Italian food in America is going to inevitably be Americanized Italian food – and props to Shagnasty for recognizing that the true variety of “Italian food”. Ditto Chinese, French, etc. Because for a restaurant to stay in business it has to cater to local tastes. You can push the envelope only so much.
And it’s nothing to get worked up about. I’ve seen the same thing in reverse. I’ve had Tex-Mex food in Argentina and England, and it’s … weird. You can hardly blame the restauranteurs, though, they’re just giving people what they’ll accept.
As far as Italian chains go, nothing beats Pasta Pomodoro (strictly a west-coast thing). Good food that you can actually watch being cooked in front of you and a nice bistro environment instead of faux-family restaurant style (ala OG, MacGrill, etc.)
This is right on, I think. 'Course, you could say that about a lot of places besides Olive Garden. Likewise, I’d never choose to eat at Cheesecake Factory or Azteca or Applebee’s or one of those types of joints, but if I’m with people who really want to go there, I will keep my mouth shut and go along. And while I may not actually enjoy my meal, it won’t make me puke, either, so I shut up and shovel.
Last time I went to Olive Garden I was highly disappointed. I ordered chicken parm. My chicken had hardly any sauce or cheese on it and was served with dry spaghetti, no sauce or butter or anything to think of. It was horrible. The breadsticks are good though.
If I’m gonna eat chain ‘italian’ it’s Pasta House for me. Way better.
I agree that Carraba’s is good. They’ve catered our Christmas dinner at work for the last three or four years and it’s YUM.
My vote for chain Italian food is Buca Di Beppo. The food is delicious and the decor is just hysterical. You can sit in the Pope Room, and have the Pope’s head staring at you from the middle of the table. You can also eat in a booth in the kitchen.
It’s nothing but fun with a large group. The meals are served family style and each serves about six people, I think. My family (brothers, sisters, wives, boyfriends, the works) has been there twice and it’s been an Event each time.
They do! I haven’t been to an Olive Garden since I moved to the West Coast in 1998. But, now that I’ve read this thread, I am so craving those breadsticks…
When I lived back East, I mostly went to chain restaurants only if I was with my parents (they like chain restaurants for their predictability). They’re not here, so I go out with them less.
When Mr. Neville and I go out to eat, or when I go out by myself, I pick a restaurant I can walk to if possible (I hate driving). There is no Olive Garden that I can walk to, while there are several Italian restaurants I can walk to, so I don’t go to Olive Garden.
It’s by choice in my case. We used to go when we lived in rural PA and had few choices when we made the drive into Erie. Here in San Diego, I just don’t get why there is always a line waiting at Olive Garden when there are dozens of better Italian restaurants all over town.
I had the single worst dining experience of my life at an OG, first and last time I’ve been there. Nothing had any real taste, and the lasagna was actually still frozen in the middle. The salads were limp, and somehow sweet. Is it true that fast food chains in the US wash their lettuce in sugar water to make them as sweet as everything else is there? It sure tasted like it.
And to top it off I filled out their comments form but couldn’t find where to put it. I asked where the “comments box” was and they thought I was asking for “comic books”.
I love Buca Di Beppo for similar reasons. In high school, our group of friends included someone whose birthday always fell around the time we’d have end of semester exams; after the semester was over every year, we’d go to Buca Di Beppo, order a ton of food, share, laugh, and sing Christmas carols to all of the patrons who were in the same area.
Their bathroom decorations are incredibly light-hearted and silly.
I wonder if I can convince the future in-laws to go there if we go out to eat this weekend.
Yes, this is 100% true at ALL restaurants in the USA. There’s a little known provision in the Voting Rights Act of 1964 (cleverly inserted by lobbyists for an international sugar consortium - and later renewed under the first Patriot Act) which provides:
As for the applicable definition:
There is a special subsection on how to deal with arugula, but I did not quote it here. You can google it yourself.
I like Olive Garden just fine. It’s never the place I pick when I have lots of choices, but we end up meeting my in-laws there because they live 75 miles north of here and around the halfway point between us and them, your choices are: a bunch of chain restaurants. There is a variety of dishes to choose from, so my vegetarian husband can actually eat something. They serve wine, which keeps my father-in-law happy. I’ve never had bad, half-frozen, or otherwise or inedible food at OG, with the exception of one lousy meal at an OG in Austin in 1998.
I do hate their commercials though. Implying that they take all their chefs to Italy for training insults my intelligence.
Oh yes, I totally agree. Bravo is wonderful. It’s one of the main things I miss about living in Ohio, we had a bravo about 2 miles from home. (not bad considering there are only 35 in the country). I did note on their website they have a location in New Mexico, so perhaps there is hope they will expand out this way!