EMT's onboard catering is quite hit and miss.
Breakfast in 1st class is good on the trains that have a travelling chef (see posting above), otherwise I wouldn't make it a deciding factor between 1st and Standard class (better fare from M&S or own picnic). The newly refurbished HSTs are good in 1st with at-seat power points. You only get power in Standard on the Meridians.
Before Christmas it was a regular occurance for there to be no buffet "due to staff shortages". In the 5+5 configuration Meridians it was frequent for the buffet to be open in one half but not the other. Which was OK for 50% of the train, but with no gangway between the two halves not much good for the other 50%. I started to note in my diary when the buffet was open, and it was around 60% of the time.
Since Christmas the staffing is much better and the buffets are open better than 80% of the time. However they seem to have abondoned their electronic tills so they only take cash. This has also added delays as they write out manual reciepts and update manual stock-control sheets. It looks unprofessional to see them keeping change in paper cups and running tallies on paper napkins. The knock on of the lack of electronic stock control also seems to be that they open the buffet later and close it earlier. The other week on the 1hr 50min journey from Nottingham to London the buffet was open for about 40 mins.
Tonight on the 1715 STP-NOT there is no buffet, because their is no buffet car (according to the announcement). Its an HST set and I have wandered up the train to see if aliens have stolen the buffet car, or if it is away for the new livery, or if in fact it is just shut. But apparently there will be a trolley service.
Still on the whole, given a choice at being good at running trains or running catering I'll settle for the former. And in 18 months commuting EMT have never maded me late for a meeting - even if I'm hungry and thirsty when I get to it.
A rather odd choice of complement with my meal was crips.
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