Passenger Trains > Revised Flexible Dining Menus Introduced

Amtrak has recently introduced revised Flexible Dining Menus, which include a new Breakfast Omelet - Spinach, tomato, onion, mozzarella, provolone and parmesan cheeses with breakfast potatoes. Served with a choice of muffin or KIND breakfast bar

Eastern Menu

Western Menu


 

---

---

Not a good sign traditional dining returns west of Chicago in June. However, such congregate settings may still be unsafe. VIA Rail, known for their amenities, is not now allowing it. 

Offering anything else at breakfast besides "Jimmy Dean" sausage or a selection of sugar bombs is good.  No doubt Amtrak will laud this as an "improvement" in food service, right out of the Anderson playbook of cutting to the bone, and then adding a few things back bit by bit and continually praising your "upgrades".  I have taken three trips on the California Zephyr with this so called "flexible dining", and it is not flexible, nor is it really dining, unless you consider McDonald's a dining room.  This food is miserable, and if you eat in the dining car, you get a meal time sitting from the LSA, just like you always did, and if you eat in your room, the LSA tells YOU what time your food will be delivered.  So "flexible" is a lie.   
In a post-COVID world it is hard to imagine anyone other than a hard core train rider paying the fares for sleeping cars and eating this on a 1 to 3 day trip.  We can only hope Amtrak moves back to something similar to what they had before 2019.   BSB

Sorry to see the Shrimp in Lobster sauce off the eastern menu, but still some very tasty options.  The breakfast omelet plate is a nice addition. Looking forward to some trips north this summer when I can enjoy these meals, whether in my room or in the bright and cheery food service car.  Still waiting for my vaccine shots and those will decide which setting will be mine for dining. 

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/21 11:53 by RevRandy.

Superliner diners were built to seat 72 pax.  On my most recent pre pandemic trips 5-6, 3 21,1,11,14, a third or more of the tables were not in use--piles of supplies,  steward's accounting papers.  Thus they were serving maybe 36 pax at a time.   If they wished to serve 24-36 at a seating, it could be done with adequate "social distancing"  especially since many are couples thus "in a pod together".    Chance Amtrak would make the effort ?  only if bludgeoned by Congress/major change of management.  

Nothing new here. Like I have written before, Amtrak was/is the worst managed "business" I have ever worked. Moreover, the fact that Amtrak is even worse now than when I worked there proves it was not me that caused its dismal record. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/21 11:57 by RRBaron.

Can't wait until June, hopefully the eastern trains'll follow suit ASAP!

Posted from Android

If you don't have kidney issues, bring some magnesium and potassium tablets along to counteract the sodium load. Ronald McDonald and Tim Horton's ghost must be their food scientists. 

I was in a Tim Hortons today. None of the fast food restaurants allow anything but drive-thru, except this. You can get counter service, but have to take it out. Their restaurant portion, Amtrak's roll model, looks like grandpa's attic with boxes and discarded machines all over the dining area. 

The didn't cut their sleeping car rates for this crap, though buried dining car accounting into their rates to hide the food service deficit.. Most hotels that had elaborate breakfast buffets are grab and go bags now, but have cut their lodging rates. 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/21 12:30 by joemvcnj.

The descriptions make them sound like they came from a high end restaurant.  They look more like they came from the frozen food aisle of the grocery story.

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

Maybe they need to be asked since the real thing can be done on Auto Train, what is their excuse for the remaining LD trains. Until and unless they do it's not hard for us to figure it out. They still claim a return to western trains on 05/23 last I looked but that could just be to keep some forces off their back while they still advertise "Traditional Dining". Last week on Auto Train my wife and I had Flat Iron steak.

Rev-Flex-O-Din for the win!

webmaster Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The descriptions make them sound like they came
> from a high end restaurant.  They look more like
> they came from the frozen food aisle of the
> grocery story.

Exactly. Prepared food is not only very expensive, as you are paying someone else to cook it, the sodium levels could choke a pig. 

Oh my god.
The western trains get the cod

The food in the East
Is good enough for a beast

To get the best
Requires travel in the West


 

Western trains tended to get cod westbound, salmon eastbound, at least on the Empire Builder, eastern trains cod  or mahi-mahi. A waiter on the Lake Shore Ltd urged me to stay away from the latter as it was basically goldfish. 

Yuck the breakfast look like it came from a gas station microwave. What happened to the French toast they used to serve in the diner?

Molino Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yuck the breakfast look like it came from a gas
> station microwave. What happened to the French
> toast they used to serve in the diner?

One of the things I miss most from the pre supermarket/7 Eleven quality frozen meal era, along with the freshly cooked burgers and the steak!  Texas Eagle, 2015:

---

Note that one of the side dishes on the braised beef entree is "haricot vert." For those who don't know French (I know a little...un petit peu), that means "green bean."

ONE green bean.

well, I think I will chime in....

I rarely eat any breakfast but at least they have froot loops. That french toast looks horrible - slimy soggy bread... Bacon is mostly grease and oil with fat, a perfect combination for later stomach distress.

The dinner menus have some decent options... The beef sounds pretty good, as does the pasta, chicken fettuccine, and cod.

I could always do without a salad, but would like some desert choices: pie, cake, brownie, just the basics.

I just wish they would print the menus in real english without using foreign food terms. Just say green beans if thats what it is.

Michael

What's missing is that old favorite from the 1980s, Seafood Americana.

           And we still aren't doing business with Amtrak until they get their act together ( if that ever happens ). This menu is garbage at best, fluffed up with fancy words and in small portions. Thank God its small portions, probably couldn't get the second bite down. And there will always be the customers so thankful to get a plastic plate with gas station food at a high price and thank the Amtrak people for the junk.
          Notice they didn't dare put a price anywhere on that crap.
          And the flat iron steak was properly named. A little smaller than an old flat ironing iron used years ago and just as hard. Dined across from a guy who ordered that one time on the SW Chief and he finally got up in disgust and walked out of the dining car.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/21 13:48 by dcfbalcoS1.