Food Preparation on Long Distance Trains

[Devil's Advocate]

I often agree with DAs points in his posts, but he's totally wrong about the National Burger of Texas, Whataburger! The current Mushroom and Swiss Burger special is outstanding as is the Patty Melt!( I haven't been drunk or stoned in years!)

Outstanding how? Compared to what?

I happen to enjoy Chester's burgers myself, and here are some specific reasons why...

+The meat is fresh, high quality, and cooked to order.

+The buns are fresh, tasty, and perfectly toasted.

+Nothing is frozen, precooked, or warmed before ordered.

+They use full sized tomato slices (no heels only burgers).

+Toppings are applied correctly 99% of the time.

+The ranch sauce is freshly made and handed out freely.

+A fresh medium-cooked double cheeseburger from Chester's is within fifty cents of a generic Whatameal.

Whataburger fans always rave about the "special" sandwiches, probably because those are the only items that come straight from the grill. Everything else risks being served stale and lukewarm. The main issue I have with their specialty sandwiches is that they overcook the meat and drench their onions (Patty Melt), peppers (Monterrey & Green Chili), and mushrooms (Swiss) in cooking oil. This floods the wrapper and bag with grease and clogs your arteries with flavorless fat. If we're going to drench my sandwich in extra fat can we at least pick something with a bit of flavor?

It took a while but I did eventually manage to find the time and motivation to try the Mushroom Swiss specialty burger and here are my findings. The flavor profile is much stronger than typical Whatachuck. It's not a bad flavor, in fact it's a pretty tasty mix of meat, mushroom, and cheese, but it's also lacking a natural beef flavor and has a slightly unusual and vaguely chemical aftertaste. That left me wondering where the "au jus" sauce came from and and what might be in it. The more I ate the more the more the aftertaste stuck out in my mind. Overall it's not a bad sandwich, and if you're pressed for time on a workday lunch break it's a decent choice, but it's probably among the least healthy burgers out there. It's also really messy and would be unsuitable for eating on the go.

 

[me_little_me]

Back to Food Prep on Amtrak, the Food Fact site, answers many of the questions,inclusing what is made off-site via sous-vide:

http://www.amtrakfoodfacts.com/restimg2/force/template/1/Amtrak__Food_Facts/w459/h337/AMFF-FALL-2017-33.pdf

As for the bacon, yes,it is the pre-cookedtype just like you can but at the grocery store:

http://www.amtrakfoodfacts.com/restimg2/force/template/1/Amtrak__Food_Facts/w459/h337/AMFF-FALL-2017-13.pdf

Ken

"Chicken is manufactured in a facility that process..". Gollly! I thought chicken meat came from real chickens. It is manufactured? Out of melamine? Plastic?

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

Back to Food Prep on Amtrak, the Food Fact site, answers many of the questions,inclusing what is made off-site via sous-vide:

http://www.amtrakfoodfacts.com/restimg2/force/template/1/Amtrak__Food_Facts/w459/h337/AMFF-FALL-2017-33.pdf

As for the bacon, yes,it is the pre-cookedtype just like you can but at the grocery store:

http://www.amtrakfoodfacts.com/restimg2/force/template/1/Amtrak__Food_Facts/w459/h337/AMFF-FALL-2017-13.pdf

Ken

"Chicken is manufactured in a facility that process..". Gollly! I thought chicken meat came from real chickens. It is manufactured? Out of melamine? Plastic?

Composite chicken made up up leftover scraps and components

Ever seen the infamous all-in-one turkey loaf available right next to the TV dinners in your favorite grocer's freezer section.

 

[Walt]

"Chicken is manufactured in a facility that process..". Gollly! I thought chicken meat came from real chickens. It is manufactured? Out of melamine? Plastic?

Maybe the writer didn't like using forms of the word "process" twice in the same sentence?

Though, Trump could have unregulated the food industry, like he did the furniture industry, back while the news sources were all focused on the government shutdown. Its now legal to call plastic veneered particle board "solid mahogany".

 

[WindyCityTexan]

I believe the bacon and sausage is precooked part way by the commissary before being finished onboard.

Bacon and sausage are precooked in a commissary. Bacon isn't the kind of meat you can cook on the sly. Everyone within a car or two would know if fresh bacon was being cooked on board the train. The precooked reheated sausage is boiled in water leaving it bloated and flavorless.

As for food prep.. on the full diner menu, eggs, pancackes, omlettes, steak, fish entree, baked potatoes, are cooked fresh on-board while other items are brought on fully or partially cooked and re-heated on board. It should be noted...

Eggs and baked potatoes are cooked fresh. Steak is cooked frozen. Fish is precooked and simply warmed up. You can confirm which entrees are cooked on board by comparing which items have the FDA undercooked warning. Every single lunch entree uses precooked reheated meats. On my last trip pancakes were only available to children so can't comment on them.

Nothing on the regular diner menu is microwaved. Amtrak uses convection ovens to reheat food. I'm not exactly sure on cooking techniques, but there are items like the burgers that appear to be reheated the way you would cook them... i.e. on a grill.

Once food has been precooked and refrozen it doesn't really matter how you reheat it again as the result is largely the same (IMO). To this day Amtrak's burger remains the most disappointing example I've ever had outside of a middle school cafeteria. If someone knows of a for-profit sit down restaurant that makes worse burgers than Amtrak please let me know.

