New Dining Car Menus Nov. 4

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Seeing the salisbury steak on the menu actually makes me slightly hopeful that they'll roll out the coach seat-side meal service on more long distance trains soon. The salisbury steak is the entree choice for supper with that menu. I'm taking coach next month on the Builder back home, and having that option for $12 for supper would be an almost-guarantee that I'll eat on the train (otherwise I might just stop at a grocery store or something and grab a sandwich for the road.)
 
willem said:
Palmetto said:
Devil's Advocate said:
After watching most long distance trains merged into a single generic nationwide menu, with fewer selections than any one train previously offered, this post sounds laughably naive.
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Not naïve for the Northeast Corridor. There is much more of a need there to rotate menus because businessmen actually ride certain trains in large numbers, and regularly.
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Wait, what? Someone who rides for days on long distance trains needs no variation, but NEC riders who could eat before boarding or after disembarking need to switch things up?

"Variation" sounds like a good reason to bring back the individual route menus.
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I didn't mean to imply variation is not needed for long distance trains. On the contrary: I agree that individual route menus would be a good thing to bring back again for those doing a multi-day trip.
 
No matter which menu is used, if you are on a LD return run back to the commissary, the DC and Café are stocked so lean, the selection this summer was down to one or two items in the DC for breakfast and lunch, then on 21 when the train was over 6 hours late, Dinner was a plate of vegetables, rice, and a salad. The menus can make the meals look good, butif the selections are gone, it doesn't mean anything.
 
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jebr said:
Seeing the salisbury steak on the menu actually makes me slightly hopeful that they'll roll out the coach seat-side meal service on more long distance trains soon. The salisbury steak is the entree choice for supper with that menu. I'm taking coach next month on the Builder back home, and having that option for $12 for supper would be an almost-guarantee that I'll eat on the train (otherwise I might just stop at a grocery store or something and grab a sandwich for the road.)
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It was offered as a Dinner Special on the 22 Eagle last August and sounded tempting, though I ended up taking on the regular Steak, despite already being too overfed from 4 days of Diner Chow :) Another person at the table ordered it and it looked good and he said it was good.
 
OlympianHiawatha said:
jebr said:
Seeing the salisbury steak on the menu actually makes me slightly hopeful that they'll roll out the coach seat-side meal service on more long distance trains soon. The salisbury steak is the entree choice for supper with that menu. I'm taking coach next month on the Builder back home, and having that option for $12 for supper would be an almost-guarantee that I'll eat on the train (otherwise I might just stop at a grocery store or something and grab a sandwich for the road.)
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It was offered as a Dinner Special on the 22 Eagle last August and sounded tempting, though I ended up taking on the regular Steak, despite already being too overfed from 4 days of Diner Chow :) Another person at the table ordered it and it looked good and he said it was good.
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I saw three at seat specials on the SWC: Bacon/Egg/Cheese Breakfast Sandwich, BLT, Salisbury Steak. They put a flyer at your seat but they don't do as good a job announcing it as they do the regular diner service. I was tempted by the salisbury steak at the $12 but missed them collecting orders. I'm guessing I was in the lounge car. They should announce it in the lounge car. It would be easier to bring the food there than the seats.
 
That's interesting, and encouraging. Originally, as I recall, it was a Coast Starlight-exclusive trial, seems it was successful enough to expand.
 
Heck, some of these might be OK if the ingredients list was available. And for my fiancee, if dairy-free was possible (there's dairy in way too many things).
 
This is the new pork shanks. It's pretty good but it's a little bit too sweet to my taste.

1448577040824.jpg

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Just eturning to Harrisburg from Seattle. Pork Shanks were surprizingly quite good. Shrimp/Crab cakes I found edible, but that's it. Salisbury Steak looked, to me, like meatloaf. Woman across from me said she liked it and it seemed popular as they sold out before end of dinner first day out on Empire Builder.

Another woman had the Asian thing and said it was edible but could be so much more.

Pancakes for breakfast were actually good. I really liked the French Toast but the pancakes are a nice change.

Some sort of Chocolate Mousse thing. Filling okay but the "crust" is nasty. Has the texture of rubber. I ate the filling part and left the rest of it.

