All the soup is made in house, broccoli is blanched and then microwaved to order, Alfredo is made in house, red sauce has a base in a can but is finished in house, meat is cooked on a grill or sautéed. People are there chopping shit at like 7 or 8 AM.
Applebees and chili’s are probably better candidates.
-spent too much time working at OG
Pro tip: order a fried lasagna with a kids Mac and cheese on top
Used to work at chilli’s. Was about the same. Stuff brought in warmed/cooked in house. Half way through my time there they changed some cook tops for those conveyer belt machines similar to the pizza ones. Mostly for seafood and other easy timed foods. Prep guys were also there at like 9 am. Chips were made in house. Most meat also cooked to order. Most sauced were brought in bags and just warmed. All veggies and the like were fresh daily.
okay now where the applebee’s worker
too busy manning the microwave
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I love watching Youtube videos of native Italians eating at Olive Garden. It’s not just that they hate the food because of course they do, it’s that they get so incredibly angry at the very concept of someone daring to call that food “Italian”.
I used to love Olive Garden as a kid. In particular, I liked how the lasagna was light and fresh-tasting with a bright-red marinara sauce, cut in a square and served on a plate. It was a stark contrast to the typical kind found at other Italian-American restaurants, where it’s heavy, drowned in a brick-colored sauce with long-cooked flavors, and served in an oval baking dish that’s spent too much time under the broiler.
I went there a few days ago for the first time in decades, specifically to try that lasagna and figure out how to replicate it at home, but I was served something a lot closer to the typical lasagna instead of the one I remember. Is my memory faulty, or did they change the recipe at some point? And if they did change the recipe, do you remember the old one well enough to give me any tips about making it?
I didn’t cook so I can’t help with a recipe but I think they used to hit it with a fresh scoop of sauce before it went out. I can’t remember if it was a standard though.
Some scenarios that might get you a less than stellar lasagna:
Someone plates it early and it sits under the warmer while the order is being cooked.
Someone in your party eats salad really slow or orders more than average of salad or soup. Servers put a “hold” on food so the ticket floats until a predetermined time they select or until they manually push it. So if I expect your chicken to take 8 minutes and set a hold for 7 but get busy and a third salad bowl is ordered, my float might have expired while I was greeting another table. Now I have to either bring your food early and risk you feeling rushed or leave it under the warmer until you’re done with salad. It’s tricky!
Serving is hard y’all, the difference between 20% and no tip can happen in minutes, and it can totally not even be something you have control over. Time feels different when you’re sitting there waiting for me to finish my mandatory greeting talking points so you can ask for more bread. I’m glad I found my way out of doing it and I still get uncomfortable when I can see my server struggling anywhere I eat.
I hate the weird power imbalance that tipping culture creates in American restaurants. I don’t go out to eat that often, but I always try to be super chill with the server and tip well. I can’t begin to imagine having to do that job.
Life is easier if you just always tip 20% no matter what. I go to restaurants to eat. It’s not my job to judge the waiter, and who am I to judge someone I don’t know on a job I’ve never done?
Tipping is stupid, yes, but that’s the culture and people need it to live. Only exception I make is if a restaurant has a required gratuity (usually 18%), I don’t tip any additional.
It is really bizarre. I worked at a wannabe-Chili’s restaurant in the Midwest for a while. The most unexpected thing I learned was that college-aged couples understood the struggle. Different people on different occasions, they’d be super easy-going, and they tipped me $20 on a bill of like $18.
This made such a huge difference when I was making literally $2.13 an hour.
Bigger families with kids or stuffy "business meeting " people usually ran you ragged and tipped like garbage, also while leaving the surrounding area absolutely demolished after camping around long after their meal.
the difference between 20% and no tip can happen in minutes, and it can totally not even be something you have control over
Make sure to split your tips hard, kids. You cut them in well enough and you get the occasional heroic play to save your table.
Hated waitering, but I loved the take-home, even in the '90s.
I always thought this too until I had the opportunity to go into an Olive Garden kitchen.
The chef back there was very, very proud of the work they put into the food there. Almost everything is hand made. It was really nice to see.
You mean he actually boiled the pasta and tossed the salad?
I’m exaggerating but when you think about the things that Olive Garden are known for (unlimited bread sticks, and their soup and salad deals), they’re all essentially premade. I don’t know many people who go there for the steak, for example.
Prep-cooks aren’t a new thing.
Steak is basic cooking, lol. It’s literally one ingredient and some seasoning.
I’m sure that’s why steakhouses are selling them so cheaply.
It tastes good and good cuts of steak are expensive. Just because it’s a little pricey doesn’t mean it’s difficult to prepare. High-end restaurants will happily sell you caviar for hundreds of dollars, but it’s not exactly difficult to put on a plate.
I was not expecting this.
Olive garden is always a great experience for me. Never had the impression that the food was microwaved. Probably best not to pay a meme that much attention
Ah yes, the famous, Chef Mike.
world’s fastest chef
Famous chef Mike Roe Wave
Is that what Roe v. Wave was about?
Exactly, that debate really did heat up
That lasagna was an abortion.
Hello Mr. Wave!
I always thought his last name was Krowave
His full name is Mike Rowe Wave.
Why do we need chain restaurants? Just replace them with Automats
I’ve always wondered why automats aren’t really a thing.
There are even robotic pizza vending machines and stuff now… We have the technology to do it.
That would still be a chain restaurants, just automatic with no humans. Well maybe “restaurant” could be a stretch but like you would get chains still, like McDonalds automats or whatever.
I would love a real automat!
I mean if they are going to serve food like this it might as well be via Automat
Chef Mike works super hard!
Chef Boyardeez arms tired from opening all those cans…
Fuck that is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while. I’m going to steal this and use it on my wife.
Ok, just said this to my wife and she cracked up.
Chef Mike! Always coming in clutch for so many people 🥲
What a coincidence my in-home chef looks just like him! And get this: his name is also Mike!
From the Rowave family?
🤌🤌🤌
Signor Smeg
It’s the McDonalds of Italian cuisine
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Ditto, reading about Alfredo, “red sauce”, fried lasagne, “brick coloured sauce” and mac and cheese in this thread makes me both gag and wonder what they serve as Italian food in the states. I don’t even live in Italy any more so I reset my standards a long time ago but…
You would turn down free bread sticks and $7M? At least eat some bread sticks.
yeah with this attitude I imagine it will not be difficult to stay out of any table :D
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I usually like everything, but Olive Garden is the one restaurant I won’t even go to if someone else is paying. Absolutely God awful what they do to pasta there.
That pasta deserved it!
- The Pasta Strangler
Genuinely concerned for people who like Olive Garden
I’m genuinely concerned for people who think they should be concerned about what other people chose to eat.
On one hand fair enough, on the other if your image of yourself is guinely harmed by other people’s innocuous opinions then it sounds like some therapy is needed
The irony in your response wouldn’t be as funny if you were actually aware of it.
I like olive garden… I only go like once every few years but I’ve never not enjoyed it.
It’s actually as expensive as a fancy Italian place now. Might as well go to the good restaurant.
All I hear is “Stop liking what I don’t like!!!”
Not really. Moreso an acknowledgement that there is a non-trivial group of people who (for whatever reason) have simply not tried more than the things in their own backyard. If you have explored everything life has to offer and you still like Olive Garden then good for you, this wasn’t about that kind of person.
Between how many users shit on the food posted at Foodporn and give praise to garbage like Olive Garden I’m gonna stop listening to advice about food coming from this site.
