After 15 days in Japan, eating our way through The Golden Route, I was anxiously looking forward to our flight back to North America.
This would be the sister flight of our flight to Japan, the same itinerary but inversed.
But before all that, I was excited to see what the ground experience at Tokyo Haneda (HND) was like, flying one of the two major carriers in First Class.
Naturally, the highlight of the ground experience is the ANA Suite Lounge which is supposed to be ANA’s best lounge offering.
Access
We arrived at the airport via the Tokyo Monorail line from Hamamatsucho. The station connected straight to the main departure hall and the ANA First Class check-in desks weren’t far away. Check-in was a breeze, except for the fact that Kelly got the dreaded SSSS. They even remembered to call over another agent to bring me my ¥30,000 (~$277 CAD) compensation for leaving my golf bag in SFO. Franky, forgetting a bag isn’t the airline’s fault and I’ll tell the full story in my Japan Reflection post.
After check-in, we walked over to priority security and breezed through security and immigration in around 10 minutes.
From there, it was a B-line to the ANA Suite Lounge. The lounge is located in across from Gate 110 inside Terminal 3, and is open from 5:00–until the last ANA international departure.
We took an escalator upstairs and was greeted with the ANA Suite Lounge in front, and the regular ANA business class lounge to our left.
After showing our boarding passes, we were welcomed into the lounge. I was quick to book a shower. Even though, I didn’t have a Japanese phone number, they gave me a buzzer to notify me when my shower suite was ready.
Layout
Once you enter and walk down a short hallway, you’re presented with a fork in the road – you can either turn right or left. To your right is where you’ll find the noodle and sushi bar, buffet style food, drinks station, and a wide variety of seating options.
There were sofas, arm chairs, dining tables, and even bar stools. I didn’t like this “wing” of the lounge that much, except for the fact that the food stations were here.
While the seating options were fine and it wasn’t busy when we arrived, there was no apron view and windowless, which isn’t very comfortable.
Luckily, the left side is a more intimate and nicer area of the lounge in my opinion. The left portion of the lounge faces the apron and 1 of the 3 main runways. In the middle, there were semi-private cubicles with their own TVs and recliner.
Along the window were a select number of chairs arranged 2 per coffee table. This is where we decided to spend the vast majority of our time. It’s important to know that the coffee tables aren’t very big, especially if you’re looking to sample a few food items. While this area didn’t have the most storage space, the views outside is amazing, you have a panoramic view of aircraft landing and taxiing to the gate. When we got there, the sun has already set so unfortunately, my photos weren’t very good. If you were here during the day, I think you’ll be able to capture some amazing images of planes.
Tucked away in the back of the lounge is this wing’s own drinks bar. It’s worth mentioning that this section of the lounge only has drinks and cold food. À la carte orders can only be picked up at the end of the other wing.
Moreover, when we were there, the drinks machine was broken on this side. So while, I think the seating area of the lounge is the superior to the other side, it didn’t help that anytime we wanted food or drinks we had to walk all the way over to the other side of the lounge.
This may seem like a petty complaint, but from end of one wing to the other is quite the distance. Even more so if you’re carrying drinks and food. The photo above is showing about 3/4 of the full distance to the hot food station at the very end.
Needless to say, we weren’t very impressed with the state of this lounge. Even if the drinks station was working, I still don’t think this lounge can be compared to the other First Class lounges out there.
The lounge was lacking both in terms of décor and seating options. While the décor onboard is understated luxury with clean tones, the lounge was heavy in contrast and the entire area looked quite tired. That’s not to mention that the ceilings were quite low and some areas were quite dim. Grungy isn’t a term that I want to use to describe a First Class lounge.
Dining
The uninspiring layout aside, it can be made up for if the dining options were spectacular. I would say that the food options were definitely above average; however, it doesn’t made up the difference to other First Class lounges.
The first and most obvious drawback is the lack of any table service. In other First Class lounges, you’ll expect à la carte dining to come to you but, after placing an order with a QR code, you have to get your food from the kitchen window. Unless if you were sitting adjacent to the buffet area, everyone else has to walk quite a distance to get their food and come back.
The food was pretty good though, the self-serve buffet station had a good variety of items ranging from salads, small appetizers, to-go sandwiches, and most importantly, inari!
We both love inari sushi, which is essentially sushi rice enveloped with a deep-fried bean curd. The ones that ANA provide in the Suite Lounge were very good and met my expectations. Inari isn’t the most complex dish to prepare; however, there is a big difference between good inari and bad inari.
The sushi rice is the hardest part, it needs to exhibit that perfect blend of being soft while not mushy, stuck together while showcasing individual grains of rice, and have a slight sweet and sour taste from the vinegar while not being overpowering. The bean curd wrap can’t be too thick or thin, and it needs to have its own flavour that pairs with the sushi rice.
The two drink bars are well stocked, but with low-mid shelf alcohol, there wasn’t anything that I think stood out. This was a disappointment even as someone that doesn’t drink alcohol, I would expect a carrier like ANA to provide higher-end alcohol options for their most loyal and premium passengers.
After freshening up with a shower, I ventured back out into the lounge to sample some of the food.
I started with a tonkatsu chasu ramen, it was creamy, the noodles were al dente, and the chasu was a decent size. I quickly polished off the entire bowl and looked for my next dish.
The second dish that caught my eye is the ANA Original Curry, considering that they put their namesake with this dish, I expected it to be better than most.
