Olive Garden vs. Red Lobster

I personally like Olive Garden and Red Lobster although I wouldn't eat there on a regular basis. Sometimes kicking back with some decent food in a relaxed environment is nice. My job involves eating at expensive restaurants almost every evening and I still think the food there is good if not spectacular.

Olive Garden is really good. Who cares if it's corporate or not completely fresh....for ~$15 I get a very satisfying meal that hits the spot, complete with a tasty enough salad and breadsticks. And their chicken marsala is still way better than anything from an "authentic" Italian restaurant

+1 on the comment that while most of the world starves, we get the privilege of overeating at OG at a price nearly everyone can afford

Originally Posted by Get Smart

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+1 on the comment that while most of the world starves, we get the privilege of overeating at OG at a price nearly everyone can afford


this is the big thing - everyone can eat at an OG, occosionally. the food is filling, and tasty. how authentic it is, or how fresh the food is, is another story all together.

I've only eaten at an OG twice, but I eat at other chain places like chilis all the time. my son likes IHOP.

I've never eaten at an Olive Garden, and have only been to Red Lobster once. Didn't like RL. So OG can't be much worse.

But shouldnt we be comparing RL to other seafood restaurants and OG to other Italian restaurants?

Originally Posted by GoSurface

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I've never eaten at an Olive Garden, and have only been to Red Lobster once. Didn't like RL. So OG can't be much worse.

But shouldnt we be comparing RL to other seafood restaurants and OG to other Italian restaurants?

Yes, the reason the original poster posted it was because it was a spam free gift card offer.

Originally Posted by drizzt3117

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Yes, the reason the original poster posted it was because it was a spam free gift card offer.

Aaaah. I didn't even read the op.

My chain restuarant of choice is TGI Fridays. That Jack Daniels sauche is awesome.

Originally Posted by odoreater

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My chain restuarant of choice is TGI Fridays. That Jack Daniels sauche is awesome.

werd. I'm not so into buffalo wings but TGI's JD wings are f'ing awesome, all cuz of the sauce

I'm fond of IHOP, Outback, Houston's, Claim Jumper, and Cheesecake among major chains, as well as the aboveformentioned pair.

I used to go to TGI a lot because they had one right very close to my office. It was a good place to kick back with a few drinks after a long day heh

I can't help but think of Office Space whilst in TGI Fridays

I'm all with you guys. I hate going to chain resturaunts like OG, Red lobster and Chili's. ****. I haven't been to any of those places in 3 years without feeling bloated and sick that night. Not food poisoning, just not feeling well.

TGI Fridays is also my chain of choice. I mainly just split a few appetizers and drinks with the gf. The Jack Daniels Chicken Strips are good.

I kinda want to do Red Lobster or Olive Garden to go tomorrow, just to get some breadsticks and chedder rolls. The only things i actually enjoy there.

I find TGIF to be the worst of the Chain Crazy-****-on-the-Walls places, mega bland and not worth the paper the money I pay is printed on. I mean, one time I had to go there and ordered some "sizzlin" chicken dish it was served on a hot pan with some pan fried veggies on the side and a pile of melted cheese. I got the food and looked at the melted grease pile and was like "umm, what is this?" to the waitress, who responded with a you must be a ******* marsupial tone "its a side of cheese." WTF am I supposed to do with a side of melted cheese? it was not even like liquid melted, it was melted and cooled into a plasticky oily mess.

OG has predictable food, I always manage to get Mad angry diarrhea when ever I go to any "normal" American chain restaurant, unless I abstain from eating most of the menu items.

Seriously, i don't know what happened. I used to be able to eat those chain places all the time, now i just can't. If i go to fridays, i can only get appetizers. I tried having just quesadillas at chili's a few months ago and it killed me. My first 2 years at college i didn't go out to eat much and didn't eat much ****** processed foods, and now i just can't go back. Not because i'm a food snob(which i kinda am) but because my body just gets really angry at me. That melted cheese mess sounds absolutely terrible.

I'm also a pretty big fan of Houlihan's. They got this Lemon Tuscan Chicken that's pretty rad. There's also this plattrer with steak ribs and shrimp that's pretty damn good too. I also go to Benihana once a week and get some hibachi filet mignon that's off the hizzle. I like to mix it up - sometimes I go to chains, sometimes I go to fancypants restaurants, sometimes I go to local dives, but hell, you only live once - might as well try it all.

Hm.

I work at Olive Garden as a server and I know for a fact that we don't use MSG in our food. All of our food is prepared fresh daily and a surprising amount of our food was never frozen, a difficult feat for any chain restaurant.

But is the vast majority of Olive Garden food healthy? Hell no. Most of their entrees have 700 calories+ and large amounts of fat due to generous portions, cheese, sauce, and pasta.

Realistically, if you want a restaurant that doesn't use any chemicals, freeze any of their food, and has healthy portion sizes.... well, you need to eat somewhere outside of America. America's food industry is controlled by a few large corporations. So, more than likely, the chain restaurant downtown and the mom and pop store down the road and the grocery store are all getting the same chemical-injected, *****, antibiotic-ridden meat and other products unless they buy their products from a private farmer (which there are very few of). And they probably don't because everything would cost a lot more in that case, and their profit would be less.

Ahhh... America. Pass the all white chicken breast that belonged to a chicken that never saw the light of day, was jacked up on chemicals so it would reach twice the size it would normally grow to in a mere 72 months - usually chickens need a year + more to mature and reach a relatively small size, alien to the huge chickens of today - and further jacked up on chemicals to ensure that the chicken grew very large breasts, since everyone loves all white meat....

I won't even go into the beef and vegetable industry in America.

Sorry for the rant. It just amazes me how little people know about what they're putting into their bodies. I suppose some people wouldn't want to know... but I always prefer to be informed rather than ignorant.

If anyone's interested in learning more, the guy who wrote Food, Inc. recently made a movie about it that's become somewhat popular. He's basically saying the same thing everyone else has been saying for years, but the movie was pretty good. Here's a link:
http://www.foodincmovie.com/about-the-issues.php