The Top 40

And so it can be said for all fast food joints. The stuff is sh!t but there is usually lots of it.

Clearly, they've never eaten at Olive Garden.

Olive Garden came in second or third.

Is it great food? No, but it sits conveniently close to the movie theatre, and the food is good enough. For most establishments of this sort, that's all it takes.

Welp, someone gave us an Applebee's gift card for christmas so in a week or 2 we'll go there and I'm gonna chow down like a starvin' big dog. Then forget about them until the next gift card comes along.

Seriously, all restaurant food is waaaay overpriced. Fortunately we don't do it very often, maybe 4-5 times a year at most.

Applebee's is to "near the hotel" food what McDonald's is to "road" food. They are slop but generally consistent. I don't eat at either place in my home town. Red Lobster is the worst.

Now see there, hangin out with you all has once again broadened my education. I've seen the signs for those places but never been tempted to go in one. Somehow multi-story plastic logos repeated endlessly every time I get off an interstate don't say "once-in-a-lifetime gustatory opportunity" to me. Lack of imagination on my part, no doubt.

It's true I've saved myself hours of heartburn by taking "I'm not a foodie" to unheard-of levels of meaning; it's all just fuel to me, and like Woodie Guthrie is reputed to have once said to a rhapsodizing gourmand, "Well, the more you eat, the more you shit, I guess." So there's that.

The last time I heard somebody go on about a dining experience was when somebody here at the home told me his favorite memory was a joint called The Golden Corral, which sure did sound like a slop chute to me. Any opinions on that one?

Golden Corral= American Chinese food buffet. Better have a place to land when you leave or there might be trouble.

Every single one of these places is the same. If you walk in and everyone is busy doing something, everything will be OK. If the help is fucking off then they are doing the same in back.

I love Applebee's and am not ashamed to admit it. They have a mystery meat on the menu that is Soooo Good that I have it every time I go to one: Ribblets.

The Ribblets look like thumbs that have been smashed flat and have a semblance of luscious tender pork along with a sweet bar-b-q sauce to scrape off with one's teeth. It is a mess but oh soooo good.

Dan Kurt

p.s. What part of the pig is the mystery as to the origin of Ribblets.

Applebees has good food, randomly (they change the menu too much) but nothing in Olive Garden is very good and they charge a lot for it.

Dan: they don't waste anything in the meat processing plant. Think dick, balls, asshole, lips, snout.

Rob,

There's more to Golden Corral than "American Chinese food buffet", as bradoplata would have you believe.

The quality and the menu varies somewhat from location to location, but here in the Baltimore area they're clean, the food (generic American) is good, and the prices are reasonable.

Haute cuisine it ain't, but if you go away hungry, it's your own darn fault.

Hale Adams
Pikesville, People's still-mostly-Democratic Republic of Maryland

If you want to eat cheap, you are going to get some rather coarse food. Sucking on boiled pig dick might be a delicacy in your neighborhood, but I doubt it going to show up on menus across town.

The economy and American tastes have pretty much degraded American cuisine to a chain chow house trough.

If you eat in ANY place that won't let you see their kitchen, you are an IDIOT and probably will get sick at some point. They should be proud of how clean it is.

My uncle Letsgo The Bantam Chicken King Lozko did not travel much but when he did he would bring along a few hens, a charcoal grill and a frying pan. He always knew what he was eating.

He said: "You don't know where the itch is until you scratch it with your own hand".

Hale, I won't eat at Golden Corral again:

http://www.elitereaders.com/employee-exposes-golden-corral-disgusting-reality/

Yeah that's a manager problem, not a franchise problem though.

Its something to keep in mind with all restaurants: the owners and management can really affect the quality of food, and some days are just off days, too. So eating at one Applebee's and getting bad food might have been a bad day or a trainee chef, or one that had bad management. Doesn't condemn the whole chain.

But Olive Garden is just overpriced crappy Italian food. Their selling point is salad and bread sticks for crying out loud.

Olive Garden: Even the name blows porkypine balls.

All this talk of gore-may food, fooey. Go to White Castle and get a couple dozen sliders and wash 'em down with Schlitz. Done.
Food made for driving around, greasy hands slipping on the wheel and empty cans over the shoulder to the back seat. Lousy music played way too loud. This is America, ain't it? Ain't this America?

Not any more. Doin' what you're sayin' Chas will git you a ticket for distracted drivin'.

And an open container violation.

And it will offend some prissy bitch in the next lane at a traffic light.