FACT: If you cut it down the middle, the calories leak out!Now why'd they have to go and do a thing like that? I don't care about the meals, I mean I have to eat, but why the desserts? Now I have to find a new way to justify that NY Cheesecake! I've always followed the rule that if desserts don't have the calories listed they have no calories.
Good to know, thanks for the save! Just as long as my husband doesn't think I cut it down the middle to share, that could end in divorce. :giggle: But seriously, it is nice to at least have a ball park figure calorie wise. I think it's a good call.FACT: If you cut it down the middle, the calories leak out!Now why'd they have to go and do a thing like that? I don't care about the meals, I mean I have to eat, but why the desserts? Now I have to find a new way to justify that NY Cheesecake! I've always followed the rule that if desserts don't have the calories listed they have no calories.
Who could have known??? :giggle:
WHAT????
I think you will find that they are no higher than any other restaurant you go to, if not a slight bit lower.
IT's funny here in California if a restaurant has I think 10 or more outlets in the state, they are required to post the count. I walked into Starbucks after some time away and explained how high their prices were, then I realized I was looking at the calorie counts.
It's the same as any other generic French toast, except that it's made weeks or months ahead of time. The saving grace of the French toast option is that it seems to survive the freezing, storing, and reheating process relatively well. Same thing for the sausage patties.
Most restaurants don't make their own bratwurst. What makes dishes like bratwurst better or worse at most restaurants is the way they're cooked on the grill and how the other fixings and sides complement them. I'd be happy if Aramark started cooking their hamburgers on board instead of reheating those precooked frozen hockey pucks. I noticed that the new menus refer to the hamburgers as being "grilled" although I thought Amtrak didn't use any grills on board. Maybe they're simply referring to how the frozen hockey pucks are cooked before being frozen?And they now have Bratwurst on the CZ lunch menu! YUM! Now someone needs to report if it is GOOD Bratwurst
Those tiny kid-sized Häagen-Dazs cups only cost $0.99. A quick trip to the supermarket for ice cream cups and dry ice before you leave should be able to solve this problem. At first glance it would appear the new selection may be of similar or higher quality.
I think you will find that you have no idea where or what the rest of us eat.
Yup.
I don't reguarly patronize IHOP, Denny's, or Shoney's and I don't know what Perkins is so I honestly couldn't say with any accuracy. The generic chain diner I visit regularly is Jim's. Their $4.99 plate of French toast is still made the same way it was when I was a kid. They don't bake their own bread, which I certainly wouldn't expect from Amtrak either, but if you sit near the kitchen you can watch them mix the eggs and dip the bread and throw it on the griddle before serving. Does that really sound like an unreasonable expectation for a generic French toast plate costing nearly twice as much on Amtrak?
The Amtrak French Toast isn't bad per se, it's just not freshly prepared. When was the last time you visited a restaurant that prepared fresh eggs but only if you ordered them scrambled? Or put frozen vegitables in their watery omelets?
I believe the steaks are cooked in a convection oven. To the best of my understanding that's how everything is cooked or heated at this point. Supposedly they have a griddle on board as well but I'm not sure they actually use it for anything. Any grill marks you see on your food presumably came from a commissary kitchen further up the chain.
I am not sure if they have a "grill", but I think maybe just a griddle. And the steaks are cooked to order on it.
Perkins' is a little bit nicer Denny's (and a bit more expensive.) I see a lot of them here in Minnesota...I believe the headquarters are here.
Only for a year or so right after SDS first came out were the steaks done in a convection oven. Then Amtrak went back to cooking them to order on the grill. The eggs & pancakes are also cooked fresh on the grill. The better chefs start the reheating process for the French Toast in the convection oven and then toss it on the grill to finish the process. The bad cooks don't. And you can tell the difference!
I agree with you that Haagen-Dazs cups are available at the supermarket - my freezer will attest to that!
Ooh, it has the calories and sodium and everything... I love you so much right now. THANK YOU. I've never been sure how to enter Amtrak food into SparkPeople, so I've always had to wing it based on the ingredients, estimated weight, etc.
If I visit a stationary restaurant that handles 150+ people with two or three cooks on duty is it really that different? Are the cooks and/or food being violently tossed around by the movement of the train? If I ask for a single egg over easy at six in the morning am I competing with the orders of forty nine ghosts? I'm not sure this is as convincing of an explanation to me as it is to you.
I thought we were comparing Amtrak to a generic diner. My local Jim's doesn't have fresh flowers or "china" or glassware or suits or locally sourced anything. What it does have is freshly prepared French toast, eggs cooked however you want, and omelets made with fresh vegetables instead of frozen. It also has two or sometimes three cooks covering up to 150 guests. If I were comparing Amtrak to a Ritz-Carlton meal I could see why folks would think I was being unfair, but we're talking about a generic chain diner here. The kind that a well trained chef should be able to work circles around.
As the OP. I should say that I was not looking at this legal-disclosure web page, but at the Amtrak page that provides PDF copies of the full dining car menus:
In this case I have no specific reason to doubt Alan, at least with regard to the steaks.
Does your local Jim's rock and roll at 90 mph on rough track?
