Amtrak Dining Car Menu Vegetarian Options reviewed

The Amtrak dining car provides a very nice place to have a meal and meet interesting people (who sit with you family style and start off as strangers, but usually end up as friends – sometimes even exchanging contacts).

For years the Amtrak menu remained the same – you always knew what was going to be on it.  You knew that the morning Omelet might change a few contents and cheese type, and the pasta special might change, but that was about the extent of the excitement.

As a vegetarian (who occasionally eats kosher fish), I was quite familiar with that menu (especially since I’ve ridden the Starlight over 20 times in the 10 years…).  For breakfast, the scrambled eggs, the omelet or the continental.  For lunch, the black bean burger or a salad.  For dinner, the Salmon, pasta special or a salad.  Then the menu changed and became more creative – with meals inspired by known chefs…

For the 1st new menu, the kosher fish options were gone and the pasta had shrimp…  but there was a very nice Asian noodle bowl.  There was something on the menu called the ‘Healthy and flavor forward specialties’ – but when I ordered that I got another Asian noodle bowl…  The breakfast veggie options and the lunch black bean burger and salad entree were still available.

For the current menu, the breakfast and lunch options are retained and the salad is a ‘romaine and goat cheese salad’.  For dinner, a kosher fish (Salmon) option is added back into the menu as well as a butternut squash risotto and vegetarian pasta entree.

Review: The Omelets are quite variable in content amount and the potatoes are usually ‘shriveled’, but OK with copious ketchup packets.  The continental breakfast is consistently decent. I like the black bean veggie burger and the Salmon is quite passable. I haven’t tried the pasta on the latest menu, but the Veggie Asian noodle bowl on the last menu was quite good.

Of the deserts, the pecan tart tops my list –

I am happy that Amtrak is mixing up their menu options (yearly?) to keep the train menu interesting.   I also appreciate that the servers are always happy to bring me  hot water to fill my portable french press ☕😃

Amtrak new dining car menu, the menu was introduced Dec 2017

Amtrak new dining car menu, the menu was introduced Dec 2017

Amtrak new dining car menu - back, the menu was introduced Dec 2017

Amtrak new dining car menu – back, the menu was introduced Dec 2017

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