SBB Zurich Bern, en Route, 1st Class Car

Nov
2011

04. November 2011

Schinkensandwich


So I’m sitting in the train, I am hungry and I buy a ham sandwich off the cart. It’s shocking how much effort the producer of these sandwiches puts into making them taste bad. Some gummy bread in a special atmosphere so it doesn’t spoil presents itself to the diner. When you pop the plastic cover you hear a “soooshhhh” of the air pressure which is normalising. Incidentally the same technique of atmospheric overpressure is used in bunkers (maybe that’s where the gastronomic inspiration came from, also read up on something which used to be called Pflichtkonsum in the Swiss Army). There’s neither taste in the sandwich nor is there any love which is bestowed on the hungry diner, it screams airplane food all over. Why can’t they cut a piece of a decent loaf of bread and put some proper ham or cheese between two slices ? Really how difficult can it be to make decent sandwiches ? But apparently Passagio Railbar is concentrating all it’s ressources on the coffee (which isn’t that bad). My solution is to head to the train station 5 minutes earlier and grab a decent sandwich at one of the bakeries (Sprüngli, Kleiner, Stocker). Most of them are better and cheaper than the CHF 6.90:

Rechnung

4 Comments

  1. cmling
    04/11/2011 at 03:29

    Once upon a time (I am referring to the 60s), these things were very good.

  2. Katherine
    04/11/2011 at 07:33

    I could not have said it better–they seem to excel at making these sandwiches sh1tty. Thankfully, SBB also excels at selling railway station shop space to very, very good places like Sprungli, Kleiner, etc.

    p.s. tried the dining car lately? I spent a decent couple of hours from GVA to ZH there last week and was pleasantly surprised.

    • therealpickygourmet
      05/11/2011 at 11:38

      Great – what did you eat – resp. what would you recommend in the dining car ?

  3. Ronnie B.
    09/11/2011 at 13:58

    I would second the dining car. I often order a cheese plate and a plate of charcuterie. It is served with a bread basket which is normally warm! Order a bottle of wine or a few beers and enjoy your trip…

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