Which Does Amtrak Do Best? Worst? Why?

[The Davy Crockett]

I think that breakfast is consistantly the best food Amtrak does, while lunch has the most room for improvement, even with the vegie burger as an option. That said, I recently got a vegie burger in the Cafe Car on the NEC, and it was lame compared to the ones on the LD trains.

 

[Grandpa D]

I like the dinners. Most entrees are good; and you have a choice of four. Desserts are excellent.

The Cafe Car is the worst, although not un-edible. If that's all that's available it's OK. Maybe I was influenced by the surly attendent.

(Trains involved are the SL and TE.)

 

[RRrich]

I agree about breakfast. generally the best meal but even there the potatoes are boring :angry: and I usually order an omelet and sausage, hold the potatoes. (I'm a Yankee, I don't eat grits )

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

No argument Supper is by far the best meal and sometimes it's a hard decision what to chose. But I generally leave the table full and sassy and ready to finish out the day. On the other hand, while the Cafe, especially on the SSLs reminds me of a 7-11, it is probably the most efficient way of getting that service done.

 

[ReidTYK]

I think that breakfast on Amtrak is by far the best meal, while I strongly dislike most of the food in the cafe car.

 

[pennyk]

I think that breakfast on Amtrak is by far the best meal, while I strongly dislike most of the food in the cafe car.

Ditto

 

[Bob Dylan]

Ditto to what Rich and Penny said about Breakfast, but being a Southerner I eat the grits, ^_^ the potatoes taste like, well, not potatoes! h34r: The cafe car basically Sucks, food wise and price wise!

Ill also second the deserts being darn good on LD trains! Wish that more Diners could be staffed like the Empire Builder and the Coast Starlight with comprable food!!

 

[NorthCoastHiawatha]

I generally like their breakfasts the most.

As for the cafe cars I like what is offered on the Cascades (the train I ride most often), the national cafe menu is passable, but then again I don't really have that much of a sophisticated palette.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

On trains that still serve the Railroad French Toast I prefer that to pretty much anything else. Yum. Otherwise breakfast and dinner are pretty much tied while lunch is so universally bad (and unnecessary, *burp*) that I try to avoid it altogether. For dinner I usually get the steak. Not because it's the best necessarily, but simply because it's pricier than everything else. I guess it's just easier to imagine I'm getting my money's worth that way. The steaks aren't bad but the veggies that come with them are some of the worst I've ever been served anywhere outside of a elementary school cafeteria. Bleh!

 

[Shanghai]

Ditto to what Rich and Penny said about Breakfast, but being a Southerner I eat the grits, ^_^ the potatoes taste like, well, not potatoes! h34r: The cafe car basically Sucks, food wise and price wise!

Ill also second the deserts being darn good on LD trains! Wish that more Diners could be staffed like the Empire Builder and the Coast Starlight with comprable food!!

I'm with Jim on this one. I usually have grits if they are available since they are not

usually available where I live.

I also like dinner and especially the desserts!!

Lunch is my least favorable meal.

 

[TimePeace]

I am not a fan of breakfast on the train - it all seems either really sweet or really greasy - unless you get the oatmeal or something. Even the cereal breakfast with yogurt and fruit is lame, try reading the ingredients on the cereal box and the yogurt container - sounds like a chemistry class experiment. No thanks!

Supper is the meal for me, I usually enjoy it a lot. (I try not to think about the non-food ingredients too much.) I have only had one dish that I did not like at all, it was shrimp in some kind of sauce.

The only thing wrong with the cafe car is that everything offered comes under the category of junk food - "Edible food-like substances" - I won't eat there. I can't believe so many people eat that stuff, seriously.

If I am in coach I always have some real food with me. If there is a diner I eat supper there but can't (or won't) afford more than one diner meal a day. Even when I am in a sleeper I usually skip the breakfast.

I don't fault Amtrak, they provide food that pretty closely resembles what Americans eat, and will pay for. I guess I am pretty fussy about what I eat.

I wonder if Michael Pollan rides the trains, and if so, what he eats...

 

[yarrow]

we travel mostly the eb and cs so i vote dinner. breakfast is usually fine too (though i still miss the "bob evans scramble"). i had never tried grits until a couple trips ago and am now hooked

 

[had8ley]

Ditto to what Rich and Penny said about Breakfast, but being a Southerner I eat the grits, ^_^ the potatoes taste like, well, not potatoes! h34r: The cafe car basically Sucks, food wise and price wise!

Ill also second the deserts being darn good on LD trains! Wish that more Diners could be staffed like the Empire Builder and the Coast Starlight with comprable food!!

I'll go along with Jim but the most absolutely worse thing that can happen on ANY train is for the diner or CCC to go bad order. There is no choice of what you get that they drag on board and my cardiologist would blush at most of it.BTW JIM, I think the potatoes taste more like left over mushrooms that they heat up in order to get the green mold off of them. Now, I'm having nightmares of the old Bob Evans scramble that went way south. :lol:

 

[RRrich]

I have only had one dish that I did not like at all, it was shrimp in some kind of sauce.

I remember ordering "Shrimp Scampi" - :angry2: YUCKABOO :angry: - It was lousy but with enough tabasco it became edible.

OTOH I am really looking forward to LAMB SHANKS on the CS - best thing I've eaten on Amtrak :wub:

 

[TimePeace]

I have only had one dish that I did not like at all, it was shrimp in some kind of sauce.

