re: Chain Lovers Alert, Red Lob, Olive Grdn Failing

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Count is there to be sure it is fair fight.

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First I heard of this. Do I get to jump off the mardi gras float and sucker punch the winner?

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First I heard of this. Do I get to jump off the mardi gras float and sucker punch the winner?

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Only if we can put it on youtube.

Can we get back to the point of this thread?

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Rohan2Reed

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Perhaps Americans are finally starting wise up to these chain restaurants shenanigans. Serving absolute shite to your customers and calling it food can't last forever.

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Just admit that OG and RL aren't serving 'absolute' shite. Admit it and I'll be done with this thread.

You mad bro

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Just admit that OG and RL aren't serving 'absolute' shite. Admit it and I'll be done with this thread.

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I haven't been to RL in years. Last time I went it was shite. But, I have no idea what they are doing these days so I'll refrain from judgement.

But, I do go to the OG once a year on my Grandmother's bday. She thinks it's the goods. I can tell you this, my plates are usually about $15-$16(and come w/ salad), but I can go to Gino's for about $3-$4 more/plate(sans salad) and truly get a noticeably better dish. And you won't sell me on your argument that you can serve me OG in Gino's and I couldn't tell the difference.

And if you can't tell the difference between the two, and that $3-$4 is pinching your wallet, I don't know what else to tell you. We obviously don't have much to talk about food wise, because we're not seeing eye to eye and probably never will.

So...my two fiddy for the day and I'm out.... again

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So, I suppose now Olive Garden and Red Lobster are now making hand made pastas, stocks, and sauces in the kitchen at 7am?

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Of course not. We as Americans don't make anything.

I do think that as far as fresh pasta goes, there are very few people that can do it well enough to where it would be an improvement over the dry stuff.

I certainly wouldn't discourage anyone from learning the skill, but as it stands, not many people are adept at it.

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That's because it's a skill that is learned at the highest level in dining. Few can pull it off because there's no exact science to know what you're looking for in egg to flour ratio or in how it should bounce back when dimpled, that it's served al dente rather than like dried pasta cooking times, and most don't attempt to make the dough themselves even if they do sayy they make fresh pasta at a restaurant. However, proper fresh pasta by someone who is trained and does know what to look for and can pull it off is far superior in taste and texture to dried pasta most have only had in their life.

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i.e. so few people actually have the skill to make good fresh pasta that it's just incredibly silly to criticize places like Olive Garden(or any other place at that price point for that matter) for not making pasta in house.

Exactly what I've been saying all along.

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i.e. so few people actually have the skill to make good fresh pasta that it's just incredibly silly to criticize places like Olive Garden(or any other place at that price point for that matter) for not making pasta in house.

Exactly what I've been saying all along.

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I never criticized OG for not making fresh pasta. Hell, that's the least of the issues going on there, and no way I would not even expect that from them when there are so few doing it as a part of their regular menu in the highest end restaurants in this state.


They aren't making stocks and sauces either, or not sauces as they are known to be made in the traditional sense of making a sauce.

Fact is, it's a virtual impossibility to expect any of this from the chain model open 7 days a week for service and paying lower skilled and lower paid employees with limited cooking experience. There's simply no time available or knowledge to pull it off, and no way to keep a consistency or even a remotely consistent product from location to location.


Hell, most local restaurants struggle in these departments, even those closed on Mondays to do actual prep work for the week.

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Some others here seem to think that OG not making fresh pasta is a legit example of them taking shortcuts.

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They do take shortcuts. From what I can gather, unless you have a chef trained in Italy with his own rooftop garden you aint legit.