Originally Posted by
CMK10
Train: 28 (Empire Builder)
Class: Sleeper
Where: Room
When: October 13, Dinner
If you're departing from Portland, the train does not have a dining car until the train is joined with the rest of the Builder in Spokane. We had a choice of three box dinners: steak, chicken or shrimp. You can also buy food in the cafe car. This was perfectly adequate though.
TBH, I actually prefer the PDX boxed lunch to yet another day of regular diner food. Nothing wrong with most of the food options in the diner, but a little variety is a pleasant surprise, and the caterer that does the boxed lunch for the Builder does a fantastic job with high-quality ingredients.
That said, some of the new dishes coming out on some of the routes are quite interesting, bordering on appealing (I'll pass on the mussels, though). That also said, the two times I've been on a train with special culinary advisory team meals on the menu, they've been either unavailable or sold out or something. I'm also disheartened with the move from good, cooked-on-board or traditionally-plated items to pre-cooked, pre-packaged ones (it wasn't that long ago that we had real slices of cheesecake and not the plastic custard dish ones...).