Yes, I agree the Ravioli is good, and certainly popular in my experience, but the portion size is smaller than what one might expect from a starter.
Service quality has been very variable lately; I've had some great service on some trains in recent months, however a recent journey from Edinburgh to York, which was a scheduled journey time of over 3 hours, saw just one cold drink run, one hot drink run, and one offering of food, and no service at all after somewhere around Berwick. The coaches were also in a poor state in terms of accumulated rubbish and lack of cleaning before boarding, and this remained the case during the journey.
Today I asked before boarding at the origin if a full catering service would be available; I was told yes, so chose not to buy anything from station shops. However, just before we departed, we were told there would be a "very limited" offering; in the event this turned out to be just biscuits and crisps only!
Also in the first class lounge, anyone who had questions for onward destinations was told to ask elsewhere as they were "only LNER"; I intervened and answered any such questions for the short while I was there. I don't understand why people accept customer facing roles and then aren't helpful; even when I am not at work, I want to help people, so I think some people are just in the wrong job, and this demonstrates a failing at the time of recruitment, as well as a lack of performance management, which is endemic across the entire industry, with LNER being among the least bad, but not immune, to this deep-rooted problem.
It's a shame because, overall, I would say LNER is one of the better TOCs in this area, and most staff members are good and do care. But it's not consistent.
