Conan O’Brien had a great bit about Olive Garden. He would mock them for airing advertisements where actual Italian people are depicted as being impressed with the food. Then mention that the food’s not bad or anything, it’s just that the advertisements are ridiculous. So why not change their slogan to reflect reality? “Olive Garden: Pretty good for the money.”
Maggiano’s has the BEST linguine with white clam sauce I have ever had. And that includes many, many family-run New York City restaurants.
My problem with Olive Garden is that I really only like one dish on the menu - the Seafood Portofino, and it’s nearly $16.
To me, the gold standard for Italian chains is Carrabbas. The food always seems fresh. Plus their bread blows away the OG sticks.
Don’t get me started on Oliver Garden. What a dick that guy is! :mad:
How can you make Italian food taste not-good? It’s pasta and sauce. How can you fuck that up? I’ve been to 3 different Olive Gardens and everything taste like nothing with a big hint of fat. Carbonara that without the slightest hint of smokiness? Sausage sans any fennel seeds? Pasta without any sauce at all?
But there is a lot of slide-y grease at the bottom of the bowl, so there’s that. My vote goes for pathetic.
P.S. Why do my peoples love Red Lobster? There is no there, there! Breadcrumbs, cheese and tons and tons of butter and oil. Ruin lobster? How is that even possible? So, Olive Garden-- second worse chain restaurant. Red Lobster is the absolute worse.
It’s the biscuits, mostly.
I don’t think it is just the food/restaurant itself, as much as the marketing that goes along with it. They try to sell it as an authentic Italian experience to the point where they have commercials where people supposedly actually from Italy are taken there by their stupid American relatives and they rant and rave about how much it reminds them of home.
I refuse to eat there because of many of the aforementioned reasons: they are mediocre at best, they get business that should be going to local places that actually cook good food, they microwave everything, and people actually think that what they serve is Italian Cooking. Darden Foods can go to hell for all I care. All their restaurants suck.
% Oliver Garden is here to stay
Oliver Garden is on its way
and I would rather eat anywhere else than there today … %
Oliver Garden is where you go when you want some more.
Olive Garden is not.
Salty. That’s my prime complaint with most pre-fab, “food shipped to the restaurant frozen” chains. They’re always SO damn salty. Makes it inedible, IMHO.
I’ve known more people who have had a “never going back there moment” at Olive Garden than anywhere else. My folks took me there many years ago and the breadsticks were riddled with mold. An aunt of mine went there and there was a large bug in the salad. tygre got a scoop of vegetables there and there was a significant chunk of ice in the middle of the scoop. Etc., etc.
As for Oliver Garden, I strongly prefer Oliver Clothesoff.
There are several first-class Italian restaurants within a mile of our house. So why drive a half hour to get to an Olive Garden?
I ate there once and don’t remember a thing about it. But if it’s $14 an entree, that’s outrageous. Italian food is usually the most reasonable thing on the menu (pasta is cheap). I can get a damn good meal of lasagna at Joe’s for $9.25 – including salad and some of the best bread around. The unlimited salad and breadsticks is, of course, a way to server smaller portions and goose their bottom line: bread and salad are cheap.
OLIVER GARDEN IS GREEN PEOPLE!!!
I absolutely loathe their commercials. They’ve been running the same shitty Disneyesque “everybody’s happy happy happy!!! And also Italian!!” ads for years now.
My wife really likes their alfredo sauce, because - IMHO - it’s loaded with garlic and cream. I haven’t had a meal there that I really remember. Nowadays the nearest one is an hour away, so it’s a nonissue for us.
I think that was my complaint the last time I was there - it has been a while.
I have eaten at OG several times-it isn’t bad, and sometimes quite good. Their veal parmigiano used to be great-but they stopped serving it (veal got too expensive). Not great food, but perfectly acceptable for what it is.
This explains much.
Maybe that can be their new advertising tag. “As crap food for sheep who don’t know any better and can’t be bothered to go someplace decent, it’s perfectly acceptable.”
Olive Garden used to serve a really fantastic dessert called Chocolate Lasagna that was so tasty. Then they got rid of it and now they are dead to me.
I have boycotted all Darden restaurants since they tried to get the anti-discrimination laws for gays thrown out as unconstitutional. They fired a restaurant manager because he was gay and that was and is against the law here.