I remember ordering "Shrimp Scampi" - :angry2: YUCKABOO :angry: - It was lousy but with enough tabasco it became edible.

OTOH I am really looking forward to LAMB SHANKS on the CS - best thing I've eaten on Amtrak :wub:

Yeah that's what it was - big mistake to order it ...

 

[Shanghai]

I ordered the Shrimp Scampi one time. Could not eat it.

The waitress offered to give me another entree. I passed.

 

[zepherdude]

The food on Amtrak is not overly bad. The snack car is what it is, prefab bad stuff, all fast food, but it has a place and people buy it. Veggies are usually terrible as was a country fried steak with wallpaper paste sausage gravy. Nasty as could be. I suspect that was due to the cook and not the meal specs. Frozen veggies start out being good and go down hill because of the cook.

The lunch is not bad for a pre fab hamburger. Ya know it is not 3 star, but for on board meals, Amtrak is passable as a meal on the train!

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

I don't find the Veggies to be all that bad and give Amtrak lots of credit for putting them on the plate as I tend to not eat enough of them otherwise. Food that otherwise might be considered nasty isn't as bad when it's being enjoyed in a Diner rolling along some good scenery at speed

 

[SarahZ]

The breakfast sandwich and breakfast potatoes are both pretty "meh". hboy: I do like the french toast. I hope the SWC never stops offering that.

I love Amtrak's dinner. I always get the steak with potato and veggies. Between that, the roll, and the salad, I'm stuffed. Of course, then I pile dessert on top of it. This means I'm completely full until breakfast the next morning and not tempted to snack at midnight.

The steak is surprisingly good. I was worried it would taste like typical travel food the first time I ordered it, but I've been happy with it ever since.

 

[pennyk]

I also like the grits - I do not eat the potatoes.

The worst Amtrak meal that I had was when the diner on the CZ had a water leak and did not serve lunch. All the sleeper passengers were permitted to order sandwiches, chips and drinks from the cafe car. My turkey sandwich was half frozen (after being heated in a microwave). The chips were just fine. There were some coach passengers sitting near us in the lounge car that were very grateful to have something to eat and did not mind "rejects" from me and the other 2 sleeper passengers with whom I was sitting.

 

[eagle628]

I've always had good experiences with breakfast, namely, the french toast (and the grits I had on the Silver Meteor this spring were good, too, never had those before). I find lunch in the diner to be the worst, because for the amount and quality of food you get, it seems overpriced. Dinner is always overpriced, but it's also always really good, in my experiences, so it sort of cancels out. I actually like the cafe car on corridor trains, but on LD trains, the lines at mealtime tend to be a little excessive (though if you're willing to eat at unusual times it works fine). I've never had a bad meal from the cafe car. Sure, it's not much compared to the diner, but for what you pay, it's completely reasonable food. (And I did once get a very credible cheeseburger on the Lake Shore Limited)

 

[Mackensen]

I voted down lunch, but I would add that the lunch in the parlor car on the Coast Starlight was excellent. Unfortunately it's the exception, not the rule.

 

[dlagrua]

I am tired of being served food in the cafe car that can be best described as fodder. My cat eats better food than some of the prefab overcooked or cold sandwiches served in the cafe car. Even most of the snacks are unhealthy-loaded with salt, fat, harmful oils,and all kinds of caustic chemical preservatives. Recently I have decided to forego eating cafe fodder and only buy the coffee and canned/bottled soft drinks.

In contrast the breakfast served in the dining cars is good (all except for the AutoTrain "continental" breakfast that's lousy). The dinners are usually good to very good but lunch can stand some improvement. The Angus burgers are the typical but decent good burger as are the Veggie burgers. Most of the other lunch selections are not so good. Its been years since you have been able to eat gourmet quality food on the rails prepared by French Chefs. I've recently enjoyed those meals prepared at home from authentic RR recipe books and let me tell ya the food must have been outstanding back in the day. They served things like Scallopines of Pork Tenderloin w Risling Wine sauce, Parisienne Potatos, Dutch Meat Loaf, Lobster Newberg, Bouillabaisse etc and there were something like four chefs to a dining car. We've really gone backwards folks.

 

[amamba]

I agree that the meals in the PPC were all excellent. I particularly enjoyed a lunch that I had of lasagna or some type of pasta with sauce and cheese in the PPC.

I seem to have just had some bad dinners on the LD network which I am finally willing to admit might be an anomaly. But I voted for dinner as the worst because I had a terrible steak one night on the SWC that was competely full of gristle and overcooked to death, and the other night I had some sodium bomb bbq brisquet dish that was also pretty bad. I also thougth the mashed potatoes tasted they like came from powder - can anyone confirm that one way or the other?

But I had awesome dinners in the PPC, including the lamb shank! :wub:

I think breakfast is the best meal I have had. I like that it includes your choice of bfast meal when you are in the sleeper, and I like that there is a healthy choice of yogurt, fruit & cereal. But the french toast was pretty good, too! Personally, I like to have a big breakfast and a light lunch, and that works out perfectly on the train.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

I also thougth the mashed potatoes tasted they like came from powder - can anyone confirm that one way or the other?

While I can't confirm it, that certainly has been my reaction to them as well. :mellow: