Posted on 07/10/2014 8:03:20 AM PDT by C19fan
Out of towners...
Truer words were never spoken.
A cheap italian restaurant chain originating in Florida. Usually occupied by disgruntled managers and apathetic servers.
OG is ok, had better and worse.
My town has a multitude of family owned Italian restaurants to choose from. They are all different even though some are owned by competing family members. Still the Olive Garden is always busy. We know it’s not “authentic Italian” but they have some good dishes. Even my husband who grew up with an Italian mother likes a few of them, although NOT anything with their sauce.
The Old Spaghetti Factory has Spumoni for desert.
There are other tests. I went to a famous, old, family owned Italian Restaurant in the Russian River area in CA. They had an after dinner drink that is designed to settle the stomach after a big meal.
I don’t recall the name of the class of liqueurs, something along the lines of a ‘digestif’.
I tried it. It was foul tasting stuff, but I got through it, and it did as advertised. I actually felt better after the meal.
I’ve seen it on the menu in other fine Italian restaurants.
OG is a perfectly fine restaurant. It is a GREAT place to teach kids restaurant table manners without spending a boatload. The kids actually eat the food too.
It’s good food. You could spend more for more hand-made stuff in other family joints.
Tourists from the South and Mid-West.
You must have very low expectations. Some of the best Italian food that I have ever had -- here or in Italy -- has been at small "mom & pop" operations where simple food is expertly prepared using fresh ingredients for a price that is no more (and often less) than Olive garden and the other crap-food chain restaurants.
Here, you can’t get pizza from the oven by the slice, lunch for $8. Not a sandwich from a deli
There is one restaurant in this city that I know of to go with family where they are cooking In the back
The higher end chain restaurant you can’t walk out of for under $40 and the food is not good. Those places are not doing well. They are a rip off
There are "authentic" Italian places that are far far worse than Olive Garden. These are the kind of places that serve Chicken Parm on a bed of sautéed onions, have one type of sauce they call "gravy" and have no idea what you are talking about if you ask if it's Marinara or Bolognese sauce. Of course there are a lot of people that pile on to bad mouth Olive Garden that has never had authentic Italian food and couldn't tell good from bad if their lives depended on it.
Last time I went to one of those the food was OK (not great) for what little there was of it and the price was extremely high for what I got. Maybe it's just living in Atlanta.
Why would a tourist go to Olive Garden? Don’t they crack open a Fodor’s Guide? I’m not questioning you, of course, you’re probably right. But then tourists go to restaurants in Times Square and think they’re getting a NY experience, I guess.
It’s really Italian-American food we’re talking about not Italian. I’m not a fan of Chicken Parm (I guess my Jewish ancestry of not mixing meat and dairy) but what’s wrong with it being on a bed of onions? It may not be Italian but it may well be Italian-American. In fact, it sounds like something they’d do in Philly. Piling food on top of food has always been one of the staples of that type of cooking.
Sambucca? That’s an anise-based liquor. Also Amaro.
Spumoni and Tortoni are very old-fashioned desserts that are rarely served in Italian restaurants in the northeast. Once my husband’s restaurant catered an affair and he had to search all over NYC to find a vendor for Tortoni. I loved it as a kid.
“Once you’ve had real Italian food you won’t ever go to OG anymore!”
I would likely agree with you on that. I’ve always told myself that the next time I’m in Philly, I’m gonna head out to South Philly and try to find one of those mom and pop Italian restaurants.
I’ve heard that even as South Philly becomes less Italian, there are still a number of those type of restaurants in that part of the city.
“A little over 15 years ago Olive Garden changed their recipes and that was a bad idea.”
I don’t recall there ever being a substantial change in the menu. It’s almost always (at least to me) been pretty much the same menu - albeit with occasional new offerings.
What was the old menu like?
*snicker*
Most of the time the mom-n-pop restaurants are the best no matter what kind of food you want.
I used to eat their frequently, and get carry out often. As an example, their Alfredo sauce was very well made prior to the wholesale change to their recipes, but afterwords was not even a close facsimile to their previous product. I used to order just their Alfredo sauce for takeout and make my own dishes with it. After the change, I won't bother as the product has been inferior ever since.
They ruined their Manicotti. It's nowhere near as good as they used to make it. Most of my favorite dishes were “ruined” when this change took place as far as I'm concerned, and I almost never eat there anymore, and when I do, I'm always disappointed as I remember when their food used to be so much better.
When I was a kid I lived on a quiet dead end street but it was a busy part of town. AT the top of the street where it intersects with the main road was a church and a donut shop.
The original owner made the best donuts I ever had. I have never ever had donuts any where near as good as those for the rest of my life. And I have tried a LOT of donuts.
The donuts were so good that kids all up and down the street went to church on Sunday because they would be given one for showing up. Seriously!
Ted's Dutch-Made Donuts... I miss them!
The curiosity got the better of me.
It was Fermet. It’s an herbal liquor served after dinner. Nasty stuff, unless it was served, or I was drinking it, incorrectly.
Sambucca’s definitely in that class, as is Cognac, Armagnac, etc.
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