Urban Sky
Senior Member
Kitchens for cook-to-order meals have disappeared from European trains many decades ago and I'm not sure whether it would have even been possible to retrofit the Renaissance Service Cars with a fully functional kitchen. I'm of course far from a neutral passenger, but I've enjoyed the Ocean with its meal service in both, HEP and Renaissance, with HEP last April (when one of the two Renaissance sets was unavailable) and Renaissance just last weekend and the food was deemed as excellent not just by myself, but also by every single passenger I happened to talked to. Just out of interest: were you travelling eastbound (train 15) or westbound (train 14)?The Renaissance fleet was never set up well for solo travellers who wanted a bed, and VIA did not put a proper kitchen in the diner cars. I took the Ocean in 2004 on a solo trip when it had the HEP-I fleet and I got a roomette and enjoyed the cooked-to-order dinner and breakfast.
My partner and I took the Ocean last year, and we got the big bedroom in the Park Car, but the microwaved meals were lousy - which seems a bit odd, because VIA does a decent job of serving reheated meals in business class on Corridor trains. I've been in the Ren bedrooms as well, and I still prefer the HEPs.
It will be really nice to see the HEPs back on the Ocean.
Edit:
Just one more thing, to the best of my knowledge meals on-board the Ocean's Renaissance equipment are steamed, not microwaved...
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