Ah yes, the Olive Garden. The
scourge of suburban America; the McDonalds of Italian food. I
honestly would be OK with the Olive Garden if they'd advertise
themselves for what they are: crappy food, cheap. I know
they can't exactly say this, but my whole beef with them is that they
try to portray the food as gourmet, genuine Italian cuisine.
Right.
Questions about the commercials:
What is the most common defense I hear when I criticize the Olive Garden? "Oh, but they have good salad and breadsticks." Well Hallelujah, Praise the Lord, they have good breadsticks! Guess what... in Italy they don't serve breadsticks. They'd give you bread and olive oil, or something along those lines. If salad with crappy dressing and breadsticks could make a meal, then maybe it'd be half-tolerable. However, I'm not anorexic, so there goes that idea.
If you want to read a good review of the Olive Garden, check this out. Part of the article states:
As part of our meals, we got a salad, and a few minutes after our order was placed, someone came by and dropped off a plastic bowl of greens straight out of a college dining hall. The lettuce was all ice-cold, soggy Iceberg, drenched in a kind of Wesson and red wine vinegar dressing that was seasoned with what seems to be the Olive Garden’s all-purpose Italian seasoning. On top were a few sorry slices of onion and tomato and some sweet green peppers and olives.
I dished some out onto my plate, plunged my fork into one of the leaves with a mushy crunch and took a bite. Somehow, against all laws of physics, the leaves were at the same time soggy and disconcertingly crunchy. This was not a good thing.
Exactly.
Well it has come to my attention that the Olive Garden actually DOES have a "Culinary Institute" in Tuscany, Italy. Their Head Chef/Shameless Sell-Out, Romana Neri, teaches Olive Garden chefs the "true art of Italian cooking" (they forget this lesson - USE GOOD INGREDIANTS), and creates amazing new dishes for suburban Americans to enjoy. There even IS an Olive Garden in Italy: Olive Garden Riserva di Fizzano. This place is probably a mecca for the traveling American yuppie. You know what? I might even believe that the food there is good. But here's the thing - the Olive Garden isn't going to spend thousands of dollars to send most of their chefs out to Italy to learn how to cook these dishes properly. They'll just give 'em a list of ingrediants and directions with what to do with them. Furthermore, this probably is like the game where you whisper something in someone's ear, and they pass it down the line. The recipe is probably good to start out, but it passes through so many people on the way from Italy to each individual Olive Garden that when it arrives, it's something completely different than was intended.
Look folks... most of us live in a place where there are plenty of first- or second-generation Italians who have opened restaurants. These places might not be as big as the Olive Garden, or as easily recognizable, but they're probably cheaper, serve bigger portions, and taste much better than the Olive Garden. So step off the beaten path and support an Italian cook who DESERVES your money.
Bottom line: the Olive Garden is generic, pre-packaged, bland Mc"Italian" food. BOO OLIVE GARDEN.
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Questions about the commercials:
- What is "hospitaliano", aside from a dumb word that they made up?
- Do you really think people buy the idea that an American with a cousin Georgio, who's visiting from Italy, would take his dear cousin to that place? That's like going to France or Germany and then eating at crApplebee's. Aside from the fact that Italian people can have a bit of a temper, so odds are Georgio will throw his food on the floor and storm out of the restaurant once he tastes it. And this is a best case scenario. In the worst case, Georgio's host will find himself wearing cement shoes at the bottom of a river, or will be pummeled about the head, neck and upper back by a Louisville Slugger.
- There is no way that
Georgio would eat the food and exclaim "Bonissimo!" NO. CHANCE.
- When you're here, you're family??? WTF???
- What's this commercial about the new dish that was created by their "head chef" in Italy? First of all, the Olive Garden is barely Italian food. Second, they don't have any restaurants in Italy, so what the hell is a chef doing there? (They don't have restaurants there because, clearly, nobody would eat there). Third, if this woman is, as is implied, an excellent chef, why is she working for the Olive Garden? No self-respecting Italian would create dishes for that dump. If this mythical head chef were so great, she'd just open her own restaurant that would be frequented by people who actually have some taste in Italian food.
- Idiotic dishes like "Chicken Con Broccoli". Look, pick a language and run with it. The Italian word for broccoli is "broculi". You don't think we could have figured that one out? Also, the Italian word for chicken is "pollo", which most people I think would know, either from "poultry" or from eating at Mexican places. Just call it Pollo Con Broculi, or if you don't like that, Chicken With Broccoli. Oh but they don't like that last one, because it doesn't SOUND Italian. But adding that stupid "Con" makes it authentic Italian food. Right.
- Now the new one -
Olive Garden sponsors the college football halftime show on ESPN.
I plan to boo the entire season.
What is the most common defense I hear when I criticize the Olive Garden? "Oh, but they have good salad and breadsticks." Well Hallelujah, Praise the Lord, they have good breadsticks! Guess what... in Italy they don't serve breadsticks. They'd give you bread and olive oil, or something along those lines. If salad with crappy dressing and breadsticks could make a meal, then maybe it'd be half-tolerable. However, I'm not anorexic, so there goes that idea.
If you want to read a good review of the Olive Garden, check this out. Part of the article states:
As part of our meals, we got a salad, and a few minutes after our order was placed, someone came by and dropped off a plastic bowl of greens straight out of a college dining hall. The lettuce was all ice-cold, soggy Iceberg, drenched in a kind of Wesson and red wine vinegar dressing that was seasoned with what seems to be the Olive Garden’s all-purpose Italian seasoning. On top were a few sorry slices of onion and tomato and some sweet green peppers and olives.
I dished some out onto my plate, plunged my fork into one of the leaves with a mushy crunch and took a bite. Somehow, against all laws of physics, the leaves were at the same time soggy and disconcertingly crunchy. This was not a good thing.
Exactly.
Well it has come to my attention that the Olive Garden actually DOES have a "Culinary Institute" in Tuscany, Italy. Their Head Chef/Shameless Sell-Out, Romana Neri, teaches Olive Garden chefs the "true art of Italian cooking" (they forget this lesson - USE GOOD INGREDIANTS), and creates amazing new dishes for suburban Americans to enjoy. There even IS an Olive Garden in Italy: Olive Garden Riserva di Fizzano. This place is probably a mecca for the traveling American yuppie. You know what? I might even believe that the food there is good. But here's the thing - the Olive Garden isn't going to spend thousands of dollars to send most of their chefs out to Italy to learn how to cook these dishes properly. They'll just give 'em a list of ingrediants and directions with what to do with them. Furthermore, this probably is like the game where you whisper something in someone's ear, and they pass it down the line. The recipe is probably good to start out, but it passes through so many people on the way from Italy to each individual Olive Garden that when it arrives, it's something completely different than was intended.
Look folks... most of us live in a place where there are plenty of first- or second-generation Italians who have opened restaurants. These places might not be as big as the Olive Garden, or as easily recognizable, but they're probably cheaper, serve bigger portions, and taste much better than the Olive Garden. So step off the beaten path and support an Italian cook who DESERVES your money.
Bottom line: the Olive Garden is generic, pre-packaged, bland Mc"Italian" food. BOO OLIVE GARDEN.
Home
