If there's a mat in front of the pub to wipe the sh*t off your wellies, you're light years ahead of us. Southerners (US) are accustomed to being mocked in the mass media, and we wear it as a badge of honor. If anything we did became generally fashionable, we'd find a way to make it less so.

Agreed. OG is only average at it's best. At least from my experience.

This thread is so entertaining - I just wasted the first 1/2 hour of work reading through it.
I'm so glad I live in NYC where I can eat cheap Afghan like I did last night, expensive Italian like I will tonight, and pick something else for tomorrow (cheap or expensive, Italian, French, or whatever).

I also love the "snooty NY" thing that gets thrown around - here and in other forums. If people think NY is a snooty place - good. Hopefully that image keeps people away - the City is too crowded anyway.

Without threads like this I would be clueless about Olive Garden and other American chains.

And references like this quote from Lisa Simpson (to Homer) would make no sense:

"And you take me places you hate, like museums, plays and The Olive Garden."

Hmm...do you recall which episode that quote came from? I watch the animated series routinely and can't remember hearing that quote.

I think it was the one where Homer is sent to Rock Camp as a treat by the family. It was on British TV (Channel 4) recently.

I see. Thanks!

Wow.. that's quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever read.

Down the road from me in Delaware... we have... in a row on a single pad, TGI Fridays, Lone Star, Olive Garden and "The Lob" (i'll get to the lob in a second).

I drove down there thurs night to head towards downtown Wilmington and they were PACKED. Like 7pm and the parking lot was jammed.

Further down is the Romano's Macaroni Grille and Chilis, Applebee's, Bennigan's ... I grew up in CA and Macaroni grilles are everywhere. I never went, once. What am I missing?

FWIW, there are a lot of local diners, bbq and pizza/steak joints around there as well.

"The Lob" - ok.. my brother lives in Manhattan and anyone who spent more than 2 minutes on the island knows that Manhattan has some of the best food on earth. Quality, style etc. It's all really good.

Manhattan has one Red Lobster, in Times Square. In the center they have this gigantic rotating lobster. I can't make this up.

So my brother's birthday, every year, is spent at "The Lob" as he calls it, to coincide with "Shrimpfest" - the all you can eat, moderately priced and even more moderately tasting shrimp deal.

It's the only time his girlfriend lets him go to Red Lobster - he's done it for ~6 years now for his birthday.

Some of South Phil's Italian joints can be some of the most underrated eating experiences anywhere.

Much better priced than Manhattan and just as good.

Hi All,

If you guys who haven't eat at Olives Gardens? Sometimes that we went to Olive Gardens before. I loves to eat Italian restaurant. I got soup, pasta and etc. I love to eat garlic breadsticks and it was so delicious dinners time. So let's the speculations begin.

Regards

If I want good Italian food the last place i'd find it is in an Olive Garden. Big portions though so I suppose you don't leave hungry.

My partner is in love with Olive Garden because of their current promotion... all you can eat pasta for $8.95. Many choices in pasta and sauces... great way to experiment.

We find the food to be pretty good... and does not break the wallet.

I actually love their salad...

I would tend to agree but they've improved quite a bit over the years. 10-15 years ago they were kind of blah and boring but they've cleaned up their act IMO.

We're the first to admit that we're food snobs and gravitate toward higher end restaurants. I'm not really concerned about menu prices as long as the experience and the food are outstanding.

Several years ago we were traveling and spent the night in a small-ish town. And Olive Garden was the high-end restaurant in that town. We decided to eat there, weren't expecting much and were pleasantly surprised. We've since returned to our local one for lunch on several occasions and have been pleased.

We don't live in NYC or BOS where Luigi's or Dominic's mother cooks at a restaurant on every other block. Our choices are pretty much limited to chain-type Italian food like Spaghetti Factory, Johnny Carino's, Olive Garden and the like. And we find Olive Garden to be fine. Not great but fine.

My wife's watercolor group frequents Oliver Garden for their post session meals (where, a couple of times a year, spouses and soul mates are invited to join them).

I'm not sure how to qualify or quantify "improvement" and maybe it's my imagination (or dulled palate), but there actually seems to have been a successful nation wide attempt at improvement. Now, if I could ever convince a server to resubmit the flabby breadsticks to an oven long enough to make the crust crusty (and cause the buyer of house wine to buy a red other than from Chateau Grapette), I might be a more friendly observer. I will admit that for a no host dinner for 12 to 20, OG's not the worst of choices, predictable and consistent, and although no fan of iceberg, I usually order the soup/salad combo with the "Tuscan" soup choice.

I'll usually have a lunch there now and then with my SO. For dinners, my SO and I choose Carrabas.

I really wish the waiters/waitresses would stop pushing the wine so hard. I was in there at around 11:30 one morning and the first thing the waitress asked us is would we like to sample some of their wine. I was not even half awake yet!