Watching Batali & Scott do their Iron Chef with cheese while writing this.
I've never seen the chefs scurry so fast. I'm also cheering for Mario.

Today was a shopping day, so decided to eat out at the newest restaurant in
Winchester (Olive Garden) and an espresso at Borders, the new Borders
without windows in the coffee shop! Since there was no one ordering I
decided to decide what a double espresso really cost there. It was not
easy.

In a 12 oz. cup, a single shot is $1.70; one additional shot with the single
shot is $.55 making it $2.25.
In a 16 oz. cup, a double is $1.95.
Now don't ask me what an Americano is, that's a whole different ball game.

So -- I ordered a double espresso in a 16 oz. cup, asking for about 1/4 cup
of HOT water. I discussed with the person that I liked hot coffee the
reason that I wanted a little water with the espresso. The person gave us a
porcelain cup for our espressos (DH ordered same). Joy did not last long --
the person had put cold water into the espresso.

As we were getting a new Mp3 player installed in our car we had time to go
to Olive Garden -- we had planned it this way -- even though it was around
1:00 pm, it looked like an hour's wait. We went back at 2:00 and were
served at 2:30. DH ordered steak with noodles with alfredo/gorgonzola.
Quite good. Me -- cheese raviolis -- nothing to write home about, but
edible. Salad not as good as the I remember a few years back, I've never
liked the little soft long garlic rolls. The wine that they were serving
for $4.95 & $5.95 a glass I was familiar with and would not buy the wine for
private use. So I decided to try the $3.25 per glass house brand and it
wasn't bad, so we both had a glass. No coffee, no dessert. Lunch with 1
glass wine each with tax and tip, a little over $37.00. They have a
different menu at night.

Since they have such an overwhelming amount of customers they are glad that
Red Lobster will be coming soon. We'll try that once and just stick with
straight fish -- no noodles.

Yahoo!!!! 53 Batali; Campbell 40!!!!
On to Emeril making Comfort Foods, making a kicked up green bean
casserole --- you be the judge - I wouldn't consider that a comfort food;
others might.
Dee Dee

Dee Randall wrote:
> Watching Batali & Scott do their Iron Chef with cheese while writing this.
> I've never seen the chefs scurry so fast. I'm also cheering for Mario.
>
> Today was a shopping day, so decided to eat out at the newest restaurant in
> Winchester (Olive Garden) and an espresso at Borders, the new Borders
> without windows in the coffee shop! Since there was no one ordering I
> decided to decide what a double espresso really cost there. It was not
> easy.
>
> In a 12 oz. cup, a single shot is $1.70; one additional shot with the single
> shot is $.55 making it $2.25.
> In a 16 oz. cup, a double is $1.95.
> Now don't ask me what an Americano is, that's a whole different ball game.

I like Americano, with heavy cream and Splenda. That's a nice way to
make coffee.
>
> So -- I ordered a double espresso in a 16 oz. cup, asking for about 1/4 cup
> of HOT water. I discussed with the person that I liked hot coffee the
> reason that I wanted a little water with the espresso. The person gave us a
> porcelain cup for our espressos (DH ordered same). Joy did not last long --
> the person had put cold water into the espresso.
>
> As we were getting a new Mp3 player installed in our car we had time to go
> to Olive Garden -- we had planned it this way -- even though it was around
> 1:00 pm, it looked like an hour's wait. We went back at 2:00 and were
> served at 2:30. DH ordered steak with noodles with alfredo/gorgonzola.
> Quite good. Me -- cheese raviolis -- nothing to write home about, but
> edible. Salad not as good as the I remember a few years back, I've never
> liked the little soft long garlic rolls. The wine that they were serving
> for $4.95 & $5.95 a glass I was familiar with and would not buy the wine for
> private use. So I decided to try the $3.25 per glass house brand and it
> wasn't bad, so we both had a glass. No coffee, no dessert. Lunch with 1
> glass wine each with tax and tip, a little over $37.00. They have a
> different menu at night.
>
> Since they have such an overwhelming amount of customers they are glad that
> Red Lobster will be coming soon. We'll try that once and just stick with
> straight fish -- no noodles.

