Probably Rao's.

The chorus of the song Beans Taste Fine by Shel Silverstein:

After you've been having steak for a long time,
Beans, beans taste fine.
And after you've been drinking all that Chivas Regal,
You're gonna settle for a quart of cheap wine.
Well, the world is funny, and people are strange;
Man is a creature of constant change.
I said, after you've been having steak for a long time,
Beans... dirty ol' beans taste fine!

Sorta sums it all up nicely, I think!


Signor V.

Very Cool.

Let's see....the next time I am in Times Square should I go to Tony's DiNapoli or Olive Garden ?

I'm sooo confused!

I occasionally go to OG but never order pasta there- Usually just soup and salad. My Sicilian wife is a great cook but we are older now and she can't cook so much anymore. I know what GOOD Italian food tastes like. In NY you can get good stuff all over, but here in Dixie you can't. All of our 3-4 Italian restaurants are owned by Greeks. I hate Pizza Hut and never go there. but as Pizzaboy said above, they are very successful businesses. The best pizza I had here was the time my buddy fed expressed 2 pizzas and a bucket of wings from LaNova in Buffalo NY, an alleged mob operation. We can't even get good Italian bread or a lot of the cheeses and meats that we love. I've been spoiled

Never been to OG, and hope to never go.

I got sick once from eating at OG. I just went there Saturday night with 2 girls from HS.

ha ha ha....what a funny thread.

I used to live in NY, so I've been spoiled. After that, I lived in a town with a very small Italian population. I had a lot of friends there that loved Olive Garden, so I decided to try it. After finally getting in on my 4th try (the line was out the door the first three times), I found the food better compared to many of the other local Italian places and cleaner, too. It couldn't compare to good Italian food from NY, but I was thousands of miles away, so that wasn't an option.

Remember the final scene from Goodfellas, where Henry talked about ordering spaghetti and receiving noodles mixed with ketchup? I've been to places like that and OG blows them away. And check out television shows, Kitchen Nightmares (Gordon Ramsay) and Restaurant Impossible (Robert Irvine). They rescue restaurants, and a decent chunk of them are Italian.

Check out this Italian restaurant in Pennsylvania. Jump to 10:30, where Gordon Ramsay tastes the food. Then jump to 23:30, where Chef Ramsay is so disgusted, he closes the restaurant down for health reasons. Tell me an Olive Garden wouldn't be an improvement!

Point taken, especially with the crap you see on Restaurant Impossible before Irvine changes the menu.

I've never gone to Olive Garden. A month ago my sister and I went to Carino's. Not terrible, but sooooo much cheese and sugar in the sauce.

There is a place down here is Lafayette, LA, called Mike Aleisi's AKA Aliesi's Pizza. The guy moved here from Sicily some 30-40 years ago and opened up a restaurant. Needless to say 30 years later there is an Olive Garden, Carrabas, Johnny Carrinos, and other generic Italian places and this little business is STILL the most packed place and hands down best. Even in Louisiana if you have an authentic Italian that can cook, they will take it to the big chain restaurants every time.

I hate Olive garden some of the crappiest italian food I have ever eaten. I had a friend who went to NYC for about two weeks and during those two weeks he ate Olive garden every single day because " to worried and scared to try anything else". If I went to NYC I guarantee you that I will not be eating Olive garden.

A Mama Mia

Being from San Francisco I'm spoiled when it comes to Italian restaurants. There are plenty of great ones. I'll always remember my first visit to an Olive Garden. I was in Richmond VA on business and our hosts were taking us out for an "Italian" dinner. After a week of hotel and cafeteria food (this was my first encounter with fried baloney sandwiches too) I was looking forward to a great meal. Visions of antipasto and linguine vongole danced in my head. As we drove up to the mall I was looking for the restaurant when my hosts declared "we're here" as we parked outside Olive Garden. I was disappointed but realized that this was probably what passed for Italian in Richmond VA. I knew that closer to and in DC there were some great Italian places especially in Alexandria. I really don't remember what I had but I do remember that we had a GREAT time. Good drinks, good conversation with people who would become good friends and isn't that what it's all about?