If you avoid Chinese in Texas, you can be missing out. When the long railroad line was built through the wilds of west Texas from Abileneto El Paso, little towns sprang up all along the way. Lots of the laborers building that railroad were Chinese and ended up staying in those towns and starting restaurants that can be remarkably decent.

And Fried Ravioli when in the St. Louis area. ^ ^

[QUOTE=Analise]Sorry, but I can give my opinion just like Mary2e, tonypct, rec, and HobokenFlyer have. No TOS rules were broken. ^

Speak for your own experience not everybody else. I don't know where you live but one can get the most authentic, and inexpensive Chinese food right in Flushing. I forgot....only "snobs" take the 7 to Flushing. :D

QUOTE]

No TOS, but you have insulted many many people who might happen to like Olive Garden, and the countless who work there or have any interest in it's success.

I have yet to see a "1000 year old egg" anywhere in Flushing.....

[moderator hat on]

Everyone, let's keep this focused (or as focused as this thread seems to be) on Olive Garden etc., and et al, and refrain from discussing individual posters? OK?

Thanks :)

cblaisd
Senior Moderator

[/hat off]

P.F.Changs is about as expensive as Olive Garden. As I've stated previously, it's Americanized Chinese/Asian food...never mentioned money or expenses. Dishes range between $10 to $15 for most items, maybe $20 for seafood.

If you are coming to the Gayla in Palm Springs, please do not say this out loud! :D

Dissed by Olive Garden? Lucky you.

I wish my area had been so fortunate. Why couldn't we have a CPK instead?

I don't think that's a problem unique to Phoenix. It is more a problem with the lack of taste/sophistication/etc. of the voters.

Here in San Antonio, Outback typically places first as the best steakhouse in the annual Express-News readers' choice awards, ahead of Ruth's Chris and much superior non-chain steakhouses.

Which really goes to show that you should take newspaper "best of" ratings with a grain of salt.

Olive Garden has great breadsticks. The chicken alfredo pizza is not bad. But as for the other entrees, you can do just as well by microwaving your own packaged Italian food.

Olive Garden is like TGI Fridays for pasta or "Italian" food.

I don't think it's snobby to think that a chain that serves 10s of thousands of people every day all over the country makes good Italian food. They're too busy responding to focus groups and surveys to actually pay attention to what is "italian food"

That said, the last (and final) time I was at Olive Garden, the dumb-a&& waiter didn't bother to serve our salad or bread until we finished our entrees. No thanks, I'll try somewhere else next time.

I spent my last two years on the road doing my bit for 9/11. Military towns are not exactly culinary Meccas. In fact, OG was usually the best the locale had to offer. Noe, almost a year after I am starting to recover my health.

Well, the postscript to the original post is that Olive Garden announced last week that they will build in Oxford, Al. No further details were available at the time, but a location and schedule will be announced at a later date.

Whatever your opinion of Olive Garden, you will agree that the citizens will have what they want, and deserve. I project no near-term weight losses for the average Oxford-Anniston resident.

Well, good for you. ^

buon appetito!

I am certain you can find 1000 year eggs (leather/skin egg if translated literally) in all three of the Chinese/Asian neighborhoods in New York (Chinatown, Flushing and 8th Avenue in Brooklyn).

Maybe so for the average resident, how's your own personal weight loss project? Better than mine I hope.

If you live on Long Island or in the city and think that Olive garden is good there is something very wrong with you. The one time I went there was in Arizona, and I thought that I was going to throw up!. The food is nasty!!!!!!!

For me I will never eat Italian out of Little Italy, Italy, or Long Island.

thank you very much :-)

I agree with your sentiments regarding OG. But don't forget South Philly either. Great Italian food there as well. :D

Bet you can believe Waffle House didn't pass up either one of those exits. :rolleyes:

There's some flashbacks I could have done without. :mad:

The waitress dropping ashes from her cigarette while taking my order in Columbia, SC. :barf: :gag:

Couldn't agree more, deltajfk. But I would also add Arthur Avenue in the Bronx to your list of places at which to eat Italian.

Why, thanks for asking. I dropped 38 pounds as of this morning, going from 209 to 171. The loss has dropped off after the first 6 months and I've only lost about 5 in the last 3 months. All well and good, as I have replaced most of my wardrobe and cannot afford to do that again soon. My blood pressure is back within normal limits and I feel good; better than James Brown.

I don't mean to be harsh, but if you've already got a large number of unremarkable chain restaurants, is it really worth putting in effort to beg one more to come to town?

Why not go support some of your locally owned businesses? They're almost always better.

That's not harsh (for OMNI). I ask the locals all the time how they can allow good local establishments to go belly-up while they line up nightly to partake of such standard fare, often waiting over an hour on a Friday or Saturday night for Logan's Roadhouse or O'Charley's. Part of it is location: the chains have the deep pockets to afford the primo spots on the busy highways while the independents are stuck with the old buildings in a deteriorating, dangerous after dark, downtown. They are also forced to charge a premium because their volume is lower. They also cannot guarantee comparable incomes to servers while they get established. And, unfortunately many here are seduced by the quantity of food as opposed to quality. Ryan's and the asian buffet equivalent restaurants will never fail for lack of business here.

I do support local independent restuarants and I'm always pleased when another opens, but they're usually out of business in under 2 years. This entire story has really been about giving the people what they want, not what I want. Oh well, if fine dining was all I cared about, I'd have left here for another place 3 years ago.

And to all the posters whose contribution here is to paint OG as the foulest curse ever perpetuated on the American public, you are either incredible snobs, liars or given to hyperbole. It is simply bland food in an italian-american style served in large quantities at reasonable prices. You jetsetters need to stop searching for the ultimate experience on a daily basis, come back to earth for a while where we peons have to occasionally plunge our toilets, wash dishes and help the kids with homework. Then you can appreciate that an occasional night out at a mediocre restaurant with friends or family can be an enjoyable event.

Thanks, I will give it a try. :-)

If your talking about Bucca di Beppo (and maybe there are two chains with similar names, i dont' know), that certainly is a place to find the It. Am. stereotypes that the tri staters claim so desperately to have monopolied.

The strangest part about the place is that its not only the hard-to-take-after-awhile pastas with cheese and tomato sauce, but they've got marginally insulting pictures of enormous southern Italians as their main decor theme.

I would feel uncomfortable if i went to an Alabamian restaurant and found pictures of fat people with nascar hats on, Bucca di Beppo makes me feel a similar way.

The reason that we quit going to OG was the service was so bad on more than one occasion I do like their salad, soup and breadsticks the best of most others. Johnny Carinos, IMHO, is better and more enjoyable. I agree with the statements that all of these places ( OG, JC, MG, PFCh, etc.) are americanized both in taste and in quanity. BTW, do love those cheese biscuits at RL .

Another big generic crappy restaurant isn't coming to your town? Have a party. Go spend some money at a real restaurant. The only letter you should be writing should be happy that your little stretch of franchiseland is not going to be getting an OG.

Hehehe, I just reread this and got a chuckle. No need for pictures, there's a mirror here and there on the walls.

Update: OG is almost finished and will probably open within a month or so. We have also acquired a Longhorn, although we already seem to have plenty of chain steak restaurants. There is also a Maggie Moos. I'm sure I'll stop by when the weather warms back up. The biggest victims of this retail expansion are sure to be the locally owned stores. The big winner will be the cardio floor at the regional medical center.

BamaVol,

Wow! You guys are getting seriously mainstream. We've had a bunch of franchises open up in Spanish Fort, just up the road. OG, Logan's, Fire Mountain (I hear that one is especially awful).

We don't need them to support our regional cardio center. We've got Lambert's!!! :D

PS: WTH is a Maggie Moos???

Here in Tulsa it is the same way. Everyone flocks to the new restaurants and leaves the locals behind, even though the authentic ones are so much better.:rolleyes: People are weird...

Maggie Moos is an ice cream parlor. It's funny, when I got here almost 5 years ago, the Dairy Queen had just shut down. An Edy's franchise opened in the mall and was gone in under a year. There's a Baskin Robins that was closed before I even got here. There are 2 TCBY's that have outlived them and no other frozen confection in a cup or cone option in town. Don't rednecks like ice cream?

I guess most people don't want to eat outside the box. :D

A new restaurant opened, called Paco Wong's, you can tell the Chinese Mexican heritage in the name :D

And it is pretty good, a little pricey, but going to a restaurant with white linens, well dressed waiters and good service does have it's price

How much did you know about it before you went? A ChinaMex name on a restaurant would concern me. I'd be expecting fast food, not white linen, since most chinese and mexican restaurants in my experience are not fancy, good food in many, but not fancy.

I'll go to Olive Garden if I have to as a last resort. For the most part the food is passable. I have had better Italian including at another but smaller chain: Bertucci's. Service is good (the one in Jersey City Newport is very good and rarely crowded) and I like the seasonal specials.

I have also had great Italian at little restaurants around the world including Astoria Queens, Simply Pasta in Manhattan, NYC and in London (one was a small hole in the wall place I can't remember... the other was this local chain which had great garlic butter spagetti... can't think of the name.)

There's also the Old Spagetti Factory... where a few years ago a number of Flyertalkers had a great opening weekend dinner in Toronto.

The service at Olive Garden would sour tomato sauce. My WORST experience was at the Oliver Garden in Times Square about ten years ago.

Went there and after being seated waited 20 minutes for service. The waiter gave no smile or greeting and just said "Ready to order?"

I placed my order which included a COke (ok, the place doesn't serve Pepsi and I was working so no alcohol.) I got a water with no ice. Waited another 20 mintues for the food which was served cold with the salad and the breadsticks which were stale.

I never got my Coke. I asked THREE Times and ended up being charged for it.

When the bill came we argued over the Coke and I refused to pay until it was taken off. The waiter said he would bring the Coke then. I said i was done and didn't want it. Fifteen minutes later it was taken off and the waiter threw the bill cover on the table and walked off. Signing the bill I rounded out the amount to an even number so the tip ended up being seven cents (yes, 7 cents.) I gave the guy something for basically showing up.

As I walked out the waiter came running after me screaming "You insult me with seven cents! I have three children and my wife is pregnant and I work hard."

I said "next time when someone orders a Coke bring a COke." He cursed me in a foreign language and called me selfish.

I wrote to Olive Garden corporate and got a free gift certificate (remember no gift cards 10 years ago.) I used it at an Olive Garden in Secaucus which was a little better than NYC.

Bertucci's is ok, I might wind up at one once a year. It's not gourmet, it's not authentic, but as food it's passable. As the Checker's TV commercial says, "Ya Gotta Eat!" (and, strictly speaking, what they serve qualifies as food so it satisfies the bare minimum requirements... ;) )

Olive Garden is the worst dining I have experienced.... About 3 years ago I went to one, terrible service and terrible decor and terrible food - a Zagat trifecta of lousy. I didn't like Olive Garden in high school (when I shouldn't even have known better!) and I won't go near one today.

Sure, I'm a food snob at times (my wife is a chef and we travel to some of the best restaurants in the world) but we do eat at chains and really actually enjoy it much of the time... Maggiano's isn't fine dining but we like it :) I rather dig the buffalo meatloaf at Ted Turner's chain... Once in awhile we might pop into an AppleRubyBenniTGI's. And I like a Bloomin' Onion as much as the next guy.

But Olive Garden? Fuggetaboutit.

Funny this post got bumped right now. Last night The Adorable Francisco wanted to try Olive Garden since they are advertising on TV non-stop. Off we went about 8:30, parking lot full, huge throng of people standing around outside. They told me it would be an hour and forty-five minutes for a table. Meanwhile there was an independent Italian place not 50 yards away across the parking lot that was nearly empty. We went there instead and had a marvelous meal.

I just don't understand people sometimes.

I can sympathize with BV. I moved seven months ago from an area just like he described but to the northwest of Atlanta (think north of Kennesaw, but south of Calhoun... Usher was just in the county court for his speeding ticket). Population is booming in the area because it's becoming an outer ex-urb of Atlanta. Fortunately, there are local Italian places there and it wasn't too bad. Unfortunately, they're mostly deserted. For some reason, natives of the area don't want to figure out what the dish is (even if described in front of them). They want to eat what they hear about in the media (especially since OG is relentless in advertising).

I'm going to a Maggiano's for the first time next weekend for a birthday dinner, and I do hope it's better than Olive Garden! Of course they don't have ads on TV 24/7 like Olive Garden, which I consider a good sign. :)

And I like the Ted Turner chain restaurant. Amazing onion rings and mashed potatoes (oh, and bison ;)).

It is! :D

Okay - a little OG/Red Lobster background info.

They are owned by the same entity, Darden.

My first restaurant gig was for Red Lobster. An Olive Garden was right next door. We often shared products when one was running low. It's all the same stuff.

And just where does this food come from, you ask? Well, they share a foodservice distributor (Martin-Brauer) with the world's most favorite fast food chain, McDonald's. If that's not a sign of quality, I don't know what is!!