So, we're going out to the Olive Garden for dinner

[xiphias]

My Dad's got a $50 gift certificate.

Now, none of us have ever been to an Olive Garden. (Well, Lis says she MIGHT have in Florida once, but she can't remember) See, there are like three in Massachusetts -- Framingham, Stoughton, and Tingsboro, I think. Now, if I were to draw a dividing line, I'd probably say that "Framingham" is just outside what I'd call Greater Boston -- I count Rte 128 as sort of the dividing line, and Framingham is right on the other side of it.

Chain Italian restaurants don't do so well in Boston. 'Cause we got the North End. And when we're not in the North End, we're at things like Polcari's, which has three locations in the suburbs, but was founded and is run by a North End family.

Of course, we don't have ANY "Red Lobster"s in Massachusetts, for similar reasons. I mean, it's tough to do a national chain seafood/lobster restaurant, or a national Italian restaurant here. I mean, how well would you expect Domino's to do in Chicago?

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Domino's and Pizza Hut actually do fairly well in NYC, of all places. And browngirl's parents go to Domino's. Ugh.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

[tries to formulate appropriate snarky response]
[gives up and just posts outline]
I. Something about how it helps them support like-minded political causes
II. Something about how, as browngirl is so different than her parents, it suprises me not at all that their skill at chosing good-tasting food would be opposite as well
III. Something in the neighborhood of how I've never really had much reason to suspect her folks of either good taste or reasonable opinions anyway.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Sorry to ruin the joke, but I meant to type that BG's parents go to Pizza Hut. Food still sucks, anyway.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Well, points II and III still stand, anyway.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Legal Seafood isn't a national chain? I thought they did pretty well for themselves in Massachusetts.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

Legal Seafoods isn't national. Most of the locations are in or near Boston; there are also a couple in the DC area, and in Florida.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

They've broken into some NY/NJ malls as well.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Ah. That would explain my misunderstanding. In recent years, if I'm not going to NY, NJ, or the (broadly-defined) DC area, I'm probably leaving the country.

I mostly don't like Olive Garden

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

Well, you know how I feel about chain restaurants, so, naturally I would frown on them. However, their minestrone is pretty good, and I rather like their salad. Their fresh breadsticks are good as well. When I get dragged to one, I tend to make a meal on salad, minestrone and breadsticks, and am always happy with my meal.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

It's alright, but not exceptional.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

It always amazed me how well Dominos and Pizza Hutt do in Chicago.

[cogitationitis.livejournal.com]

There's more than three Olive Gardens; there's one near the Solomon Pond mall, and another in North Attleboro, that I know of. There's also one in Manchester, at the Mall of NH, though Dave's BBQ across the street is better. Olive Garden isn't bad, though I find it noisy & pedestrian.

Red Lobster was in Massachusetts, but it left. They're not bad either.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

:is so very unimpressed by red lobster:

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've been to a red lobster in my adult life. I just have a negative impression of them. Olive gardon, on the other hand, I was dragged to a few times in college. If I absoloutely had to go to one, I'd make my meal out of margaritas and breadsticks. If I could stay home and eat mac and cheese, I'd do that instead. My experiences there were really ungood. I can thaw my own frozen dinners, thanks.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Red Lobster isn't *bad*, but it's way to much the mecca of fried food and cheese for my tastes.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Seconded. I went to an Olive Garden in Wilmington Delaware in the early 90s. Was before I met browngirl. Most craptastic "Italian" meal I've ever had. Then again, Wilmington's Little Italy had some pretty darn good red-gravy type restaurants, and I knew most of 'em.

If I want chain Italian, I'd rather go to Vinny Testa's or Bertucci's.

[navrins]

There used to be an Olive Garden on, um, that street *points at mental map in head, and picture of street in head*. Oh, damn.

Cambridge, off one of the rotaries just past Fresh Pond Mall.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The place that used to be a Ground Round?

[navrins]

Near there, but past it on the side street.

(BTW, it's still pretty much the same restaurant, just renamed since Ground Round went bankrupt. I had quite a pleasant dinner there last night.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Do they still have a big movie screen and bowls of peanuts? Or am I dating myself again?

('Cause it may be that Ground Rounds stopped doing those big movie screens with constantly running cartoons back when I was a kid, and before you came to Boston for MIT. . . .)

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the classic newbie to the area and Usenet question on ne.food; "Where can I find a Red Lobster near Boston?". Followed by folks practicing their flame skills as to why on Earth one would ever want to eat at such when every town in the area has a better and similarly or lower priced local seafood restaurant. Did usually get a nice list of local places in towns I might not be familiar with out of the threads though.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Heh.

We're not the be-all and end-all of all kinds of food: people have asked, "Where can a get a GOOD Chicago-style pizza from" and "Where can I get a GOOD Philly cheesesteak from?" My answers, of course, are "Chicago" and "Philadelphia" respectively.

