From restaurant to restaurant across Europe

[limey]

It is really classy. The dress code in the restaurant cars is absolutely no jeans or T shirts. Most people on the train are celebrating something and we'll all be dressed up to the nines at dinner tonight.
Meanwhile ... afternoon tea ....

Tiny cakes - apple strudel, raspberry tart and lemon rhum-baba. Tea. Served in our cabin.
Sent by thought transference

[glatt]

I like the VSOE logo on the china.

[limey]

Last night's dinner-

Main course - Picture if you will, two triangular wedges of pan fried fillet of lamb, cooked to perfect pink, standing proud in the centre of the plate. Nearby a slab of polenta has a cylindrical hole through it filled with finely sliced fried mushrooms, the cylindrical plug sitting nonchalantly atop the slab. To the side, daintily thin slices of steamed baby aubergine and courgette alternate fanned into a roundel. With a carefree drizzle of jus all around.
Sorry, I forgot to photograph it!
Pictured is the starter.

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[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by limey

Nearby a slab of polenta has a cylindrical hole through it filled with finely sliced fried mushrooms, the cylindrical plug sitting nonchalantly atop the slab.

This kind of thing irritates me. Intellectually, I get that presentation is important, at least to people who aren't me. But they basically cut a bite out of the middle of your food and threw it away, so they could artistically fill the cylinder instead if just putting the mushrooms on top of the whole polenta piece. Was the idea of a haphazard pile really so offensively bourgeois that they had to bin some of the very food that you're supposed to be enjoying?

Unless the little cut-out circle of polenta was somewhere else on the plate, in which case I'll shut up now.

[BigV]

Noted so you'll feel better, NOT so you'll "shut up now".

Originally Posted by limey

snip--
the cylindrical plug sitting nonchalantly atop the slab.
--snip

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

snip--
Unless the little cut-out circle of polenta was somewhere else on the plate, in which case I'll shut up now.

[limey]

Cheese and dessert.
Three cheeses with a bit of bread, a biscuit, a slice of fruit dumpling and some fig chutney.
The "sail" over the block of bavarois was a proper brandy snap.
Again, five tiny pastries (about an inch across) for two of us. We only managed three!

Sent by thought transference

[limey]

I'm having trouble keeping up!
Here's the breakfast tray, served in our cabin. Coffee, fruit juice and fruit salad under the paper caps, bread and butter and jam and cheese, pastries.
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[orthodoc]

It all looks wonderful! The Orient Express has been added to my bucket list.

[BigV]

Another great thread. Food, I'm a fan. This looks like cruise line fare, but on wheels. At least, that's my only experience that comes close. And it was unbelievably delicious, night after night.

[limey]

Thanks for your interest, guys and girls. Nearly done, now!
Brunch today.

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[glatt]

Oh man, you've been eating very well.

[limey]

This is the man responsible for it all. He's been cooking on the Orient Express for 29 years, in a kitchen that measures about ten by five feet. M. Christian Bodiguel.


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[orthodoc]

All of it looks gorgeous. From a kitchen that small, for three dining cars! The man is a genius.

[limey]

To be completely honest, two kitchens that size. There were 95 or so passengers on the train. Two sittings each for lunch and dinner.

Sent by thought transference

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by BigV

Noted so you'll feel better, NOT so you'll "shut up now".

Originally Posted by limey

the cylindrical plug sitting nonchalantly atop the slab.

Doh! I was thinking "cylindrical plug" was still referring to the mushrooms, but you're right, she clearly meant the extra piece of polenta. My apologies to Monsieur Bodiguel, I did not mean to denigrate his obviously divine victuals. This thread has put his train ride at the top of my dream vacation list--even despite the presence of all that pastry!