Aren't Olive Garden and Red Lobster the same company?
>
> Dee Dee

--Bryan

>As we were getting a new Mp3 player installed in our car we had time to go
>to Olive Garden
I wonder if the best Olive Garden in the world is in Italy. :-)

"Abe" > wrote in message
...
> >As we were getting a new Mp3 player installed in our car we had time to
> >go
>>to Olive Garden
> I wonder if the best Olive Garden in the world is in Italy. :-)

There is no question about that.
Need plane fare.
Dee Dee

>> I wonder if the best Olive Garden in the world is in Italy. :-)

> There is no question about that.
> Need plane fare.

I just got back from Italy and I'll tell you, the food is worse than
Olive Garden (at least where I went: Venice, Florence, Milan). There
are soooo many tourists that they can serve any kind of cr@p and still
stay in business. Sure, there are good restaurants, but they were
quite expensive and off the beaten track.

I can't really complain: prosciutto or grilled vegetable sandwiches
were just a couple bucks, and Campari soda or prosecco (local
champagne) washed them down. But I never ate so many sandwiches in my
life, and by week three I was *dying* for a plate of spaghetti with a
nice marinara sauce.

In article .com>,
says...
> I just got back from Italy and I'll tell you, the food is worse than
> Olive Garden (at least where I went: Venice, Florence, Milan). There
> are soooo many tourists that they can serve any kind of cr@p and still
> stay in business. Sure, there are good restaurants, but they were
> quite expensive and off the beaten track.
>
> I can't really complain: prosciutto or grilled vegetable sandwiches
> were just a couple bucks, and Campari soda or prosecco (local
> champagne) washed them down. But I never ate so many sandwiches in my
> life, and by week three I was *dying* for a plate of spaghetti with a
> nice marinara sauce.

I never heard anything so ridiculous in my entire life. If you go to
Italy and can't find excellent cheap food you have only yourself to
blame. It's like going to Germany and complaining about the beer.

--
Peter Aitken

> I never heard anything so ridiculous in my entire life. If you go to
> Italy and can't find excellent cheap food you have only yourself to
> blame. It's like going to Germany and complaining about the beer.

First, let me ask a question. Why are people here so quick to negate
-- not refute, not question -- other peoples' opinions? Aside from the
sheer egotistical gall of it, hasn't anybody ever heard of TACT? There
are polite ways to question somebody's veracity, and the word
"ridiculous" doesn't feature in any of them. For the second time in
two days I find my opinion being leapt on by some clueless yahoo, and
frankly I thought this was a nicer newsgroup than that.

Mr. Aitken, do me a favor: Go to Google and search for "+venice +italy
+food +overpriced +tourist." You'll get four hundred hits. The first
one says "And to be honest, no-one goes to Venice for the food. It is
among the least interesting in Italy, little more than nosh if it’s
authentic, and often very ... "

We'll never know what Venetian food is often very, because the page is
gone, but anybody who scored over a hundred on their SATs will probably
guess the next word is "bad."

The second hit, at epinions, says "Expensive and lousy food, tourist
traps." And another one farther down says "Venice has a reputation for
having uninspired restauranteurs. It's the only place in Italy where
you long to return to America for food. . . ." Gosh, which is EXACTLY
what I said.

In the future, Mr. Aitken, stay the hell away from my posts until
you've learned some manners. I have better things to do that argue
with egotistical little yahoos.

Peter A wrote:

>
> I never heard anything so ridiculous in my entire life. If you go to
> Italy and can't find excellent cheap food you have only yourself to
> blame. It's like going to Germany and complaining about the beer.
>

Maybe you need more time than I had. We were travelling on a rail pass and
had to ration our time because we got shanghaied by relatives in
Switzerland. My wife insisted on Venice so we had to spend a long day on
the train across northern Italy to Venice and then had to go all the way
back to Paris and wanted to stop in Nice on the way. We ended up in Venice
for one night. We ate at a place right on the Grand Canal. This was 13
years ago, 1993. Dinner was not grandiose, no appetizers, only one person
had desert. We had a bottle of wine and one soft drink, two coffees. I still
have the bill 315,000 Lire... 1,000 lire to the dollar..... $315 for a
mediocre dinner for three.

