Matt Yglesias points out just how affected most of the wide-eyed contempt put on by New York snobs is:
Ezra Klein's right to bemoan the sneering condescension in this NYT piece on suburban chain restaurants. For me, this is made all the worse by the knowledge that the attitude of contempt is almost certainly fake. I was actually born and raised in Manhattan by fancy-pants parents who wouldn't dream of darkening the door of an Outback Steakhouse. Indeed, to the best of my knowledge by father has never tasted the joys of Chili's (those two are my favorites).All of which has mostly made me aware of how rare this is. Most of New York City's elitists grew up in very conventional middle class suburbs and then moved to the city sometime after college. They may look like -- indeed, be -- Greenpoint hipsters now, but they come from the same places as all the other college educated white people in this country.
I was raised on the Upper West side by a woman who made her own croissants. I am actually one of the three people in the country who is neither an Orthodox Jew, nor living in a vegetarian cult, and yet has never eaten in an Outback Steakhouse. And there is nothing--nothing--more grating than born again food snobs writing articles like this.
First of all, as Matt points out, the odds that you grew up like we did, without darkening the door of a chain restaurant, are slim-to-none. I probably meet someone else who was raised in Manhattan an average of once or twice a year. Raising two children in a six room apartment and paying half a million dollars to educate them is the province of a few dedicated hobbyists.
Second of all, if there's anything sadder than people who act like having grown up in New York makes them the apex of the social universe, it's people who act like this when they grew up in Shaker Heights.
And third of all, those of us who enjoyed that rare experience have a genuine sense of the exotic when confronting a suburban chain restaurant. I've been on multiple first-time excursions to various chain restaurants with native New Yorkers, and the modal reaction is to wriggle with joy like a small puppy. I have no idea why it should be so exciting to eat what is basically decent hotel food, but I suspect we all have a lingering sense of having been left out of some vast national shared experience.
Besides, I have eaten perfectly good meals at places like Ruby Tuesday's, Friendy's, Legal Seafoods, and Chili's. I like Pizza Hut breadsticks, KFC mashed potatoes, and Houlihan's stuffed mushrooms, even though these things were not easily available when I was growing up. In fact, that article made me so indignant that I'd march out right now and eat at Outback Steakhouse right now, if they had more vegan options.
As a connoisseur of chain restaurants, and of suburban culture in general, I say avoid Outback. There are too many better options out there.
Megan,
Just order the vegetarian sirloin.
Ok, I made that up.
Megan McArdle--with arugula in one hand, a glass of Veuve Clicquot in the other, a vegan cookbook on her shelf and (likely) an "I love Barak" poster on her wall--is now posing as a woman of the people. Who says this blog isn't entertaining?
What? A post on chain restaurants and faux elitist revulsion thereto, yet no obligatory mention of the self-appointed cultural condescendi's favorite whipping boy, The Olive Garden?
KFC mashed potatoes? Eww, eww, eww. Sorry, so wrong.
I've got to be honest--I don't like the Olive Garden. There is nothing wrong with liking the Olive Garden. But I do not like the Olive Garden.
rwe, what's wrong with liking arugula and Veuve Cliquot? I also like McDonalds french fries, Twizzlers, and yes, I dare to admit it, Bud Light. My dietary choices are not me, except in the boring sense that that's what my body is made of.
I have eaten perfectly good meals at places like Ruby Tuesday's, Friendy's, Legal Seafoods, and Chili's. I like Pizza Hut breadsticks, KFC mashed potatoes, and Houlihan's stuffed mushrooms,
Megan, even if it's true and sincere, this still has the ring of an intellectual during the Cultural Revolution kneeling with a Big Sign around her neck and protesting that she really, really likes proletarian foods like pumpkin leaves and pig entrails, and that "The East is Red" is her favorite song.
There is simply no way to write on issues like this and come across as sincere. One just has to be silent.
protesting that she really, really likes proletarian foods like pumpkin leaves and pig entrails, and that "The East is Red" is her favorite song.
There is simply no way to write on issues like this and come across as sincere.
Especially since everyone knows that KFC's finest side dish is the macaroni and cheese! I have found she who pronounces "shibboleth" as 'cibolleth'!
protesting that she really, really likes proletarian foods like pumpkin leaves and pig entrails, and that "The East is Red" is her favorite song.
There is simply no way to write on issues like this and come across as sincere.
Especially since everyone knows that KFC's finest side dish is the macaroni and cheese! I have found she who pronounces "shibboleth" as 'cibolleth'!
Klug, I hate to sound elitist but--you're wrong. :)
Oh, boohoo. Even if you did eat at these places from time to time growing up, does that mean you can't mention how awful they are and how they're part of the destruction of Western culture?
And Brooksfoe, the difference is that pretty much everyone likes at least some fast food and chain restaurant food. Breathes there a man with heart so dead that he has not occasionally dined on a Biggie Fries and a Frosty?
Even the peasants didn't like pig entrails.
Megan,
Last week when driving into Manhattan I had a brain cramp and stayed in the wrong lane on the GW Bridge, so I had to get off in Upper Manhattan. As I drove around in the 170s, I realized the shabby stores and restaurants reminded me of your description of your beloved Upper West Side neighborhood when you were growing up.
So when are you moving to Washington Heights? Sounds like you'd love it there. Can't you do your blog from New York and take Amtrak down to D.C. for occasional Atlantic meetings?
Besides, I have eaten perfectly good meals at places like Ruby Tuesday's, Friendy's, Legal Seafoods, and Chili's.
I would put Legal Sea Foods in a different category than the other restaurants listed here: - it has more in common with the steakhouse chains like Smith & Wollensky. The chefs at each LSF restaurant are generally graduates of culinary schools. I have never had a bad meal at LSF.
Incidentally, I didn't think the NYT article was so horribly condescending. It generally gives the restaurants favorable reviews -- not multiple stars, but "good food for value."
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the other weakness in the criticism of chain restaurants - this nonsense that local, eclectic, independent places are somehow better by definition. Having spent more than a little bit of time in Manhattan, I can say from personal experience that while Olive Garden may not be very good, it's better than the vast majority of mom n' pop Italian places there, and immeasurably cleaner.
First of all, as Matt points out, the odds that you grew up like we did, without darkening the door of a chain restaurant, are slim-to-none.
Familiarity tends to breed contempt, for many of us that didn't. It's not that the food is bad in most cases, it's that it's really friggin' homogeneous.
The other thing that bothers me is having to put up with people who won't try anything new and force me to go to the same five places over and over again. Like at work, when a fellow staff person leaves the company, the rest of us take that person out to dinner their last day, and that person inevitably wants to go to TGI Friday's. Rot in hell, douche bag! You're adding to my workload by leaving, and on top of that I've had to eat at TGI Friday's 15 times in the last three years because of idiots like you!
Naturally, some of this angst tends to fall on TGI Friday's, merely by association.
It's a case of fatigue for a lot of us. Too many of our fellow diners simply want to eat the same handful of meals over and over again, and it tends to rankle those of us who like to go to restaurants where the menu actually changes from time to time. Maybe I just need to get new friends.
Glad to see someone defend The Olive Garden. I love to eat there.
The Olive Garden as Symbol is an interesting phenomenon. I, of course, have a pet theory. The Olive Garden attempts to replicate something close to Culture: in this case, the genre of Northern Italian Cuisine. (Compare this with Pizza Hut or any number of similar chains, which attempt to replicate southern Italian food, which is not normally considered Culture, and therefore do not attract ire.)
Olive Garden succeeds, on the level of consistently producing middlin' decent Northern Italian Cuisine. This is actually something of an accomplishment, as it requires training kitchen staff from across the country. The result is a restaurant which, if it were a locally owned independent, would be considered decent up unexceptional:
You can do better. Or can you? It depends on where you are. There are any number of towns where they had never seen Northern Italian until the local Olive Garden opened up, and it was a revelation.
This ought to be considered a Good Thing, but it actually produces the same snob reaction as a suburban Borders or Barnes & Noble. Nobody complained about the Walden bookstores in the shopping malls, because they were as bad as you would expect. A pretty good bookstore in the suburbs is another matter entirely.
A more interesting take on Olive Garden and the like would be to compare them with the local competition. My smallish semi-exurban semi-rural town has three nothern Italian restaurants, all similarly priced. The Olive Garden is clearly the third best among them, yet the likeliest to have a line waiting to get in. The anthropology to be studied here is the triumph of marketing over substance. But if we do this, we should also compare the trendy haut cuisine New York restaurants with their less trendy neighbors.
the part that's elitist is having the time to post on a post about a NYT article about chain restaurants. commenting on such things is, however, fine.
I don't like the Olive Garden because of the mass quantities of salt they use to achieve uniformity across the country. I much prefer The Old Spaghetti Factory, which in addition to actual flavor, also offers enormous portion sizes for the money.
The only thing I'm a horrible snob about is salmon; rare is the restaurant that can make me happy with their version. I've never tried Legal but Oceanaire didn't impress me despite the price tag.
There is nothing wrong with liking the Olive Garden. But I do not like the Olive Garden.
Veganism can do that, since some of their best dishes -- e.g. Steak Gorgonzola -- are very much laced with animal products. In the past couple years they've also added the "Chianti Braised Shortribs" dish, and it is really good: Shortribs, a sweet wine reduction sauce, steamed green beans and carrots with just a whiff of a seasoned vinegar dressing, and rissotto rice that has been perfectly plumped to "sticky", but not "gooey", in a brown sauce. Also, the last several times I've been to an Olive Garden, the wait staff was impeccably trained and polite.
Apropos of some other comments, I have eaten at a few locally-owned Italian restaurants in the Colorado region -- rare, but not impossible to find, since many of the pioneer farms in the river valleys were established by Italian immigrants -- and found exactly two that passed muster. One of them closed doors when I was about 11 or 12 due to death of a co-owner. The other is over 300 miles away from where I live.
Thus...Olive Garden.
I'm something of a foodie, and I've eaten at more four-star restaurants than I can count (one last night in fact), and I can tell you this:
The Olive Garden is fine. Sure, they use too much butter and cheese, but some of you act like that's a bad thing.
Though they are below average, I've had worse ribs that the ones served at Chili's or Famous Dave's.
Most sit-down chains have a very nice selection of dinner salads. This, like decent $6 bottles of wine, is a plus for Western Civilization.
The Red Robin Santa Fe Burger is an exercise in awesomeness.
Most importantly, if you have children, sit-down chains RULE. They have kids' menus and give out crayons. If you're traveling, they provide assurance. They have desserts.
I will admit that the food at On The Border, while usually tasty, is subpar and isn't really Mexican, and their fish tacos are an insult to humanity.
I also like McDonalds french fries, Twizzlers, and yes, I dare to admit it, Bud Light.
Which contain, respectively, animal fat reside (from frying), gelatin made from cow hooves and Spuds McKenzie's nads.
The Red Robin Santa Fe Burger is an exercise in awesomeness.
They have good chili, too.
if you have children, sit-down chains RULE
Oh, hell yes. My oldest loves Applebee's. Not sure why given that all he ever gets are chicken tenders and apples indistinguishable from those available elsewhere, but he does.
The quality of the salsa at Chili's has gone straight to hell as of late, though. I don't have to affect my deep disappointment in what they've been serving recently.
The chain restaurants may have the same name, but they are not the same. TGIFs, in my experience, range from decent to I'm never going back, depending on the particular restaurant.
While I DO remember a guilty fondness for KFC mashed (it's mixing it with the gravy, I think), you might want to consider that KFC is not the most popular company among people who care about suffering....a quick search on "kfc cruelty" will pop up quite a few items.
Not sure how they compare to OTHER chicken sources, so I don't really know whether I am being hypocritical by not eating there.
I'm not kosher, I'm a vegan; the object is to reduce the number of animals industrially farmed, not to keep my body pure of any trace of animal products.
That said, McDonalds fries also contain whey, and are thus sadly verboten, along with Twizzlers. That doesn't mean I don't like them; I just don't eat them.
Eh, eating out in general is overrated, and that applies more to the local expensive independent than it does to chains. The restaurant business is hard, hard, hard, and maintaining a terrific quality/value ratio is quite a feat. I can't tell you how many local places I've enjoyed that went steeply downhill because making money while providing value was just too difficult.
The most consistent locals over a long span of years tend to be bars with interesting bar food. It's just a lot easier to make the numbers work when the liqour sales as a percentage of total revenues is higher; there isn't much perishables loss on a case of vodka.
I moved to NYC from the "flyover states," for a number of reasons, chief among which are (1) I hate driving, (2) I enjoy the local character, including the non-chain restaurants.
Like Jeff's earlier statement, familiarity breeds contempt, and my passionate dislike of chains (e.g. the IHOP that opened up near where we live in Brooklyn) is driven not by snobbery but rather by the sad, sick feeling that I can run, but I can't hide from the relentless homogenization represented by chain restaurants.
I suspect other newcomers feel likewise.
Of course, newcomers like myself are blamed (perhaps with some justice) for contributing to this homogenization. In me, at least, this tends to push me harder towards manning the barricades against homogenizing developments (from IHOP to Atlantic Yards). Those among us who do this are thanked by backlash of another sort, in which newcomers are blamed for moving somewhere and then becoming hopeless NIMBYs who never want anything to change.
All part of life's rich pageant.
I moved to NYC from the "flyover states," for a number of reasons, chief among which are (1) I hate driving, (2) I enjoy the local character, including the non-chain restaurants.
Like Jeff's earlier statement, familiarity breeds contempt, and my passionate dislike of chains (e.g. the IHOP that opened up near where we live in Brooklyn) is driven not by snobbery but rather by the sad, sick feeling that I can run, but I can't hide from the relentless homogenization represented by chain restaurants.
I suspect other newcomers feel likewise.
Of course, newcomers like myself are blamed (perhaps with some justice) for contributing to this homogenization. In me, at least, this tends to push me harder towards manning the barricades against homogenizing developments (from IHOP to Atlantic Yards). Those among us who do this are thanked by backlash of another sort, in which newcomers are blamed for moving somewhere and then becoming hopeless NIMBYs who never want anything to change.
All part of life's rich pageant.
The truth is that I think these restaurants serve the purpose of an almost secular temple in our society. Much like chain bookstores and coffee joints, they bring us a sense of unity and ritual that was lost in the past. This obviously a bit tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely, it does provide us a sense of common experience and uniformity.
More on this: http://airingofthegrievances.blogspot.com/2008/05/temples-of-modernity-jm.html
When I was growing up, my friends and I often went to a locally owned restaurant that was pretty similar to TGI Fridays, and I loved it - the casual atmosphere meant we could relax and be a little loud, and the cheap food went easy on our slim allowances.
I live in Brooklyn now, so I have more restaurants to choose from. But even in NYC, the options can be limited for people with dietary issues. I recently had lunch with a colleague at Outback because she has ciliac disease, and they have a gluten-free menu on request. It's a lot easier for travelers to stop at a chain than to try a local place only to find there's nothing they can eat.
KFC's mashed potatoes have gone downhill a bit lately. But now POPEYES .. oh HELL yeah...
Hey, what's wrong with Shaker Heights? :)
J nails it.
I worked in Milan for a year and a half and ate all of my meals out, so I have a passable acquaintance with northern Italian cuisine as actually served in northern Italy. Is Olive Garden as good as the best restaurants I ate at in Milan? No. Is Olive Garden better than the worst restaurants I ate at in Milan? Indisputably. Is Olive Garden as good as the average of Milanese restaurants? Yeah, plus or minus five. Is Olive Garden better than the general run of one-off, locally-owned checked-tablecloth-with-wax-covered-Chianti-bottle places in my present (L.A.) environs? Dambetcha.
rwe:
Megan McArdle--with arugula in one hand, a glass of Veuve Clicquot in the other, a vegan cookbook on her shelf and (likely) an "I love Barak" poster on her wall--is now posing as a woman of the people. Who says this blog isn't entertaining?
This totally misses the point. Megan is actually asserting a higher level of status than that enjoyed by the "I despise chain restaurants" type. She's stating that she was raised in such rarefied circumstances that she enjoys chain restaurants because they are a novelty.
Remember, snobbery is all about making sure you aren't mistaken for the next class down, therefore what you're snobbish about shows what you think the next class down is (you know, that class to which you're secretly afraid that you belong). Megan is expressing contempt for those who are from the burbs and are affecting that they are from a background like hers. As she says:
Second of all, if there's anything sadder than people who act like having grown up in New York makes them the apex of the social universe, it's people who act like this when they grew up in Shaker Heights.
The person from Shaker Heights is busy trying to prove that they're better than the rest of the people from Shaker Heights. Megan is in a different game; she's trying to prove she's better than the rest of the people who grew up in New York.
"On The Border, while usually tasty, is subpar and isn't really Mexican"
Most American diners would run for their lives confronted with "real" Mexican food (i.e. the stuff you actually get in Mexico). We eat Tex Mex here.
"I recently had lunch with a colleague at Outback because she has ciliac disease, and they have a gluten-free menu on request"
For the anti-glutenites, there's a pretty good deli at 40th and Lexington, a very good coffee shop on the east side of 1st Ave in the low 80s, and a place in the village on Bleeker (I think) that actually has gluten-free beer, believe it or not. On the other hand, their gluten free pizza was...well, just tell them to pull a box out of the dumpster and cook it. That'll taste better, trust me.
I scanned Megan's screed too quickly and took the last line to read:
In fact, that article made me so indignant that I'd march out right now and eat an Outback Steakhouse right now
That would be an impressive feat. ;)
I think we should just focus on converting Megan to Jainism. Cut out all of the root vegetables and get her swanning around on elevated sandals (minimizes contact with the ground so less chance of hurting ants or worms).
The article was horrible and obviously written by nouveau urbain with deep status anxiety. You can feel the self-loathing and affected surprise. A substantial number of the writers no doubt live in these "horrid" suburbs anyways.
As for the contempt for a Veuve drinker - really? A very pedestrian champagne arouses this much anger? People who are true snobs, oenophiles, or simply splashing out go for something much farther up the ladder than Veuve! Dom at least, if not Crystal or a vintage garagiste champagne (for the blingster and oneophile respectively). This seems as apt as the recent attack on Hillary for drinking a luxury whisky like Crown Royal - luxury only in the same sense that Budweiser is a premium beer: they are not the absolute cheapest product in their categories, but they both sponsor Nascar.
Lileks on Olive Garden
False contempt? Why assume it is false? Is there a professional food critic anywhere who doesn't sneer on occasion? Isn't that why people read them? Or did you really want a well-balanced, informative review of Chili's with no snark attached?
Given the circumstances (who here wouldn't be a little put off by having to kill an hour in a strip-mall wasteland carrying a dorky beeper around?) the reviews were surprisingly favorable and sympathetic. And kind of funny too, which I believe was largely the point.
A lot of the grave tut-tutting about a light-hearted, self-depreciating "fish-out-of-water" piece buried deep in the Times seems like protesting a bit too much.
If you think Olive Garden is better than most independently owned Italian restaurants in NY or the surrounding suburbs you're, well, a rube. And I'm guessing - I'm going to go out on a limb here - not Italian. You probably like Subways and Quiznos more than delis that cut their meat fresh with dangerous slicing machines. Prefer Dominoes to real pizza. Perhaps you're a creationist too. Who know -- but, man, are you ignorant.
Sorry if that's rude. But it's. good that you know.
Most American diners would run for their lives confronted with "real" Mexican food (i.e. the stuff you actually get in Mexico). We eat Tex Mex here.
Actually, in the western and southwestern states, a passable collection of reasonably authentic Mexican Gourmet is moving in big time, and doing fine business. Tequila's, 3 Margaritas, and Fiesta Jalisco -- all having expanded into chains -- are just a few examples of what is happening on the "Colorado-Mex" scene, which is finally and rapidly growing after puttering along for years with mostly-degenerate forms of Tex-Mex and New Mexico-Mex.
Steve Johnson nailed it.
"If you think Olive Garden is better than most independently owned Italian restaurants in NY or the surrounding suburbs you're, well, a rube"
Actually, I prefer "ignorant, inbred cracker", but thanks. Obviously I lack the sophistication to realize that crappy food is really a nuanced form of gourmet dining - it's a performance art thing. There aren't any obviously Italian names in the article, so you must be one of the female reviewers. Did everybody see this classic Olive Garden commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKZS4Jn6gRM ?
Now who wants another box of wine?
Having lived in DC and Manhattan, the places are chock full of people from Ohio and the like that now sneer at middle america
Just mention places like downstate Illinois and Texas and hear people chortle - except the snobs are usually from there. HOWEVER - food generally does suck in middle america -sad truth. Spaghetti with chilli! baah, I was raised on good food and can't get over the slop I have been served in some houses. One little secret I have also found is that the real WASPs (not the posuers) eats lousy food - yep, I've been invited to dine at "dining clubs" and country clubs of the evil Northeaster elite and it is bland cheeses, green beans soaked in butter, overcooked beef. That's what the real old money types dine on. (or did until recently) The old Park Avenue set never even went in their kitchens (the help did the cooking usually) I have lived to see it with my own two eyes. all this foodism is recent
The aspiring snobs want to put down the people though,not the food. Part of the whole glibberal scene is being "better" than others. Like the great Reagan said, you can never lift yourself up by tearing down others.
I didn't read any of the comments, though, we should wonder exactly how much IFF/Northern NJ Industrial Additive these 'suburban chain restaraunts' rely on, to make their wares palatable..to say nothing of their, Mad Ave. inspired, ceaseless advertising..
Also, past any of that, we should remember that 'Food' cost of most of the Menu items averages 28-42% of the Fare..
and, O Hey, not to bring up Faithful index investing, or, long-biased 401(k) shooting-galleries, though, many, of, even the most negative commentators, are, probably, Long the Equity of, said, imProprietors..
In reading comments on this piece on various blogs, I've noticed a few things:
1.) That a number of people refer to a singular author for a singular piece, which indicates that the same people haven't bothered to read the reviews in question. (There are several different reviews, each by a different author.)
2.) People completely missed the humor and the humanity.
Lyman's Outback Steakhouse review initially treats the chain as an exotic ethnic restaurant, but the punchline comes when readers are told not to worry -- you don't actually have to be familiar with Australian culture to enjoy a meal there. That's funny to elitists like me who read restaurant reviews and actually get the joke. (Protip: We never thought that Outback was an exotic ethnic restaurant.)
DeNitto's Applebee's review recognizes the kid- and family-friendly nature of the restaurant, and focuses on her daughter's response to illustrate this. (Protip: Good reviewers turn to the target audience when they realize that they're not the ones a restaurant is designed for.)
Reed's Red Lobster review is positively glowing -- the seafood is fresh and safe, the food is excellent, and the prices are more than reasonable. (Protip: The food was so good, everybody ate more than they'd intended.)
3.) In our brave new post-Bittergate world, too many people are looking for elitism and condescension where it's not. It's starting to feel a lot like the PC movement of the late 80's and 90's. I hope that it dies down after a few news cycles.
I don't think the article was condescending at all and I wonder how many people read it. It was simply a review by different authors of the quality and experience found at popular chains, and obviously some of the writers lived near the chains reviewed.
The PF Changs at Marketfair in Princeton (and barely Princeton) mentioned in the article is one I was at last June. It's on Route 1 (that runs north/south through Jersey), located at a shopping mall, and within minutes of several other malls.
My niece was graduating from West Windsor/Plainboro High School (North) and I had flown back to be part of that. Afterwards my sister said, "Where should we go to eat?" and after several phone calls between my niece and her graduate friends, we ended up at Changs, along with what seemed like half the graduating class.
It was indeed dark, crowded and we had a bit of a wait but the food was okay, though my sister had her complaints as she has expectations that exceed the producable.
I think chains do what they do quite well, and would not be in business if they didn't. And naturally when you are seeking real quality, or uniqure food, you go to a more independent or upscale place.
Take chains for what they are: predictable, if uninspiring, food.
If you're ragging on On The Border and Chili's, you obviously have never lived somewhere where those were the only two restaurants making salsa better than Pace's Picante. I've never eaten anything else from Chili's, and I'm mostly unimpressed with OTB. But good, made-fresh-daily salsa is a rare beast in flyover country.
Outback's food is uninspiring, and I can think of a dozen meals I'd rather eat, but their ranch dressing is the best I've ever had (yes, I like a *lot* of garlic).
In my hometown, if you want Chinese, it's PF Chang's or standard bargain-basement. I usually opt for bargain-basement, since I know the good one, but there's nothing remotely upscale about the food.
So no, none of them serve up anything that is worthy of shining the shoes of a really good restaurant. I generally stay away from them at home, because I know better, cheaper, quicker places to eat. But in Winston-Salem? Olympia? Terre Haute? All big enough towns to have better places to eat, but I don't know anyone there. Don't have time to stop and chat. Just steer me to something I know won't totally suck, so I can be on my way.
What kind of pretentious nut would add up the amount her parents paid for private education--during the 20-some years kids go to school. That $500,000--is that inflation-adjusted or what? How and why would any one ever talk about private things like that, especially in public. How low rent!
And I'll bet $500,000 that your mother didn't make croissants all the time. Maybe once, but not all the time. I made them once almost 20 years ago, inspired by Julia Child (probably just like your mom). It took all day and they weren't nearly as good as those I could buy at a decent European bakery. Making your own croissants is stupid.
For everyone complaining about a lack of spaghetti... find a friend in the military and try any of the spaghetti in a military chow hall. Trust me, you will think Olive Garden is run by master chefs afterwards.
Four months of chow hall food does much to increase one's appreciation of restaurants (though, to their credit, they do their best... for the most part.)
I have to respectfully but adamantly disagree with the Olive Garden defenders. If you eat fish or veal there's simply no way Olive Garden can compete with a decent Italian restaurant in suburban New York or New Jersey.
To be honest, the chicken, pastas and salads at OG are pretty weak too.
I'm not a snob. But, um, I am Italian. (And, yeah, maybe a bad person for eating veal.). I've been at OG three times, in three different states. Trust me, Long Island, Westchester and N.J. are full of much, much better restaurants.
Look, the quality and freshness of food matters! Vegan Megan (cute rhyme, eh?) knows this!
She knows, too, how much of OG's food (and that of other chains') is frozen or pre-packaged!
She's trying to be classy and gracious, but she knows these chains are inferior. As does Matt and Ezra. Look, they're being nice.
The Times'article may have been snooty, but don't kid yourself. As much as Megan may claim to like the breadsticks at Pizza Hut she's smart enough to know -- vegan or not -- that any, say, shrimp dish at OG or TGI-Fridays is going to be pretty bad.
.
Lady Lucy, I don't know how much my parents paid for *my* education, but the going rate for a NYC private school is $25,000 a year; I added.
And you can mail that check to the Atlantic's offices. Nota bene: they were much better than what was available at any local bakery at the time. Perhaps you didn't have the touch.
I have to agree with Lady Lucy. I don't know how you came up with the $500,000 figure because you admit it's not inflation adjusted. I do, however, agree with you when you say it's you and your sibling--so it's $250,00 each--LL wrong about that. But if school costs $25,000 a year as you say and you just "added" like you say--even though I think you mean multiply--then you only went to school for 10 years, which would end your education after sophomore year of high school, unless of course you got some sort of subsidy--at which point the $500,000 figure becomes meaningless. Pls advise.
As a person who has to spend a great deal of time on the road for various reasons, I like chains because I do not like to play "restaurant roulette." I'm not after some big cultural experience; I'm hungry, usually cranky and frazzled from too much time on the road, and not in the mood to wonder if this place is good or not.
Breathes there a man with heart so dead that he has not occasionally dined on a Biggie Fries and a Frosty?
My heart's that dead.
I added and rounded. Of course, my parents had to pull me out of school in the middle of third grade, so I may have gotten it wrong.
Megan is a Magic Garden snob.
you have me except for the shaker heights dig. as someone who has lived in both cleveland and new york city, for more or less ten years apiece, the upper west side and shaker heights are within the error bars the same place. no, not in appearance, but they have the same soul. and what a lovely soul it is.
personally, i didn't get to go to chain restaurants like that till i was 18, coz i grew up in rural tennessee. but yeah, olive garden tastes good.
Say what you like about chains, but where else am I going to get grits with my breakfast when I'm visiting in Rochester, NY other than the Cracker Barrel on Hylan Drive?
Those who are questioning how much is spent by parents living in Manhattan should consider pre-school, primary school, secondary school, summer schools and camps, and undergraduate costs in their calculus. $ 250,000 per child is not unreasonable, and today is probably a very .low calculus. College education alone in the 90s would have aggregated to $ 125,000, including room and board, over four years. For most Manhattan parents that is met out of income, as their children are generally not eligible for much in the way of scholarship assistance. Most Manhattan parents actually start their children in a pre-school environment,perhaps a Montessori school. Just 7 years of pre-university education would have added at least $ 125,000 to the educational cost. And,of course, there is always the summer camp costs, from day camps through sleepaway, that are the lot of Manhattan parents.It does add up and it all comes out of after-tax income.
Even the peasants didn't like pig entrails.
Yes, they do. They're called chitlins. (sp chitterlings)
I love all the Boston Market vegetables. OK, so it's more of a take out place but for a vegetarian it's pretty good.
I love all the Boston Market vegetables. OK, so it's more of a take out place but for a vegetarian it's pretty good.
is that they make you wait before they seat you. Even if there are empty tables! (they say things like "that section's closed). They give you this little glowing thing that lights up when they're ready to seat you, and you stand around with a crowd of other hungry, edgy people. No wonder the food tastes good when you finally get it!
I grew up in the 'burbs on Hamburger Helper and Red Lobster popcorn shrimp; I live in NYC now (no, not in Greenpoint or in Williamsburg; and no, I don't sport clever headgear) and I will happily say you would not catch me in an Outback unless garbage pilfering were the only other culinary option. Double that for the Olive Garden. I don't see why not having grown up in New York deprives me of critical credentials. If anything, it enhances them: I know whereof I speak. It's not possible to count the calories I've consumed in American food chains.
BTW contempt for chain restaurants is by no means a NY foodie phenomenon. My wife grew up in Italy and considers the Olive Garden to be Italian cuisine in about the same way Disney's Space Mountain is interstellar travel. And yes, Italians are vituperative food snobs, and thank god for it. Because you know what? She's right. And the impulse that drives her to say it is the same impulse that drove Italians to spend 2000 years figuring out what actual good food can be.
Since when is it a mark of dishonor to have standards? Wait -- I know the answer to this one -- since about last October, when anti-food-snobbery-snobbery became the newest food trend.