Things may have changed. I'm not sure how it was before, but.... Jimmy Dean pork sausage patties are offered along side chicken sausage links, and both are to be reheated on the grill. No pots in the kitchen to reheat items in water. And the bacon? Let's just say...it's a retail brand that comes precooked. I'll leave everyone to figure that one out!
The steak may end up being thawed in the oven before it is cooked, though it shouldn't be, and it certainly shouldn't be cooked from frozen. Also, although the salmon comes frozen, it is NOT precooked. In fact, you may even ask that your salmon be cooked to your preference of wellness.

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Yes, I asked for my salmon to be medium rare and got it.
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts." -Mark Twain

 

[IndyLions]

I am currently riding the Eagle for the first time on a last minute Business Trip. I had a truly excellent meal last night in the CCC. I have to agree with those that like its design. I guess the only downside is the reduced capacity - but it certainly didn’t affect food quality. Everything was prepared perfectly.

I guess my expectations were that since the equipment was the same as the CONO, the food would be of a lower quality based on some of the CONO trip reports I’ve read. But then again, I’ve had some nice meals recently on the Cardinal and LSL without diners, when a talented crew made the best of the limited equipment at their disposal.

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[IndyLions]

...and on the LSL I recently had my worst Amtrak meal ever (even worse than any airline meal I ever had back in the day ). It was the Breakfast bowl, a questionable recipe, prepared with utter indifference and served by a server who was mailing it in big time. He was too busy brainstorming with his colleague about how they could “keep the crew together” in the next bidding or posting or however those assignments work.

If there was ever a crew that needed to be broken up it was that one...

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[cpotisch]

...and on the LSL I recently had my worst Amtrak meal ever (even worse than any airline meal I ever had back in the day ). It was the Breakfast bowl, a questionable recipe, prepared with utter indifference and served by a server who was mailing it in big time. He was too busy brainstorming with his colleague about how they could “keep the crew together” in the next bidding or posting or however those assignments work.

If there was ever a crew that needed to be broken up it was that one...

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I hate the diner-lite on the LSL (as other members know). When I took #48 two weeks ago, the staff were rude, the food was poor, and the selection was limited. It somewhat ruined my ride.

I am currently riding the Eagle for the first time on a last minute Business Trip. I had a truly excellent meal last night in the CCC. I have to agree with those that like its design. I guess the only downside is the reduced capacity - but it certainly didn’t affect food quality. Everything was prepared perfectly.

I guess my expectations were that since the equipment was the same as the CONO, the food would be of a lower quality based on some of the CONO trip reports I’ve read. But then again, I’ve had some nice meals recently on the Cardinal and LSL without diners, when a talented crew made the best of the limited equipment at their disposal.

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The other main CCC flaw is the lack of tablecloths. Because the tables are weirdly shaped, and they have those weird metal frames on them, they literally can't put tablecloths in. The food in the CONO is not limited by the equipment, but by the staffing arrangement. Only ONE person works the entire CCC on that train, so it's a limited heat-and-eat menu.

 

[PVD]

Same equipment, different levels of service based on staffing. We know that (or could if we wanted to) going in. What we don't know in advance is whether or not we will have a good or bad crew (or crew member), and that is a problem we see over and over again. Each of us has recently ridden the LSL, and had polar opposite experiences with the quality of service. Same train, same equipment, same menu limitations.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Tablecloths are not always present in fine dining these days. I just had a $42 dinner (no drinks) at a fancy "chef" restaurant and there were no table cloths. I think the CCC is a nice design. But I want to see it used with the full menu, not the sad city of NO menu.

 

[Lonestar648]

I have had many good meals in the TE CCC. Like many restaurants, the talents of the cooking staff using the same ingredients and procedures, will produce varied quality of meals and/or how they are presented. On my most recent loop trip, we sat in the diners for 20 meals. The same menu item was presented differently on the plate with each crew. It was obvious that some crew were talented and enjoyed the kitchen. No meal was bad, some just better than others.

 

[cpotisch]

Most of my meals in the TE CCC a couple weeks ago were GREAT. The sweet potato gnocchi, butternut squash risotto, black bean and corn veggie burger, and pancakes were all as good as I'd expect in a nice restaurant. What's interesting is when I was in the Sunset Ltd the day before, which has the same menu, some of the same dishes were prepared/presented very differently. One example would be that the gnocchi and sauce on the TE was mixed in with the greens, whereas on the SL the greens were on the side. There were various other differences as well, and that leads me to believe that though the dishes are pre-prepared and frozen, the diner staff have a fair bit of flexibility in how to actually cook and present it.

 

[willem]

Tablecloths are not always present in fine dining these days. I just had a $42 dinner (no drinks) at a fancy "chef" restaurant and there were no table cloths. I think the CCC is a nice design. But I want to see it used with the full menu, not the sad city of NO menu.

Ditto, all except the dinner was a bit cheaper and without a named chef.

Much more important than the tablecloth is the napkin. At least on Amtrak, the cloth napkin is a respectable size, while the paper napkins are for show only. Also more important than a tablecloth is having metal rather than plastic silverware. All my opinion, of course.