> wrote in message
oups.com...
>>> I wonder if the best Olive Garden in the world is in Italy. :-)
>
>> There is no question about that.
>> Need plane fare.
>
> I just got back from Italy and I'll tell you, the food is worse than
> Olive Garden (at least where I went: Venice, Florence, Milan). There
> are soooo many tourists that they can serve any kind of cr@p and still
> stay in business. Sure, there are good restaurants, but they were
> quite expensive and off the beaten track.
>
> I can't really complain: prosciutto or grilled vegetable sandwiches
> were just a couple bucks, and Campari soda or prosecco (local
> champagne) washed them down. But I never ate so many sandwiches in my
> life, and by week three I was *dying* for a plate of spaghetti with a
> nice marinara sauce.
>
I can believe what you say. We were in Florence many, many years ago and
there were so many people on the streets and in the stores that you could
hardly move. I would never want to go there again. We went to Verona,
looked at our hotel -- I still remember the name -- Romeo and Juliet --
cancelled, had a coffee at the concert stadium in the middle of the town
where we were forced to listen to the music blaring out of the forum which
gave us a complete headache and we high-tailed it to Riva del Garden -- Ah,
I relive those few days at Riva often.
Now that I look back on that 3 week trip I can recall nothing exceptionally
about the food; but I was not so aware of food at that time.
Thanks for your travel-log -- I love to hear these little personal travel
stories.
Dee Dee

> We were in Florence many, many years ago and there were
> so many people on the streets and in the stores that you could
> hardly move. *I would never want to go there again.

Dee, that's my sentiment exactly. I know *somebody* told me to go
there, but when I got home everybody pleaded the Fifth. All my friends
said they hated it, for those exactly reasons. The streets are too
small, it's too crowded, there are AGGRESSIVE bums and drunks, and huge
speeding tour buses and suicidal kids on Vespas ready to flatten
anybody who lets their mind drift for a second.

Venice, on the other hand, is absolute heaven on earth. I went there
during some magical window: it was warm enough I didn't need a jacket
(well, for a couple days), and there were NO tourists. I've been to
some great places -- Paris, London, south of France, San Francisco --
and nowhere comes close to Venice. Honestly, for the rest of my life
I'm going to be haunted by its startling, unbelievable beauty.

wrote:
> >> I wonder if the best Olive Garden in the world is in Italy. :-)
>
> > There is no question about that.
> > Need plane fare.
>
> I just got back from Italy and I'll tell you, the food is worse than
> Olive Garden (at least where I went: Venice, Florence, Milan).
[...]
> by week three I was *dying* for a plate of spaghetti with a
> nice marinara sauce.

They don't do that in the northern part of Italy.

There's a great northern-italian restaurant in Phoenix called Tomaso's
that has had to screw up its menu because people don't understand that
pasta isn't their schtick. Luckily, they couldn't make a good pizza,
so that never got on there too. There are a hundred places to get
baked ziti around here; this one should have its niche and not have to
worry about losing customers who "don't get what they were expecting."

--Blair

>> just got back from Italy and I'll tell you, the food is worse than
Olive Garden (at least where I went: Venice, Florence, Milan). There
are soooo many tourists that they can serve any kind of cr@p and still
stay in business. Sure, there are good restaurants, but they were
quite expensive and off the beaten track. <<

If you wanted to make bucks off a bunch of tourists from around the
world, where would you put it? Beaten track sound good? Venice and
Florence both are so small it isn't hard to get off that track!
Anybody who wants to come to Italy should check out www.slowtrav.com
where you will find enormous resources to keep you from wasting your
money in bad restaurants that are there primarily to feed cheap food to
people who don't know any better. The big three, Rome, Venice and
Florence, abound in places to take some moola off you because you
didn't bother to find out where to go.
Out of those three places depend on local eaters more and are pretty
reliable.
Food is expensive here, and so is fuel and labor, so we pay more for a
simple meal, but I know 100s of restaurants where I can get a full meal
with bottled water and house wine for €10-15, more for fish. If I am
going to a city I don't yet know well, I check out the reviews on
slowtrav first.

In article >,
"Dee Randall"

> Since they have such an overwhelming amount of customers they are glad that
> Red Lobster will be coming soon. We'll try that once and just stick with
> straight fish -- no noodles.

Both were owned by General Mills before they spun off their restaurants
to Darden Corporation. (I think that's the name.) I like the OG salad.

Best walleye I ever had was at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. :-)
--
-Barb
<www.jamlady.eboard.com> Updated 3-21-2006 Hot Stuff!

"If it's not worth doing to excess, it's not worth doing at all."