There is a kitchen next to the soft sleeper carriage on each Tibet train, which offers three meals per day for passengers. Besides that, adjacent to the kitchen, there is a clean and comfortable dining room which is laid out with tidy tables and seats for diners. These two parts make up the dining car.
Generally, the dining car serves a wide range of ordinary Chinese foods, Tibetan foods, and some simple Western foods. For breakfast, passengers are served with pickles, bread, eggs, milk, or a variety of noodles. There are around 45 food dishes available for lunch and dinner, including Kung Pao Chicken, Scramble Egg with Tomato, Stewed Beef, fried vegetables, fish and tofu. All dishes are served freshly cooked from the kitchen after you place your order.
The space on the train is very limited, so water and electrical resources are not as conveniently available as they are in the city. Therefore, eating in the dining car is more expensive and will cost about two times as much than in any ordinary restaurant. Nevertheless, some fresh vegetables and some nicely cooked dishes would definitely color up your trip.
Below you will find more detailed information on each part of the dining car:
Normally, the dining car is in the middle of the train for the convenience of the passengers from all the carriages. It is recommended that you get to the dining car early for the mealtimes in order to avoid the crowds, as the dining room can only accommodate 12 tables or 48 seats. With large windows next to the tables, you won’t miss the spectacular landscapes while enjoying the food in the dining car.
The top of the dining room is illuminated by two light belts, with wall lights on both sides of the ribbon board, bright and soft light. There are 24 hooks on both sides of the wall, and two vacuum cleaner sockets. The wall panels consist of light-colored grid plastic paste panels.
The floor is made of scenic blue rubber flooring leather, and the walkway is covered with Burgundy carpeting. A comfortable and elegant dining environment is set off by warm-colored tables and dining chairs.
The kitchen is sloped designed with a drainage ditch and drainage hole. The floor below the washing tank is also provided with a closed garbage outlet. There are three ventilator fans on the top of the kitchen, two electric fans, one boiler chimney cap, one stove chimney cap (rotating with the wind), four top lights, six corner lights on both sides, and a refrigerator control cabinet on the upper wall of the horizontal refrigerator.
There are four shutters on the windows, and there is a safety bar installed at the side door for ventilation and cooling down people in the summer.
The kitchen layout is compact, reasonable, spacious, bright and has a great dining capacity. The kitchen is equipped with cooking equipment such as stoves, low-pressure boilers, rice steaming boxes, refrigerators, iced refrigerators, cupboards, hangers, coal boxes, etc. The auxiliary equipment includes washing pools, knife holders, pot racks, tables, smoke hood, fire extinguishers, etc.
There is a furnace for the coal-fired three-eye stove. The stove body is welded from a stainless-steel plate. The stove panel has a cast-iron surface that is strong and durable, not easy to deform. The stove core is made of high-alumina refractory products.
The top of the stove is equipped with two ovens. There are two adjustable air doors in the front. The heat insulation material of the stove is aluminum silicate refractory fiber.
The exhaust hood and chimney are installed above the stove. The low-pressure boiler can be applied to both coal and steam boiler. The steam pressure of the boiler is controlled below 50 kPa through the pressure limiting valve. The boiler volume is 190L (excluding water jacket), which can provide hot water and steam.
The steamed rice box is made of stainless steel and consists of a box, steamed rice barrel, hot water tank, steam inlet pipe, an exhaust pipe and various types of valves. The rice box can make about 25kg of steamed rice at a time, which lasts about 30 minutes.
The refrigerator is divided into a horizontal type and vertical type. The box is made of stainless steel. The box of the compression and condensing units is hung under the car. The refrigeration pipe is connected to the train, and the total volume is 1200L. The temperature in the box is generally controlled between 0 and 5°C for food refrigeration.
This car also has an ice fridge sepcially set up as a backup device just in case the refrigerator is out of order. The cupboards, coal boxes, washing basins, dining tables, knife holders, and pan frames are all made of stainless steel. The kitchen floor has a terrazzo structure. Under the terrazzo floor, a stainless-steel waterproof tray, wooden floor and heat insulation layer are arranged.
After knowing more details about the dining carriage on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, are you looking forward to having a meal here?
Warm Tips About Dining on Tibet Train
1. Please note that the dining room is only available to customers who order food in there. The food that you purchase elsewhere is not allowed to be eaten in the dining room because this will ensure that there is enough space for customers who do want to dine there.
2. On average, the breakfast costs around 20 RMB or 3 USD per person; the lunch / dinner costs around 50 RMB or 7.5 USD per person.
3. Outside of the normal mealtimes, you must pay for a drink in order to sit in the dining area, or else you will be asked to return to your compartment.
4. The food on the train is more expensive out there; the prices are all shown on the menu.
5. There is also a bar in the dining car that serves tea, coffee, beers, and some juices.
