Winter warmers as Virgin Trains introduces new seasonal menu

Travel First Class with Virgin Trains this winter and enjoy a mouth-watering selection of award-winning complimentary food. The new Winter menu starts on 11 November 2009 and, as always, focuses on quality ingredients from sustainable sources. For Virgin Trains it means using only free range chicken and eggs, Fairtrade drinks and outdoor-reared meat. For customers it means assurance that only the very best makes it onboard.

Highlights of the Winter Light Bites menu include Somerset brie and cranberry and orange compote roll, Scottish rare beef and horseradish sandwich and fruity gamekeeper and curried chicken pie slices. For the sweet-toothed there are delicious strawberry crumble and coffee cake slices.

New additions to the Evening Meal on Pendolino services are delicious venison with chestnuts; Kashmiri chicken and mash, and smoked haddock florentine. For vegetarians there’s vegetable pie and mash, mushroom risotto and spiced sweet potato and lentils. For dessert there is Banoffee cheesecake, chocolate cake with chunks, treacle sponge with vanilla custard and apple crumble with sultanas and vanilla custard. The popular cheese option remains, served with saltana bread and oatcakes.

Included on the menu for customers travelling on Virgin Trains Super Voyager services is aromatic minted lamb with mash and carrots, chicken tikka masala, and corn beef hash with potatoes and red cabbage. For vegetarians, there’s gnocchi with red wine and mushroom and aubergine parmigiano. To round things off there’s options of Banoffe cheesecake, chocolate cake with chunks, and treacle sponge with vanilla custard.

The popular Virgin Trains breakfast remains available on Pendolino services to and from London Euston until 0959 and includes sausages made from the highest quality pork and outdoor-reared sweet cure bacon with free range eggs . There’s a tasty vegetarian option of rosti, egg, tomato and two vegetarian sausages plus bacon and sausage rolls for customers looking for a slightly lighter option. Breakfast on a Super Voyager consists of free range scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, fresh seasonal fruits, and bacon and sausage paninis. Refreshments are served with all meals.

Nic Cuthbertson, Virgin Trains Product Development and Purchasing Manager, says: “The new Winter menu reflects our continued commitment to providing customers with great tasting, interesting meals. Whenever people experience our onboard menu we want them to be assured that they are getting the freshest ingredients from sustainable sources.”

And it’s not just us who thinks this. Caterer and Hotelkeeper Magazine described Virgin Trains as ‘head and shoulders above the rest (train operators) in first class accommodation. In the past year, Virgin Trains has won a Compassion in World Farming Good Egg Award for ditching battery eggs in favour of free range eggs and the Coveted Onboard Award for Cost Sector Catering.

Notes for editors
From 13 December, Virgin Trains’ meal times are as follows:
Breakfast – until 10:00
Light Bites – between 10:00 and 17:00/after 19:00
Evening Meal – between 17:00 and 19:00.

Images of Virgin Trains and the company’s operations are available on our online media website www.virgintrainsmediaroom.com. You will need to register to access the Media Resources section containing high-resolution images of our operations.

Virgin Trains is the brand name of Virgin Rail Group. We have operated the West Coast passenger train franchise since 1997; the current franchise runs to March 2012.

Virgin Rail Group is owned 51 percent by Virgin Group and 49 percent by Stagecoach.

Virgin Trains has been listed as the Best Train Operator in a survey by the Institute of Customer Service and has been voted Best Rail Company by Travel Weekly magazine and Best UK Domestic Train Service by Business Traveller magazine.