Can someone explain the Olive Garden thing to me?

[trumad]

I must have missed that controversial thread.

Thanks

[HopeHoops]

1. I believe it started with a story about a woman being asked not to breast feed at one of them.

But it folds in nicely with other things like NARWHALS! FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!1!

[pokerfan]

23. No that wasn't it

They were requiring their patrons to be circumcised, not unlike some rustic steak places that will cut off your tie if you show up wearing one.

[HopeHoops]

39. Oh, right. I only go to steak places for their salad bars. They make me wear bunny slippers.

[alphafemale]

2. It's no more an "Italian" restaurant than Pizza Hut is.

I don't despise the place, but I'm not going to delude myself into thinking I'm eating "Italian" if I eat dinner there.

It's a chain restaurant. A couple of clicks above MickyD's...eh,yeah...but it's still a sauce in a box off the truck joint.

A meal in Miami is going to taste exactly the same in Seattle or Memphis.

I have more than my share of wanderlust. And part of that is finding a restaurant that serves something locally that maybe you can't get anywhere else.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

24. I had Pizza Hut pizza recently

It was one of those deals at a friend's house where they cooked an entree and everyone was supposed to bring something.

One of the folks brought a Pizza Hut pizza.

MAY VERY WELL BE the worst pizza I've ever had.

I would rank the average frozen pizza above Pizza Hut.

I am also able to eat pizza whenever I like (stopped in at Pizza My Heart last night for a cheese slice), but the Pizza Hut pizza gave me a major acid reflux ass-kicking for the rest of the night.

[Angry Dragon]

36. Godfather's is the wurst

[Major Nikon]

32. Now that's just not true

All the menu items have Italian names, so if you close your eyes and hold your nose, you can imagine yourself ordering a meal in a real Tuscan restaurant.

Next you're going to tell me I can't go to an espresso bar in Italy and order a Veni-vinti-vici-cappa-latte-grande-mocha just like at Starbucks.

[Chan790]

40. You could...

but the real barista behind the counter might mock and belittle you. Here's all the Italian you need:

Before 11am:

Uno si prega di latte. Grazie.

After 11am:

Un doppio espresso per favore. Grazie.

edit: (For some people)After 5pm:

Un espresso decaffeinato per favore. Grazie.

It's one of the great rituals of life. I quit smoking years ago but still there is no more perfect experience. A demitasse of espresso with an unfiltered Italian cigarette and people-watching at an outdoor cafe in the early morning.


None of the people in this photo are me.

[Rhythm]

49. Not quite a 'a sauce in a box off the truck joint'

I would never ever try to say that OG is 'actual' Italian cuisine, but having worked for them in the past (as a saucier and back-up prep cook), i know what goes into everything. The only pre-made element to any of their sauces is a very basic, unseasoned tomato sauce base. Everything else that goes into every sauce is done from scratch from the official recipe book. That's why it tastes the same no matter what location you dine in.

[rug]

3. Somebody visiting NYC asked for good places to eat near Times Square.

RadioLady suggested the Olive Garden. A dumpster full of shit was promptly deposited on her head for suggesting that when there are hundreds of good local restaurants in the area. It transmuted into vicious personal attacks and was the precursor of the infamous Lounge wars. While there are humorous aspects to this episode, it was not ther Lounge's finest hour. Snark and mobs are not a good combination.

[WilliamPitt]

4. That was it.

Unreal.

[Kali]

6. ok

that was a much better and more succinct explanation. but I'm not deleting all that typing!:spank:

[rug]

11. Nobody wanted to hear your defense of the endless salad bar anyway.

:hide:

[Enthusiast]

41. In defense of The Olive Garden restaurant.

The Olive Garden is the only restaurant that I can eat in. Seriously.

I now have celiacs disease. I have become extremely sensitive to gluten. For nearly my entire life my food requirements were perfectly normal. Then, over night, I was a celiac.

Although several restaurants I have tried claim to have a few gluten-free entrees I always find myself "dosed". But at the Olive Garden the gluten free menu has been perfectly safe and free of cross-contamination.

So, just imagine a life where you not only eat at the Olive Garden but the Olive Garden is your one and only restaurant choice.

[seabeyond]

7. really? wow. thanks. wow. lol, all over olive garden

i have been wondering myself

but really, olive garden out of all the choices in NY. i get the discussion

[Iggo]

15. teh clicks?

:rofl:

[rug]

22. Facebook had not yet taken off.

Fortunately now it has.

[Odin2005]

29. Wasn't RL eventually banned for racist comments?

[trof]

34. Oh I remember THAT one.

:rofl:

[Tuesday Afternoon]

42. +1

[Kali]

5. a rather polarizing former member answered a post

asking about places to go/eat on a short trip to New York City with the handy Olive Garden near Times Square. That did indeed deserve a fair amount of the joking and "rebuttal" it got. After all, the idea of going to a mediocre chain restaurant in NYC is like going to a Taco Bell in Mexico City. (although as a person who spent longer than two week vacations in foreign countries, seeing that Mc Donalds in Tokyo was irresistible at the time, so there can be SOME justification for "the familiar")

at any rate this former member seemed to arouse a lot of agitation with many, to the point she may have stalked a few of them. in at least one or two cases, what I saw of the stalking merely consisted of easily accessible info from either direct contact or that bastion of privacy, facebook. If you look around you can find some disgusting behavior there.

I never had any real problem with her but clearly she has some emotional/mental issues. She is also an older person that had a life somewhat in the public eye that she clearly felt proud of. She was often accused of racism and she did post some cringe-worthy things, but I think it was that kind of privileged old style liberal racism that was not intentionally malicious, but rather the sort of thing where one was trying to include experiences with different cultures to the best of their abilities. The fact that they sometimes seem clueless that the way they approach and present those experiences seem less intentional than a generational "ignorance" that sometimes happens.

Not sure if that makes sense so let me try to illustrate with the opposite kind of person - I know of extremely racist people who get along fine and connect well, working and living in neighborhoods with the subjects of their racism. Were in the person I am talking about might be a real ally in terms of being able to discuss issues and of course in voting or other civic actions but be utterly offensive in personal conversations or mannerisms.

anyway, her suggestion of the Olive Garden turned into one of those legendary lounge flame wars. I think it may still be mostly available in the archives. Somebody may come along with a link.

[seabeyond]

8. makes more sense than merely breastfeeding

i was think about what this was all about the other day. really had little to do with OG, more to do with pile on. ah well. thanks for info

[ohiosmith]

9. Link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=5279955
:hi:

[rug]

13. Only Rabrrrrr could suggest both a Dim Sun and an Ethipian restaurant in the middle of a flame war.

With addresses.

[ohiosmith]

14. I totally forgot about that.

:rofl:

[Rabrrrrrr]

52. Damn right! lol

:rofl:

[xmas74]

17. I remember reading it and staying out of it.

One, because I'd only been to NYC once and knew I couldn't offer any good suggestions.
Two, because I wasn't about to jump on someone for their tastes in food, even if I wouldn't have necessarily.
Three, because Rabrrrrrr had already responded with some fantastic choices.

[Odin2005]

30. That thread was epic.

[xmas74]

10. I never had a real problem with her

and I never understood the pile-on that she received from her Olive Garden comment. She said a few things that weren't exactly the kindest but her heart was usually in the right place. (Not always but usually.)

I remember a thread about her buying jewelry from someone and felt that they weren't quite doing their job as a parent since the child didn't have a playpen and other niceties. (The child seemed well taken care of, otherwise, according to her post.) If I remember properly the person was an immigrant to this country and she made some misguided comments in regards to her ethnic background. I took it as she was older and didn't always realize what she was saying wasn't coming out how it should. Anyway, I sent her a pm and calmly stated that I didn't have many things of that nature for my child because I couldn't afford them, didn't see a use for them, and didn't have the room. I explained that chances are this woman didn't either and that it was just a different way of doing things having nothing to do with her ethnic background and more likely to do with her economic background. It was simple, polite, and not a dog pile, and her response to me was very warm and a bit more understanding of the possible reasons why this person didn't have what she viewed as "necessities". We spoke back and forth about it via pm and she was much more receptive than she was on the thread.

Her actions on a few threads were wrong but the actions of some long time posters were also wrong.

[ohiosmith]

12. A little kindness and understanding can go a long way.

:hi:

[Flaxbee]

19. well said, ohiosmith.

Not responding about this post and the flame war in particular, just my philosophy in general. :hi:

[Tuesday Afternoon]

43. +1

[MiddleFingerMom]

16. The food in Germany was EXCELLENT... and I had vowed to try anything and everything new.

.
.
.
Germany is very healthy about sexuality. We (as Americans) generally are NOT -- we're
still too heavily-influenced by our Puritan forebears, whether we know it or not (I was...
I was a pretty sick repressed puppy when I went to Germany and came back much MUCH
healthier in my attitude about women and about sex in general). i WAS so FORTUNATE
to have had that kind of therapeutic experience.
.
Because of the Germanic healthiness, sexual desires were pretty easily and frequently
met. I didn't have many (if ANY) erotic dreams because my waking life was filled with
erotic "dreams".
.