And, I've got to admit, I'd be slightly sad if you could get a good Chicago pizza or a good Philly cheesesteak in Boston -- it'd make it less special to go to Chicago or Philly. One of the nice things about having regional cuisine is being able to go to regions for cuisine.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

As a former resident of the Philly area, I've found that what most sub shops serve as a 'steak and cheese' in Boston is reasonably edible. The thing that makes a Philly cheesesteak is the roll. They're baked by a company called Amoroso that has a limited distribution area.

Then you get the "provolone vs. American vs. Cheez Wiz" holy war, which makes tempers flare even worse than "vi vs. emacs".

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

"Edible" is fine. You can get a fine pizza in Boston or in New York, too. You can get fine "sandwiches in long skinny rolls" in Boston, Philly, New Orleans, New York, and many other cities.

But you can get a New York pizza in New York, a Chicago pizza in Chicago, a North End pizza in the North End. You can get a Boston steak-and-cheese grinder in Boston. You can get a Philly cheesesteak in Philly.

You can get New England clam chowder (cream-base_ in New England, and Rhode Island clam chowder (clear fish stock broth) in Rhode Island. You can get Manhattan clam chowder in Manhattan, but why would you want to?

In an ideal world, a frappe, a cabinet, and a milkshake would all taste noticably different, and you would be able to tell them apart by taste alone.

There are good bagels in Montreal and Toronto, but good bialys are only on the Lower East Side. No pickle tastes like a picke from a picklebarrel there.

Me, I'm happy with this state of affairs. If every place is the same, then what's the point?

Frappe vs Milkshake

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

Let me weigh in here. Literally, given the number of both I've consumed. "Frappe" pretty much means the same thing no matter where the term is in use, in my experience. You got your milk, you got your ice cream, you got your syrup, mix them up vigorously and you've got your frappe. Made correctly, it will support a straw upright in the middle of the glass. It will also give you brain freeze in a heartbeat if you drink it too quickly.

"Milkshake", on the other hand, means different things in different locations. In Texas, "milkshake" means what "frappe" means here. What's called a "milkshake" here, in Texas is considered either "flavored milk" or a waste of time, depending on your taste. You put your syrup in your milk, and no matter how vigorously you mix it up, you still have milk with syrup in it; there's no change in consistency at all, and while it's cold, it never approaches freezing.

I'm happy to call milk, ice cream, and syrup anything the locals do, I just want to know what that is before I order it. Expecting a nice, thick, freezing concoction and getting flavored milk instead is a big disappointment on a hot summer day.

[rebmommy.livejournal.com]

cabinet?

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Provolone. Emacs.

Most places outside Philly also skimp on the onions.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

Just to start a different flame war, I've always considered the 495 loop to be the border between "greater Boston" and "there be dragons here".

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to accept that as a reasonable alternate definition. We could mark a difference between "Boston proper", "Greater Boston", and "Greater Boston area", with "Greater Boston" being "within 128," and "Greater Boston Area" being "within 495."

[(Anonymous)]

That sounds about right. Of course, Worcester is outside 495 and probably counts as the last outpost of civilization to the West. You could probably write a fun fantasy story about explorers setting out to see what lies beyond, except why would they leave Boston when they're already here?

[sproutntad.livejournal.com]

A couple of things.

1. I HEART Olive Garden... Unlimited Soup, Salad and breadsticks for only $8 including tip. I almost got kicked off a JetBlue flight b/c the flight attendant wanted my food. This is also how I know there is only one Olive Garden in NYC. It's in Times Sq. (I know this b/c she spent the rest of the flight trying to covince everyone else that they COULD get from JFK to Times Sq, eat lunch and get back to JFK in the hour break that they had between flights.)

2. Red Lobster SUCKS! Legal is the ONLY chain seafood restraunt that I will eat in. But, I'm a fish snob. Living on a boat in the Coral Sea for a year, makes me have HIGH standards on what is fresh fish.

3. You can get GREAT NY style pizza in FL. There is a shack on Melbourne Beach at the end of Rt 192. It's called Bizzaro's Pizza and it's the best NY pizza ever! You know, the kind that if you put a napkin on it it'll be soaked with grease and the pieces are bigger that a little kids head... Jo and I regularly drive the hour drive just for the pizza. If your in central FL, just hop on 192 east. Drive to the end of the highway, cross US A1A and drive into there parking lot.

3. 128 is SOOO the edge of Greater Boston. Only 2 or 3 miles west of 128 there are COWS, cows are SOO country and SOO NOT Greater Boston. Yes you have Framingham and Natick between 148 and 495, But you have Wayland, Lincoln, Sudbury, Stow, Mills, Clinton and all of that as well!! As someone who has lived inside the ring and outside the ring, 128 is the dividing line. Many of my mom's friends don't visit her anymore b/c she lives outside the 128 ring. It doesn't matter that she actually now lives CLOSER to these people, there is just a feeling that if you cross 128, it's SOOOO far away.

But that's just my opinion. :)

[rebmommy.livejournal.com]

WAY-far-away-land!