Originally Posted by MaxBuck

For all the crap it takes online, IME Olive Garden, though by no means a gourmet experience, tends to be a whole lot better than the "local Italian restaurant" I get directed to in Podunk, Your State. The Italian I've had in Iowa has been about a step below Chef Boy-ar-Dee out of a can; I would've killed for an Olive Garden when I was last in Cedar Falls.

Honestly, the Italian meal I was served in supposedly the finest Italian restaurant in northern New Jersey was inferior to Olive Garden, and by a pretty substantial margin. I've had great Italian food in Italy (natch), Pittsburgh, Ohio, Chicago, and California, but New Jersey? So far as I can tell it's a bunch of joints serving mobsters with no taste whatsoever.