Ron Heacock
I read an article in Fast Company magazine about Olive Garden, called Why America Is Addicted to Olive Garden, (http://bit.ly/1aOTcH) . It seems that the parent company, Darden, has made some major changes in the format and now Olive Garden is the world's biggest casual dining operation. It has a loyal following. People wait around for their favorite table. It sounded in the article like a place to get a real Italian meal for a reasonable price. And, as the author Chuck Salter touted, there were the unlimited bread sticks.
So tonight after Karen's 6 PM meeting ended, we drove around Columbia looking for a suitable, inexpensive meal where we would not end up feeling like we wasted our money – no matter how little we spent. One possibility was a Chinese place near her office. But we were ambivalent right up to sitting in the parking lot.
The Chinese in Tennessee is nothing to write home about (hell its nothing to text a bad review about either) We grew up in the New York metropolitan area and even though we have found one nearby (READ: within an hour's drive of our house) restaurant that serves from a menu rather than a steam table, even this place lacks the credibility to refer to it as "true New York Chinese" good Won Ton and traditional egg rolls notwithstanding. For some reason Chinese in the south always serves crab legs and French fries in the buffet. It makes no sense to me. We live in a different kind of food desert, one that lacks culture.
We almost got out of the car but I remembered the Fast Company article. Seems that Darden (who owns Lone Star and Red Lobster among others) had changed management tactics and was now comparing notes between competing establishments. The piece talked about the new dishes that they had worked out so that a risotto which normally takes between 30 and 45 minutes to prepare fresh could be served alongside chicken parmesan that could be whipped up in 15.
Risotto? In olive Garden? I was intrigued. When they talked about the new ticketing software that helped get all the orders out at the correct time for all the servers on the floor I thought, "Could they possibly have written software to take the place of an exposition man?" I was interested. And when I heard that select Olive Garden employees get to study local food recipes and preparation in Italy, I was sold. I had to see the new Olive Garden.
So when I finished telling Karen about the article we drove out of the Panda Garden parking lot and headed up the highway to Spring Hill some 29 minutes away so we could see what the hubbub was about. When we arrived I was worried that there would be a long wait. It's Friday night and the huge parking lot seemed pretty full. But Karen came out in a moment and told me that it was only five minutes.
I sat down in the waiting area and no sooner had I noticed that there were two uniformed security guards with badges and arm bands (what, are they afraid of a terrorist attack? Someone might steal the linguini?) Then we were called to our table.
Our server was nice. When I told her that we had always thought of Olive Garden as "Shoney's with garlic," she laughed a little too loud. I should have known something was up. We looked over the menu and it was impressive. Short ribs in Chianti, Mussels, a Portobello Mushroom Risotto. We ordered a side of calamari and decided to split an entrée. We asked for the house red, Principato Rosso. At $4.75 a glass we figured it had to be as good as the Macaroni Grill red we drank at home sometimes which only costs $8.95 for a 1.5 liter bottle.
The warm breadsticks arrived. There was no butter so Karen asked for some olive oil. The server, ever attentive and friendly asked if we wanted some balsamic in it. We said yes, suitably impressed further. They were kind of salty but I was sure I was eating real food so I did not pay much attention. Karen decided on a pasta and seafood dish with a wine sauce called Seafood Portofino. Soon the calamari arrived. The wine was a little watery but not bad for a cheap house red. The sauces with the calamari were cold marinara and some kind of mystery ranch dressing. The calamari was hot. We gave a couple of points to the exposition software.
After eating a few I noted that it tasted like Sysco frozen calamari. That is not a terrible crime but we were beginning to wonder. Around that time we got more bread sticks and the plate of oil. The oil was an unmistakable cheap refined olive oil. It was bitter. I began dipping the bread in the red sauce – which I realize now, was loaded with sugar. Before I could stop myself I had eaten three more of the fat soggy, salt y breads. The new batches were not warm either but I couldn't seem to stop myself.
Totally into the atmosphere of the place, we ordered another couple of glasses of wine. It seemed drier than it should be but we were animated and happy, talking about the nice ambiance and laughing about the way the ceramic vases were glued to the shelves. It was looking more like a chain restaurant. The wine, which usually makes the world less real, seemed to be revealing the corporate fingerprint beneath the yuppie veneer.
The soup came with the entrée, but it was like canned with some fresh veggies thrown in. The entrée smelled good, but the scallops were tiny and the shrimp also looked like they came from a can; tiny and salty. There were seven small mussels on top and one was not open. The sauce was some kind of thick gelatinous Alfredo bastardization. It reminded me of the one and only time I ever tried Fassoli's. We could not finish. By the time we were half way through our mouths were burning. I am glad that we weren't given water because I know how bad it is in Spring Hill. But the waitress could have sold us a couple of bottles of Pellegrino at airport prices and we would have been overjoyed. She never asked.
The meal was not cheap. We brought the left over bread sticks home but thought better than to feed them to our ducks. On the drive my mouth puckered up from all the salt and MSG so bad that I was almost not able to talk.
I realized that when I go to McDonalds I know what I am buying. The McNuggets are not really made of chicken. If one knows this they can eat them responsibly. I resist the over salted fries because I know that the chemical they put on them will cause me to lose the ability to stop when I have had enough (and occasionally all feeling in my lips!). Olive Garden fooled me. They are representing themselves as real food with the atmosphere in which they serve and the service that they are providing (when you are here, you're family? Shit, my family does not try to poison me!). But don't be fooled. The proof is in the fact that the food, which seems to taste good upon the first bite, becomes tasteless after a moment –a sure-fire sign of over processed, over salted artificial foods. And the way it burns your mouth for hours afterwards is the final verdict.
Olive Garden is worse than McDonalds in that they are dishonest (and pricy, the $15 entrée had $2 worth of bad ingredients in it, that even beat the 10 to 1 ratio used in airport bars). When I go to Mickey D's I know what to expect and how to manage. If consumed properly the food is consistent and tasty, even if it is made of questionable ingredients. I have no idea what I just ate at Olive Garden but I will not even compliment it to the degree of calling it Shoney's with garlic anymore. Even Shoney's is more honest than Olive Garden.
My opinion is that America is addicted to Olive Garden because they drug the food.
Comments