"Dave Smith" > wrote in message
...
> On 2020-12-15 6:28 a.m., Cindy Hamilton wrote:
>> On Monday, December 14, 2020 at 8:30:47 PM UTC-5, dsi1 wrote:
>>> On Monday, December 14, 2020 at 3:01:49 PM UTC-10,
>> food things about St. Louis is Italian
>>>> restaurants. There are no pre-made meatballs. We seldom eat at
>>>> Italian restaurants here because they are pricey. Our favorite
>>>> Italian restaurant is in an unlikely locale, Eureka Springs,
>>>> Arkansas. https://ermilios.com/ It's easier to justify expensive
>>>> meals when one is on vacation. Eureka Springs is touristy, but
>>>> not cheesy like Branson, MO, more like a toy town, and they have
>>>> a neat old hotel. https://www.crescent-hotel.com/ There are
>>>> trolleys, little overpriced boutique shops, and it's all very
>>>> laid back.
>>>>
>>>> --Bryan
>>> The big news here is that The Olive Garden has opened up in
>>> Honolulu. We've never had one of these famous restaurants on da
>>> rock. I have gone to an Olive Garden once when I was at a seminar
>>> on the mainland. The instructor took the class out for lunch. I
>>> can't recall if it was in CA, MN, or FL. Like most restaurants, it
>>> was nothing special. I suppose it could have been special if I
>>> liked Italian food but I don't.
>>
>> Olive Garden has shitty Italian food. If you want good Italian food
>> you have to go to a restaurant where the cooking staff actually knows
>> something about what they're doing and the food is made on the
>> premises, not defrosted or dispensed from 55-gallon drums.
>>
>> Only an idiot judges a cuisine by the output of a chain restaurant.
>
> I have had more Italian food in independently run restaurants than in
> chains. There is the occasional "upscale" Italian restaurant where the
> food is pretty good, but in most places around here, Italian restaurants
> sell various shapes of pasta with variations of red sauce, chicken
> parmesan and pizza.
>
> While I disparage the run of the mill Italian restaurants I have
> experienced I have to say that I had an outstanding meal at a place in
> Newport Beach CA. I had shrimp risotto and it was incredible. Everyone
> else loved their meals.One of our party was Italian and he was impressed
> as the rest of us.

I too have eaten at a wonderful place there but I can't remember the name.
The meal came with a salad. The salad was out of this world! All kinds of
veggies, cheese, beans, olives and red onions sliced so thin, I don't know
how they did it.

The problem for me was that the salad was so filling, I couldn't eat a meal.
Angela was just a toddler then. The two of us would share one meal but we
couldn't come close to finishing it. She loved the salad too. Normally my
husband would finish whatever food we didn't eat, but the portions were so
large, he could only eat a bite of two of our food. We lived too far away to
take the food home safely. Otherwise, we would have.