Terry Pulliam Burd > wrote:

> You SoCal folks likely know the Pacific Dining Car. Venerable old
> restaurant created in 1921, literally in an old railway car parked in
> a lot in downtown LA. It's been added onto over the years and now
> sprawls into 5 separate dining areas. Wonderfully elegant atmosphere
> that puts you in mind of celluloid collars and spats. My boss and I
> had an appearance at the District Court in downtown LA yesterday, so
> we grabbed lunch at the Dining Car. Hadn't been in a while and was
> somewhat saddened to see it looking a bit down in the heels. We were
> seated at a banquette and the fabric was wearing through in places,
> some of the chairs looking scuffed, but the power brokers were still
> littered about the place, the waiters (all male) in their green vests
> and long white aprons, single roses on the tables, and the menu is
> still decidedly guy-oriented (reminding me of The Arches in Newport
> Beach). Still, it's nice to see a venerable old institution such as
> the Dining Car doing a good business and sticking to its tradition.
> And the Grilled Shrimp Cobb Salad was heaven!
>
> http://www.pacificdiningcar.com/lunch.html

Okay, I've looked at the Web site and the menus. If it is an attempt to
keep up the legendary dining car tradition, it looks like it fails
miserably. It appears to be a mockery of a tradition, instead being an
imitation of a second-rate steakhouse.

Railroad food, once the Pullman dining car had made its appearance, used
to be the glory of American dining - unmatched anywhere but at a few
special restaurants. It is not for nothing that the first Pullman
dining car was christened "Delmonico".

According to _Eating in America_ by Waverley Root & Richard de
Rochemont,
"Dining car menus on 1870 offered seventy-five cent meals of oysters on
the half-shell, porterhouse steak, quail, antelope, plover, fresh trout
and terrapin, with second helpings on the house. There was Champagne at
every meal, including breakfast, and passengers ate in the splendor of
Turkish carpets, French mirrors, fringed portières and rare inlaid
woods. The Denver and Rio Grande made a specialty of mountain trout,
the Union Pacific was famous for its antelope steaks, the Northern
Pacific for its grouse and salmon."

Victor