Amtrak Dining and Cafe service 2023 H2

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AmtrakMaineiac said:
Our last LD trip was at the tail end of the pandemic so they were still seating people apart but one trip on 448 a lady traveling alone was accidentally seated with us as the attendant thought she was part of our party. We had a nice conversation as she had just finished a visit in Boston to attend a spiritual conference and was returning home to Erie PA (which meant detraining at O dark 30 I didn't envy her). Seems you always meet interesting people on trains.
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Two years ago, in full pandemic mode, I struck up a conversation with the young Amish couple across the hall on the CZ. We agreed to just go in together as a "party" and that way we got to eat together and carry on a conversation. We were all good about only removing masks when actually eating, and as far as I know, no one got sick (I certainly didn't).
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My favorite Amtrak Flex dining item is the Butter Cake, made in Delaware. I have even attempted to visit the bakery to purchase a case of them, but they seem to close in January when I am around the area. Last month, on the Cap Limited, since we had a Giordano Pizza before leaving, so we asked for the Butter Cake only to be delivered in the roomette. When it arrived, we discovered it had been heated up hot. This totally destroyed the taste and ruined the texture of the Butter Cake! If I was in the Diner/Cafe car, I would have taken it back but since we were in our rooms we just ate it. I have now learned to ask for it to NOT be heated. However, when others have received their Butter Cake was it heated? Why would they heat it?
 
I just rode the CZ westbound. It was a complete fiasco, I love the trains but this one is going to make me think twice about ever again. We got exactly one dinner in the diner for a 50+ hour trip. The diner more or less died before reaching Denver. Leaking water pipes and tank was the reason given. I will say the train LSA and other crew tried valiantly, pumping water in Denver. For that, we got a breakfast in the diner the next day after Denver but that was it for the food. The rest of the time it was cafe car junk. Also, the sleepers weren't full, but the dining car attendant forced everyone to sit four to a table, no ifs, ands, or buts. Easily half the diner wasn't full but I guess they didn't want to bother making us more comfortable, in view of the food fiasco. Our sleeper was broken too, nothing worked. But that's another story.
 
UserNameRequired said:
My favorite Amtrak Flex dining item is the Butter Cake, made in Delaware. I have even attempted to visit the bakery to purchase a case of them, but they seem to close in January when I am around the area. Last month, on the Cap Limited, since we had a Giordano Pizza before leaving, so we asked for the Butter Cake only to be delivered in the roomette. When it arrived, we discovered it had been heated up hot. This totally destroyed the taste and ruined the texture of the Butter Cake! If I was in the Diner/Cafe car, I would have taken it back but since we were in our rooms we just ate it. I have now learned to ask for it to NOT be heated. However, when others have received their Butter Cake was it heated? Why would they heat it?
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Our local supermarket used to sell something called "St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake" (made by Entenmann's), which sounds similar to Amtrak's Butter Cake. The Gooey Butter Cake was sold alongside the other packaged breakfast pastries, and probably at least some people in my hometown warmed it briefly in the microwave before eating (although it tasted great cold, too).
 
UserNameRequired said:
My favorite Amtrak Flex dining item is the Butter Cake, made in Delaware. I have even attempted to visit the bakery to purchase a case of them, but they seem to close in January when I am around the area. Last month, on the Cap Limited, since we had a Giordano Pizza before leaving, so we asked for the Butter Cake only to be delivered in the roomette. When it arrived, we discovered it had been heated up hot. This totally destroyed the taste and ruined the texture of the Butter Cake! If I was in the Diner/Cafe car, I would have taken it back but since we were in our rooms we just ate it. I have now learned to ask for it to NOT be heated. However, when others have received their Butter Cake was it heated? Why would they heat it?
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I very much enjoyed it heated, but I enjoy things warm, vs. things served at room temp or cold.
 
MccfamschoolMom said:
The Entenmann's version was sold in an 8" square foil pan inside a cardboard box, but I'm sure the taste would have been similar. Walmart around here also sells a "gooey butter cake" in their bakery department, and that comes in smaller portions, so a bit closer to the linked product on Amazon.
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Gooey butter cake, Must be something that crossed the Mississippi but not the Rocky Mountains
 
jis said:
New menu items for Acela First Class....

https://thepointsguy.com/news/amtrak-new-first-class-acela-menu/
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Mmmm. The prize paragraph: "In total, Amtrak is adding three new menu items that will be part of the rail carrier's seasonal rotation every three weeks. These new dishes include lobster mac and cheese from The Continental Mid-town, a restaurant in Philadelphia; beef bourguignon from Parc, an upscale French restaurant also located in Philadelphia; and Le Diplomate's St. Tropez Salad, which includes cucumber, feta, chickpeas and couscous doused in a mustard vinaigrette and served with shaved carrots seasoned in olive oil lemon." Thanks for remembering the vegetarians. Though I've never shaved a carrot...whaddya use, safety razor or electric?
 