Day 3 Capitol Limited. Dining personel don't ask if you want a salad anymore. I was last one ordering at my table of 4 and asked for a salad then told everyone at the table a salad is part of the meal but you have to ask for it. Of course, the other 3 people also now want salads. "Miss Thing", the waiter was just livid! HA!! He really was PO'ed at me for "announcing" the salad "option". Just did her/his best spin-pirouette-whirl around and stomped away, returning with the salads and near throwing them down on the table. Everyone at my table, one couple and a single woman were first-time Sleeper Car/Amtrak riders so I enjoyed "educating" them and we all got a good laugh out of Miss Thing's "performance"..............
 
HARHBG said:
Day 3 Capitol Limited. Dining personel don't ask if you want a salad anymore. I was last one ordering at my table of 4 and asked for a salad then told everyone at the table a salad is part of the meal but you have to ask for it. Of course, the other 3 people also now want salads. "Miss Thing", the waiter was just livid! HA!! He really was PO'ed at me for "announcing" the salad "option". Just did her/his best spin-pirouette-whirl around and stomped away, returning with the salads and near throwing them down on the table. Everyone at my table, one couple and a single woman were first-time Sleeper Car/Amtrak riders so I enjoyed "educating" them and we all got a good laugh out of Miss Thing's "performance"..............
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i don't understand the salad. it's supposed to be available for lunch and dinner. have never had the server offer it for lunch. when i have asked i sometimes have received it and sometimes been told they only have enough for dinner. about half the time for dinner we have been asked did we want salad and half time not though when asked have received one at dinner
 
HARHBG said:
Dining personel don't ask if you want a salad anymore.
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Nothing is absolute. Some do, some don't. And I suspect some don't in an effort to reduce the mess that some diners, like me, can make with their salads. I find the lightness of the plastic salad bowls can contribute to the launching of salad ingredients if the rim is accidentally bumped - especially when sawing though one of those little rock-hard tomatoes. Wife says I remind her of the Pig Pen character in the Charlie Brown cartoons.
 
niemi24s said:
HARHBG said:
Dining personel don't ask if you want a salad anymore.
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Nothing is absolute. Some do, some don't. And I suspect some don't in an effort to reduce the mess that some diners, like me, can make with their salads. I find the lightness of the plastic salad bowls can contribute to the launching of salad ingredients if the rim is accidentally bumped - especially when sawing though one of those little rock-hard tomatoes. Wife says I remind her of the Pig Pen character in the Charlie Brown cartoons.
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I got a good laugh at this post. I love the visual that goes along with this post.
 
For what it's worth, I took the Capitol Limited to Washington a couple of weeks ago, and at dinner the server asked if I wanted a salad. That was a good diner crew.
 
OBS said:
Henry, what happened? fall asleep at computer?

FWIW, as I recall, the salad is to be served UPON REQUEST only...not "offered" by server... Per Amtrak F&B directions...
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That may be the case but I was offered a salad on the Capitol Limited on Sunday.
 
Davids said:
This is the new pork shanks. It's pretty good but it's a little bit too sweet to my taste.
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Can you confirm if those are powdered potatoes?

Davids said:
And here is the picture of crab cakes dinner.
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Can you confirm if those are frozen veggies?

OBS said:
Henry, what happened? fall asleep at computer? FWIW, as I recall, the salad is to be served UPON REQUEST only...not "offered" by server... Per Amtrak F&B directions...
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Yeah, why offer to serve a perishable product when you can simply hold it back and use it again next trip. Oh, wait...
 
What am I missing here? Spot checking menus on Amtrak.com, the menus (PDFs) I see are all coded "0515", the CONO is "0715".

The menu items themselves are the same as I experienced last August on the TE, CL and SWC.

Have they not updated the website?
 
OBS said:
Henry, what happened? fall asleep at computer?

FWIW, as I recall, the salad is to be served UPON REQUEST only...not "offered" by server... Per Amtrak F&B directions...
Click to expand...
I've been on several trains this year, and I would say the majority of the time the server has asked about salads. For what it's worth, when table mates have asked for side salad at lunch it was served no problem, except for one time when the waiter very apologetically, said they didn't have any left. (Last day of a trip on the zephyr).

Side salad is pretty obvious on the menu, I don't think the waiters really need to point it out to people, I don't mind either way.

Sounds like you had a less than stellar crew, I rode the Capitol in October and had one of the best dining car crews I've ever had on any train. Seriously I would rate them higher than VIA rail and Pullman Rail, they were that excellent. I was surprised... They must be new. Ha!
 
Maybe the salads were offered on the CL because of the short trip. One breakfast and one dinner each way. Less likely to run out.
 
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