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By that I mean people (not all obviously) will talk down about places that don't have the luxury of having a million different/unique places to eat. Where I live admittedly most is chain restaurants and the like, but we do still have some unique restaurants/places to go eat you just have to drive a bit, yet time and time again when I've had people from big city's come down to visit and I suggest somewhere that's more chain-type places I get disparaging remarks.
A few examples: Last year a friend of mine who moved to NY a few years ago came down to visit. We were going to go out to eat and I said how about Olive garden to which she said "Olive garden? That's such crap! In NY you can get REAL Italian food!" she said it in a kind of joking manner but it still rubbed me the wrong way.
Another time a friend visited from Boston and when I suggested we go grab a bite to eat she said "Sure, but it better not be one of those crappy chain-type places that serve low quality food. In Boston we have so much more variety and the food there puts anything here to shame."
I get it, living in a smaller town I'm not fortunate enough to have access to all these great, wonderful restaurants/eatery's that people in bigger cities have, but there's no reason to be condescending! I just hate how so many from bigger cities feel the need to blurt out how much "better" they have it in terms of food.
I wouldn't call these people "friends". And I never heard anyone say it that way, actually and I've lived in FL, Philly, NJ and NY. If my friends like something I think is crappy I either go and get SALAD or suggest another place.
There's no reason to be rude to you for asking about Olive Garden. I would NEVER say that and Im a person who can NOT eat at Olive Garden because something in the preservatives disagrees with my GI system.
But I eat "clean" just plain food no casseroles, fake sauces, processed anything...and rarely go "out". Even plenty of popular restaurants I've gone to the past couple years with actual CHEFS can't get it right. When I say NO SALT I MEAN NO SALT.
So on THAT fact, the friends are correct, however there's no excuse to act like your life is so pathetic blah blah blah.
Those "friends" have issues. Stop offering to go out to eat and let them COOK.
I grew up in a town with a multitude of these chain restaurants, though I now work in a large city, and I think that places like Olive Garden and Ruby Tuesdays are utter crap. I've been unfortunate enough to have to eat in Ruby Tuesdays twice in the last couple months, and regretted it both times. The food is obviously pre-packaged, microwaved, with a sauce thrown on top. For example, my mother ordered some kind of cheesy pasta dish with chicken, and I ordered chicken and shrimp fajitas. The chicken in both our dishes was exactly the same: they'd just cut mine up and each was doused with a different, insipid sauce. I was sitting in RT, looking out the window at a Wendy's, and honestly wishing I was eating there. At least they don't pretend they're anything other than cheap, processed food, and they charge a lot less for it.
Edit: I should add that of all the chain restaurants, Olive Garden isn't actually that bad. It's not nearly as good as a real Italian restaurant, but if you're in a small town that doesn't have other options, you could do worse. I think I just had a knee-jerk reaction to this thread because I recently suffered through those two Ruby Tuesday meals.
OP, chain restaurants are not exclusive to the south, they are everywhere even in big cities. I have lived in several big cities like New York, Chicago, San diego, Seattle, Honolulu, Cleveland, Tokyo just to name few (I'm a navy vet) They have their share of chain restaurants and they do good business in these places.
For starters, your friends are pricks. I've never heard anyone react that way to the suggestion of eating at any place. If your friends really said the things you wrote, they're just jerks plain and simple. I've never heard anyone say something like that.
That said, I do understand not wanting to go to a chain place when you travel somewhere. I eat at Olive Garden now and then, usually when I'm traveling for work and am just eating at whatever place is closest to a convention center or office park I'm at. It's not great, but not bad either, just kind of ... there (like most chain places).
For the vast majority of people I think the real difference isn't elitism, it's has more to do with being interested in trying new places and new foods. If I travel somewhere I don't want to eat something I can get any day of the week at home. I visited a friend recently who had just moved to a small town in Wisconsin and they suggested going to a "really crappy" pizza place near their house (that was their description, not mine). I'd seen a sign for a fish fry at the VFW hall when I was driving in and suggested that instead. The food was great and we met a bunch of people, it beat the hell out of just going to some random "crappy" place.