Same for many/most of the guys I worked with.
.
Turns out we DID have needs -- NEEDS -- that weren't being met.
.
Around a campfire in the field one night, the conversation turned to the fastfood that
we couldn't get there (when I got to Germany, there was ONE Pizza Hut somewhere up
north and one KFC in Munich -- by the time I left 4 years later (mid-70's), it was
EVERYWHERE).
.
We all, one-by-one... reluctantly... begrudgingly... embarassingly admitted that we had
dreams-of-longing (not sexual) for fast food -- almost everyone's being different (I was
hankerin' for a Whopper mit Kase).
.
.
.
:rofl:
.
.
.
We was HONGRY!!!!!
.
.
.

[Frank Cannon]

18. What I miss about that former member were her "exclusive" movie reviews...

for films that she clearly hadn't seen (or maybe she slept through them), with descriptions of characters that didn't appear in the film and bizarre plot elements that didn't happen. Her review of Superman Returns was particularly WTF.

ON EDIT: I don't want to beat up on her. My guess is that she really did have some emotional issues, and I feel sorry for her. I, for one, like Olive Garden.

[Iggo]

20. oops...

[Iggo]

21. It's funny that that's what counted as a flame war back then.

That's downright civil compared to now-a-times.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

26. i disagree, there was a lot of really vicious personal attacks

the only difference is now, we just say "asshole", at the time we found innovative ways to mock people

there were a lot of very thin skinned bullies. i am glad skinner made a lot of them disappear

[Odin2005]

28. The cornflake chicken flame-war, LOL!

[cemaphonic]

33. That was just the original thread though

It did spawn a bunch of subthreads, many of which were less civil. Plus, while GD has always been a mess, the Lounge was (in general) friendlier back then, although it took a turn for the worse soon after.

Anyway, the idea wasn't so much that Olive Garden itself was horrible, or even that going to Olive Garden as a tourist was bad (since, if you don't know the area, some random local place is just as likely to be awful as good). It was that, the OP in the thread was specifically asking for recommendations for good places to eat from people that knew the area.

[Iggo]

35. That's what I meant.

I was referring to that thread in particular.

[WolverineDG]

37. The dog-piling on that poster was tantamount to bullying

It just would not stop. And even after it became clear she was not playing with a full deck, the very people who get up & cry the loudest about being "anti-bully" were the ones who just would not stop dog-piling on her.

But it's not the first time there's been hypocritical behavior on DU. Won't be the last, either.

dg

[Tuesday Afternoon]

44. +1

[La Lioness Priyanka]

45. she didnt help herself by making vaguely racist/racially inappropriate remarks either

the asian woodworking neighbor etc.

[WolverineDG]

46. And that justifies the bullying (past & present) of a mentally ill person

Wow. Just wow.

dg

[La Lioness Priyanka]

47. oh please dont be so dramatic. i dont at all remember her saying that she was mentally ill

and yeah, i kinda take racism seriously. most people of color do. :eyes:

[WolverineDG]

50. "don't be so dramatic"

:rofl:

Rationalize it however you want. This topic has been hashed & rehashed.

dg

[La Lioness Priyanka]

51. if you had a better argument, you would have stated it. nt

[trumad]

25. Thanks guys

I read through the thread and rate it in the top 10 of threads since DU began.

[Odin2005]

27. We like to make fun of it because it tries to pass itself off as "authentic" Italian food.

[DainBramaged]

31. Here it is in a nutshell......

Olive Garden, AppleBees, Cigarettes, breastfeeding, circumcision, narwhals, pit bulls, smoking bans,

Elliot Spritzer, High school bands, soda pop and food stamps, kids on planes, drinking caffeine, bombing the moon, tax fast food, Rapture,

PETA, Vaccinations, orange juice, Jessie James, Ipads, Michael Vicks, Octomom, toilet paper dust, unicorns and Charlie Sheen,

we didn't hate the Weiner, 2 Broke Girls are the new screaming kids in restaurants, we didn't include the spare tire....... and the Dugger mom is

popping out another one......

[OhioBlue]

38. This could be a Billy Joel song... "We didn't light the fire"

It was always burning since the World's been turning...

Olive Garden, AppleBees, Cigarettes, breastfeeding, circumcision, narwhals, I can't take it anymore...

[WorseBeforeBetter]

48. Orange juice?! (n/t)

[Rabrrrrrr]

53. My post in that thread was fucking CLASSIC!

Fucking CLASSIC!

And given RadioLady's later outpouring of psychotic and ruinous shit, I don't feel bad about it at all.

:thumbsup: