Olive Garden: serving fake Italian food across North America for decades

"Reduced-price Chili's" would have been more accurate.

Family of 4, usually with 1 ordering from the kids' menu, add in an appetizer and a cocktail or 2, plus we typically overtip whenever we go out (unless the service is horrible), so yeah, we usually end up spending $20-$30 out of pocket.

 

Do you eat the whole steak? The outside as well?

I love steak rare. RARE.
Through it on a hot grill, flip it, brown the outside and bring it..
Burnt, ugh. No part.

 

I prefer to call it "charred" as opposed to "burnt"

 

That reminds me of my late father-in-law. He'd tell the waitress, "I want this rare. I'm talking about holding the raw steak up in front of the fire, let the steak look at the fire for a few seconds, then it's done. If it's still squirming on the plate, that's perfect."

 

Up here I'll go to The Keg for steak. Yeah, it's a chain but what they do they do very well, for a fraction of the price at Ruth's Chris.

Olive Garden hasn't been in the Toronto area for almost 20 years and outback died a quick death in these parts too. Don't know anyone who goes to Red Lobster despite their aggressive advertising of the place as a legitimate seafood destination.

There are a lot of TGI Fridays, Bennigans etc. type chains up here like Kelsey's, Casey's and Montana's. There's an Applebee's not far from me (not many up this way) and I went there for a lunch meeting Monday and was impressed with how good it was.

I am a big fan of East Side Mario's, an Italian chain that is much better than Olive Garden, but seems to have hit some rocky times based on the number of locations that have been closing. Canuckistanis will be very familiar with Swiss Chalet, a mega-popular chicken chain that we hit for take out at least once a month.

Went to Chilis once in Georgia and really liked it, there is a location not far from me but I haven't heard good things about it. Somebody up top mentioned Logan's Roadhouse. Went to one in Myrtle beach (we weren't waiting two hours to get into Jimmy Buffett's place) and I was impressed with how good it was.

Two Cali chains I would live in if there were locations near me: BJ's Brewhouse and Lucille's.

 

Ruth's Chris sizzles some butter on top its steaks and people are inexplicably impressed by it.

 

This is what I don't understand about chains, especially Olive Garden. It's serviceable, especially in a pinch or with kids or if you want to get a lot of food (regardless of quality) for not a lot of money, and I've never been anti-the place or chains in general and sometimes even choose to go there.

But why in the world you would ever wait more than two minutes for a a seat at one of those places, especially Olive Garden, is beyond me. Yet, at many of these places, especially Olive Garden, the wait stretches on forever. There was an Olive Garden in the last city we lived in if you didn't get there by 4 you weren't getting a seat before 8. I shit you not. There was a great local Italian place about a block away. Never a wait there. It is still baffling to me how that could happen.

 

I'd crawl on my tongue over a parking lot of broken glass to eat at any of the chains listed here before I'd willingly eat at the Golden Corral/Ryan's type of food bar "restaurants".

I'm no food snob, but the "food" I remember eating there when I was a kid and my parents would haul us there reminds me of gruel served to prison inmates.

 

When I was in New York I couldn't beleve the lineup to get in to the Olive Garden in Times Square. Wasn't just families with kids (understandable, I suppose) but rubes from out of town. You're in one of the great restaurant cities on the fucking planet - whatever the cuisine or price point - and you line up at Olive fucking Garden?

 

Was one of them Michael Scott? In the first or second season of "The Office," he went to Times Square and raved about the internationally renowned restaurants like "Red Lobster" and "Sbarro's."

I'm not sure the show's current audience would get the joke.

 

I think of myself as a food snob and I like Olive Garden. There, I said it. I just don't think of it as Italian. I think of it as Olive Garden. The I eat the salad and soups and don't worry about. I do this 2-3 times a year, maybe.

 

When beer at some places in NYC is $9 a glass. Yep. I spent several hours at an Applebees or some such shit while my wife shopped in NYC. Paid $4 a beer and did so gladly.

But we also sampled lots of NYC eateries.