I rate Coco Ichibanya higher, it wasn’t bad by any means, it just wasn’t good enough for me to want to order repeats of it. It tasted like your average curry with rice.
Then, I moved onto the ANA Original Beef Steak. First off, the presentation can really use some help. And I think ordering a steak wasn’t my best idea, it was cooked past medium and I don’t know if I can blame them – for food safety reasons.
Again, it wasn’t a bad dish and I finished all of it, but I wouldn’t get it again. I would rather get multiple portions of ramen instead.
I know, I know, it’s sacrilege that I didn’t order the Japanese sushi set. After 14 days of being in Japan with 2 ryokan stays and a Michelin 3 star dining experience, I was ready for a switch-up.
Kelly got the sushi set and she thought it was brilliant. I would call this the highlight of the lounge. The fish and rice are made to order, and was presented in a way that I found befitting of a First Class lounge.
The ANA sushi set comes with five seafood nigiri’s and one slice of tamago (egg), plus a miso soup on the side. While I wish we could’ve selected the individual pieces in this set, all six pieces were delicious and while the fish didn’t taste super fresh, it was still good and none of them were briny. I ordered this twice!
Kelly
She also tried the fried tofu udon, onigiris, and a purin which she all enjoyed.
The fried tofu udon was absolutely delicious! If I wasn’t so stuffed from trying all the other goodies, I would’ve gone back for a second bowl. As for the onigiri, I’m not a big fan of rice balls in general, but these weren’t too bad. I was glad I tried some since this was my first onigiri of the entire trip. The purin was decent, but nothing to write home about. I don’t like caramel flavour that much, although I did love the texture of the pudding.
Kelly
The full menu is as follows:
After finishing the three mains and multiple inari pockets, I was very full at this point so I went for a stroll in the rest of the terminal and to do some duty-free shopping.
Amenities
The amenities that you’ll find in this lounge aren’t anything special, you’ll find newspapers and magazines, private rooms where you’ll be able to take a meeting without disrupting those around you, and a singular pod with a massage chair.
The massage chair pod was poorly designed, when the massage chair shifted to a more lie-flat position, there was no room at all for the leg rest to come up, so it felt extremely awkward. This seems like a huge oversight and ANA just put the massage chair in the pod for the sake of it.
The massage chair had juuust enough room for me to wedge my feet in. We tried pushing it back but it wouldn’t budge! Thankfully, I was able to enjoy a pretty relaxing Swedish massage in this chair. Anyone who is taller than 5’4″ is not going to be so lucky.
Kelly
The regular washrooms are quite nice, it was spacious, well lit and always clean. The dark wood panelling on the walls worked very well with the grey tiles on the floor, and featured those powerful Dyson hand dryers.
Perhaps the most important amenity in lounges besides the food and seats are showers. Luckily, the ANA Suite Lounge has 4 shower suites on offer. I expressed the desire to take a shower when we first entered and was given a buzzer that’ll notify me when my shower was ready.
I waited around 40 minutes before my buzzer rang, and decided to hold off on the food until finishing my shower so I don’t feel too rushed. ANA’s Suite Lounge has 4 shower suites, they were clean and well stocked but, I didn’t find them to be that impressive. With the limited amount of square footage in each suite, combined with the sheer amount of stuff on the ground (a stool and luggage holder), it felt a bit cramped.
The amenities were KOSE’s popular SEKKISEI line of products with a cleansing oil and moisturizers. The shower amenities were from MIKIMOTO COSMETICS. Also, the shower suite is outfitted with a fancy Dyson hairdryer which was a nice touch.
The rest of the amenities included a single vanity, sink, Japanese toilet with bidet function, coat hanger, clean towels, slippers, waterfall shower head, and shower wand.
It’s important to point out that guests are only supposed to get 20 minutes in the shower suite which I didn’t find too bad but it felt short compared to what other lounges offer, and I can’t imagine 20 minutes being enough if you have long hair to wash and dry, or makeup to take off and redo.
I also found that the shower had decent water pressure; but, the cramped space and poor ventilation, makes the entire suite way too hot and stuffy even after a short shower. Perhaps that’s why ANA provides a fan but I would expect the ventilation to be sufficient and not need to move hot air around to feel like I didn’t step out of a shower into sauna.
I wasn’t too impressed with the shower suites as a whole, I felt like the showers in the United Polaris Lounge at SFO were more comfortable.
Freshened up and full from sampling the food, it was time for us to board our return flight from Tokyo to San Francisco, concluding our stay in Japan.
Conclusion
As one of the flagship lounges of one of the best airlines in the world at its home airport, the ANA First Class Suite Lounge is disappointing. There are some highlights such as the made-to-order noodle and sushi bar; however, the lack of table service, and frustrating layout detracts significantly from the entire experience.
If this was an outstation, then this lounge would be much more competitive, but in it’s current state, it just can’t compare to other First Class lounge offerings such as from Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, and the suite of middle eastern carriers.
The singular massage chair in a pod that’s too small is a great way to summarize the lounge; it exists because it needs to exist but there wasn’t much thought put into the design and procession of its most valuable guests. In addition, the décor is really starting to age with its low ceilings, tired furniture and harsh contrast lighting.
This lounge is a jarring and unwelcome contrast to the new ANA “The Suite” First Class cabin experience you’ll find onboard. I would venture to say that the ANA First Class lounge is need of an overhaul just like its onboard product from the dated “The Square” to “The Suite”.