Welcome to the bandwagon. When you're done championing the dumbing down of food (as if it had anywhere lower to go), why not work on curbing excellence in other fields -- say, automotive design, or airplane construction, or computers? I mean, who are all these "I want my software to work" snobs anyway? A**holes. They probably grew up in the suburbs.
Fair to assume all of these responses were written by those who have eaten something - anything - in the past 24 hours?
The NYT sends someone out to review chain restaurants and the piece is upbeat and positive but the blogosphere spin is "where did all this 'fake' 'sneering condescension' come from"? Maybe that's the better story?
I didn't grow up eating in chain restaurants. Yeah some of them are interesting the first couple of times the food is fine but mostly they suck. Even at the best of times. You are always going to have a bland so-so meal in a plastic environment. I would rather eat at a truck stop where there's a ton more atmosphere and a chance of seeing something interesting or learning something new even if the floor isn't as clean.
I'm not sure about lumping places like Applebee's and Cheesecake Factory into the same category either. For what it costs to eat at Cheesecake Factory I expect to eat well. Somewhere like Buca might emulate a decent Italian restaurant but I would rather open my veins than go back and pay the price of good meal for the crap they serve.
You mention Greenpoint, but of course that's not actually in Manhattan. Maybe not that many people grew up in Manhattan, but surely plenty of people grew up in Brooklyn and Queens. Or in other large cities in the US. Or in other places in the world, in fact.
Your mention of the Outback Steakhouse made me laugh. I am Australian and the Outback Steakhouse was only one of the chains mentioned that I have actually eaten at (except for McDs and KFC and those not for years). A friend was getting married to an American girl and the wedding was on Long Island. The groom took all his Australian mates out the Outback Steakhouse as a bit of a joke. I don't remember the food much (the problem with these places being the unmemorable food), except that the meat was enormous (I think they had half-pound steaks on the menu) and I'm pretty sure there were fries. What I do remember is the hilarious menu items like 'Prime Minister's Prime Ribs' and 'Botany Bay Fish of the Day' (by the way eating fish out of Botany Bay is not that much better than eating it out of the East River - it's a very industrial area and you would do better with Sydney Harbour). I remember the toilets were labelled 'blokes' and 'sheilas'. And I remember that even though this was an Australian-themed restaurant and we had seven Australians, the waiting staff had no idea where we were from. We left Australian money with our tip (yes we left a proper tip too).
It's interesting that chain restaurants are now so ubiquitous in American culture that you are considered 'elitist' if you don't eat in them, or didn't eat in them growing up. The UK has quite a few chains as well but elsewhere in the world they don't dominate to such an extent. Australia doesn't have that many and I think the food (and the coffee) culture is better as a result.
Who here grew up in the Midwest? I did, and it was the culinary hell that born-again food snobs think it was. Driving to Frankenmuth, MI for that crappy chicken was a big deal for us. Look, 20 years ago it was Chi-Chi's, then it was Casa Lupita, and now it's On the Border, but each of those places was better than the last. I've lived in California, and most taquerias, even if run by Mexicans, DO NOT serve authentic Mexican food. It's almost always from a VERY narrow geographical range, includes WAY too much meat, and other than the presence of pickled vegetables, has little to distinguish it from Chipotle Grill's version.
On the other hand, you can get cilantro and a selection of chilis in any Farmer Jack's or Kroger's in MI now, which is a huge gain, just like you can get way better books thanks to the ubiquity of B&N and Border's. Detroit was a relatively small city; the independent bookstores I remember from my youth were overstocked with stuff like Robert Pirsig, and smelled of cat pee.
I like most of the casual dining chains. But what I DON'T like is raw onions. Why do I always have to remember to say "No onions, please"? Why can't the chains ask me, "Would you like raw onions with that?"
Can't someone reading this thread please make the chains stop putting raw onions in or on everything?
My wife and I are foodies and moved from San Francisco proper to the suburbs once our condo became too small for our toddler. We used to eat out all the time in the city, and loved it. But I just think there is a place and time for everything - with a kid jumping all over the seats, the chains are much better. If you live in a good food city like SF it makes no sense to eat at chains. But there is nothing wrong with them, especially as circumstances change. (We still go into SF for nice dinners when we can leave our son with the grandparents!)
And by the way - news flash to all you Manhattan snobs: the food in SF & Napa is more creative and interesting on average than what you have. Sorry. (I come to NY once every 6 weeks for business). Also healthier. And the wine selections are also deeper & superior on average. Not at the top end - you can find top French & CA wines in NY & SF - but you will find excellent small labels in Bay Area / Napa restaurants that don't even make it out of the state.
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