyable option.
For breakfast, we enjoyed the variety of fruit, although the banana and carrot cake was again too sweet and fibrous. With that, we landed in Tōkyō at 5 am and awaited our connecting flight to Fukuoka in our zombie states.
Sydney was Day 0 of 15 in this Japan 2019 trip around Kyūshū. Day 1 saw us visiting Fukuoka.