I find it frustrating there's no way to know what the current menu is, especially with FC fares being so ludicrously high. What's the point in risking using an upgrade coupon if one is vegetarian?
 
daybeers said:
I find it frustrating there's no way to know what the current menu is, especially with FC fares being so ludicrously high. What's the point in risking using an upgrade coupon if one is vegetarian?
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There seem to be a vegetarian option on each meal. Of course it limited to one selection. Which you may or may not like, but it will meet your dietary requirements.
 
The linked file contained three menus, labeled C1, C2, and C3. I've only taken Acela First Class once, so I don't know how the rotation system works. Since the article talks about a rotation every three weeks, it could be that the first week they use menu C1, the second week C2, the third C3, the fourth C1 again, and so on. Or it could be that each menu is used for three weeks.
 
niemi24s said:
As a guess, at the bottom of the first page of that linked menu you'll find (if you really squint hard) . . .

View attachment 34788

. . .which is probably Amtrak's cryptic way of saying Acela First Class, Nov 2023, Change 1.
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For as long as I can remember they have had the date (month/year) in the URLs for all of their menus. As to the 3 menus for Acela FC, it makes sense that they go in the order they're shown. (Acela-First-Class-Menus-1123.pdf)
 
DavidSh said:
The linked file contained three menus, labeled C1, C2, and C3. I've only taken Acela First Class once, so I don't know how the rotation system works. Since the article talks about a rotation every three weeks, it could be that the first week they use menu C1, the second week C2, the third C3, the fourth C1 again, and so on. Or it could be that each menu is used for three weeks.
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"C" is for "cycle" (but I don't know how long each menu cycle lasts on the Acela).
 
I experienced Flex Dining on 51 and 50 last week. I had salmon twice, enchiladas and something else I don't remember. Not terrible but not good. The omelette was not good. I didn't care for the butter cake or the brownie. Service was typical Amtrak - inconsistent, confused and at their convenience. I enjoyed the experience though and used a bunch of points I've had for years, the value of which has not deteriorated at all on this route. Specifically it used to take 25000 points CVS to CHI. These trips were 14700 each.
 
I had the enchiladas on the TE last week. On the leg up, with Rachel (who is one of the best dining car workers I've seen) they were really quite good - properly heated and all. Coming back the edges were burnt and they seemed to have been left in the oven too long. That may be the issue with flex meals: because they can be kept in whatever that warmer thing is indefinitely, much of the time we get them they've sat too long and are dry/burnt/unevenly heated.

I will say the enchiladas were marginally better than the other flex meals I've had, but I still want to get traditional dining back on the TE.

Also don't like the tendency now to just pile all the continental breakfast stuff on a table and go "have at it, folks" without an indication of whether the hot meals are available or not.

I dunno. So many things have gotten so much worse since the pandemic, I really wonder why I left the hermitage of my house when.....THIS kind of stuff is what remains in the world.
 
fillyjonk said:
I had the enchiladas on the TE last week. On the leg up, with Rachel (who is one of the best dining car workers I've seen) they were really quite good - properly heated and all. Coming back the edges were burnt and they seemed to have been left in the oven too long. That may be the issue with flex meals: because they can be kept in whatever that warmer thing is indefinitely, much of the time we get them they've sat too long and are dry/burnt/unevenly heated.

I will say the enchiladas were marginally better than the other flex meals I've had, but I still want to get traditional dining back on the TE.

Also don't like the tendency now to just pile all the continental breakfast stuff on a table and go "have at it, folks" without an indication of whether the hot meals are available or not.

I dunno. So many things have gotten so much worse since the pandemic, I really wonder why I left the hermitage of my house when.....THIS kind of stuff is what remains in the world.
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The flex items have to be heated perfectly. If not , they suffer. Not great to begin with,I ve had dry salmon,pasta that was stuck together and French toast I broke three forks and knives with trying to cut it.

I have had many flex meals since they were introduced in 2018 and very few have come out the way they should. Six trains still have flex. No rumors of when traditional dining will return.

I’ll be on the Sunset/Eagle next month from LA to Chicago. Amazing how Amtrak goes from first class to third class service after San Antonio. Not only flex,but no Sightseer car.
 
Sidney said:
The flex items have to be heated perfectly. If not , they suffer. Not great to begin with,I ve had dry salmon,pasta that was stuck together and French toast I broke three forks and knives with trying to cut it.

I have had many flex meals since they were introduced in 2018 and very few have come out the way they should. Six trains still have flex. No rumors of when traditional dining will return.

I’ll be on the Sunset/Eagle next month from LA to Chicago. Amazing how Amtrak goes from first class to third class service after San Antonio. Not only flex,but no Sightseer car.
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To me, it feels like the eastern leg of the TE is very much the afterthought train. Like we're not good enough for real meals and often not even good enough for properly heated flex meals. I think the northbound time this time was one of the few times the flex meal was actually kinda good, and it was surely a heating-time issue.

I've had pasta meals where the edges of the pasta were hard and then the center was just a fused glob of carbohydrate.

I wish they still did the fried cod; I had that a couple times and it was halfway decent.
 
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