WashingtonPark wrote: ↑Sun May 21, 2023 3:25 pm
John_Perkowski wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 8:31 pm
None of these are as good as a 12 Oz strip sirloin charbroiled. Amtrak can try to sell all the microwave crap it wants, it’s not a food properly done by a chef and cooks.
This. I wish AMTRAK would concentrate on serving regular food instead of culturally significant, delicate, gently handled, succulent, expensive whatever from some chef from the food network.
Well... Okay, there's multiple ways I can attack this, because I'm a bit "mixed bag" on this.
I'd agree that having a good basic set of food on Acela is a good idea... but this is Acela we're talking about here, not the Regional! It should have some classiness to it to match the high end and higher fare. Besides, looking at the menus, they're only throwing in one specialty dish in per menu rotation (every 3 weeks).
On the flip side, you don't have a full kitchen on the Acela to begin with. Hell, the regular restaurants would have optimized how to cook the meals in the first place to get it on the plate and out the door in under 20 minutes. Take a look at the menu selection. Wok-cooked food? Baked Manicotti? Lasagna? No, even with everything else, this is basically prepared like it was an airline or caterer: Pre-prepped, cooked, chilled/frozen, then ether baked or nuked warm and plated.
It doesn't matter if it was done by some chef that has their on TV show and/or chain of restaurants. They're not at all the restaurants all the time. They're just figureheads and maybe in R&D for more meal options. What you get is airline food with less salt and spices because
you're on a freakin' train at ground level and it's going to taste better than up over cloud cover.
Would I love a 12 oz steak next to a 12 oz steak on an Acela? Sure, if I had time enough for them to cook them and for me to eat both. But as I said,
there's no full kitchen on the Acela as on a Viewliner! I won't be surprised if the Acela II consists don't have a full kitchen ether. And frankly put, you're not going to get a freshly charbroiled steak.
Seriously, folks. Don't forget what Acela is and what equipment it has. It's basically a long-haul airplane with meal service on rails instead of wings. That's your constraint. Just be glad you can do a lot more with flavor since you're not dealing with dulled senses.