I've lived in big cities and people with this mentality flat out **** me off. They just try to look cool and worldly so they can feel good about paying 2000 dollars a month to share their one bedroom apartment.
By that I mean people (not all obviously) will talk down about places that don't have the luxury of having a million different/unique places to eat. Where I live admittedly most is chain restaurants and the like, but we do still have some unique restaurants/places to go eat you just have to drive a bit, yet time and time again when I've had people from big city's come down to visit and I suggest somewhere that's more chain-type places I get disparaging remarks.
A few examples: Last year a friend of mine who moved to NY a few years ago came down to visit. We were going to go out to eat and I said how about Olive garden to which she said "Olive garden? That's such crap! In NY you can get REAL Italian food!" she said it in a kind of joking manner but it still rubbed me the wrong way.
Another time a friend visited from Boston and when I suggested we go grab a bite to eat she said "Sure, but it better not be one of those crappy chain-type places that serve low quality food. In Boston we have so much more variety and the food there puts anything here to shame."
I get it, living in a smaller town I'm not fortunate enough to have access to all these great, wonderful restaurants/eatery's that people in bigger cities have, but there's no reason to be condescending! I just hate how so many from bigger cities feel the need to blurt out how much "better" they have it in terms of food.
Olive Garden is crap though, if I am going to throw money away on poor food id rather just eat at McDonalds but that's just me =)
If you have any small local places take them there. I always hunt them down, service is usually slow but the food is way better than anything chain.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Attrill
I'd seen a sign for a fish fry at the VFW hall when I was driving in and suggested that instead. The food was great and we met a bunch of people, it beat the hell out of just going to some random "crappy" place.
I really miss small VFW and supper club fish fries on Fridays... oh I miss you.
The comment was rude. It's generally good practice to NOT openly criticize anything unless you know the other person really well, because you just don't know whose favorite color is pea soup green, whose favorite band makes your ears bleed, or who loves Applebee's while you'd rather eat your shoes.
I don't hate chain restaurants -- I don't find them great, but I do find them a comfort when I'm on a road trip and don't know my options. I do, generally speaking, feel that I wind up spending too much money proportionate to the quality of the food, but chains do have their purpose.
I almost always prefer to eat at local places because I find the food to be tastier and interesting (not to mention, usually a better value in terms of cost + quality), and if I'm visiting a friend who suggested a chain for dinner, I would, politely, ask if there were any interesting local places around we could try.
People who live in really big cities can lose their perspective on this, a lot of the time. They're so spoiled for options that it becomes easy to forget that in some places, there is one Italian restaurant and it is named Olive Garden. It doesn't excuse the rudeness, but that is the perspective they're coming from.
It's also become somewhat trendy to hate chains and loudly declare it to be so. Again, I'm somewhat "meh" on chains, but I do have some love/appreciation for them in the right situation.
(Also? I LOVE Olive Garden's salad and breadsticks. There, I said it. It's not going to win any culinary awards, but it reminds me so much of childhood and makes me smile. I could eat an entire bowl of that salad and several breadsticks dunked in marinara, and just call it a meal.)
Last summer we had some work group visiting. Not friends, but you have to pretend to be friends.
We took them for breakfast at an awesome little diner. They acted like the place was filthy. One ordered a soy latte, no, this is a DINER...they serve coffee! They sat stiffly, ordering wheat toast, instead of the awesome specials like green chili eggs, blueberry French toast, with fresh berries...
Gee, this is good food! Not fancy or expensive. They missed out.
I guess they are back in the big city...with fancy food!
I hate sushi. BUT, I'll take the tempura, thanks :-)
Even though I lived in Mexico for a year, and know what authentic Mexican food is, I love the Americanized version of Mexican food, where you just smother a ton of cheese on it and call it good.
But, I grew up during the 1950's casserole era. Perhaps it's like comfort food to me. Throw some tomato sauce on it, and/or a ton of cheese and I'm a happy camper.
I'm an easy keeper :-)
Plus, doesn't Olive Garden still have the bottomless salad bowl? I loved that. Haven't been to one in years.
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