Food and Drinks at Chain Restaurants

Last night we went to a restaurant called 'Bonefish'. We've been hearing good things so we tried it. First of all it was packed, we waited 40 minutes for a table. Part of the time we sat at the bar, I tried a pineapple martini (very refreshing, but light on vodka), I'm glad it wasn't strong but still, it was a $10 drink. You can buy a lot of ripple for ten bucks.

Dinner was disappointing, we had shrimp and scallops....scallops were mushy and shrimp was salty. I couldn't eat the potatoes because they were so salty and tasted like a block of cheddar. I also had to give up on the spinach because the garlic overpowered the veggie. I like garlic but pheww.

I've been on a course of antibiotics so I thought maybe they altered my taste, but mr. g'bag couldnt eat his either and he always belongs to the clean plate club.

Is salt now one of the food groups?

I prefer the chains, since it allows me to observe the patrons in their natural dining habitat. I feel like Erving Goffman.

Being in New York has some perks, still plenty of regular restaurants around. The down side is it's New York, so in many spots the prices are obscene!

Never been to a Red Lobster or Olive Garden, quite frankly their commercials alone sicken me. I'd have to be dragged in kicking, screaming and knocking over chairs and tables before eating in them.

Salt...yes, it is the new food group, a must apparently for all good cooks. A least that seems to be the message from most cooking shows. Even when the meal being prepared has a ton of salt already in it from cheese and bacon or other things, the judging people whine about how it needs more salt. Salt essentially obscures the natural flavors of food. If a person doesn't like the taste in it's natural state, they should not cook, order or eat it! Add salt only in limited quantity. Some people start pouring it on before even tasting the food.

I'm from NYC also. I once ate in a chain--Burger King. Never again.

Every place I eat--some semi-pricey, some not--is an independent restaurant/deli/diner/etc.

I miss the independents, the chains are just offering sameness. I live in Annapolis between Washington D. C. And Baltimore. We used to go out about 3.times a week and it was wonderful. But now, even the chains are pricy and your right Sturgis, you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming into a red lobster. This area was famous for seafood, best crab cakes, oysters and Rockfish. Near the Mall they built a restaurant park and I was stunned when they opened a Red Lobster, and I chuckled....hahahaha...I figured it was doomed with all the fabulous seafood restaurants nearby. Well 15 years later and you still see people standing in line outside, waiting to get in for a lovely dinner of frozen seafood. Bleachhhh.

Yes. Ms. Longtime Foodie since before foodie was a word, know several good restaurants in Albuquerque, starting for me with Indigo Crow, but that is just one among others. Walter Hinteler and, another time, Bernie and Jane have been there with us too. (I went there with Roger once, and he was right, we were treated poorly). Alternately, friends from LA were enthused. Both we probably right.

Diane and I like Brava Cucina, which is uptown, as well. The place where Roger and Cowdoc and I had lunch mid town (I'm forgetting the name but I'll go check). Just a sammich place, plus bakery, but a good one.

Albuquerque has some aspects like Los Angeles. Being a Los Angelina, I'm fond of hole in the wall restaurants/cafes run by families that were immigrants when first here (though that is arguable re who was in California first, re migrations).

I'm a steady fan of Jonathan Gold: he wrote previously for the NY Times, I think, and now for the LA Times, both papers with paywalls at this time. Still, I blow a click on Jonathan Gold once in a while. My cohorts, that is, my husband and our friend Harvey and I used to roam the LA region and sometimes beyond for good small food places.

In between LA and ABQ, I lived in Eureka, in Northern California. They had quite a good number of local places with good chefs, accessible and comfortable, and not wild pricey.

One thing going on in Albuquerque is that for some amount of time I couldn't get a hamburger with medium rare or rare meat. Lotta fear of dangerous meat out there, some of that warranted. But some places here do pop for the well raised/handled meat, and I just learned that Flying Star will serve medium rare or rare. Yay.

Flying Star is another Albuquerque place where a2kers have gathered several times. There is more than one restaurant in differing Abq areas, but I wouldn't call it a chain. In one of them they let dogs in the patio area with places to attach the lead (one of the locations has a stone outdoor fireplace, on in winter).

Geez, I sure am sorry Katy dog didn't meet the CowDocs.

I've been to Olive Garden once, in the seventies, in Santa Barbara.. Never again.

Chain, chain, chain..... chain of fools.

ok, that's just my view.

I was in a Red Lobster on a date. No memory of who the date was, but I remember the Red Lobster was on the boulevard that crossed Sepulveda, the main drag to LAX, the airport. What year? hard to guess. Nevah again.

I bet you can't find an Olive Garden restaurant in Rome.

Snort! gads, I hope not, but they do apparently have more than one MacDonalds. I'm an early member of whatsit, SlowFood, have a wee gold snail pin. That's from years ago, but one of my best meals on my last trip was in a tower place in Viterbo. They weren't pushy, I just saw some pamphlets on my way to the rest room. I joined Slow Food for a while, but I'm not a monied person, that trip my last, and stopped.

Not if they couldn't compete with Domino's

A year ago Christmas, we were given an Olive Garden gift card. We still have it somewhere, but I don't feel inclined to look for it. Last time I ate out with my daughter, we went to a fine place in the Woodlands and had some real food.

We have only very few restaurant chains here, besides the burger chains there are Subways, autobahn-restaurants, petrol station restaurants, IKEA-restaurants, department store restaurants and a fish shop chain (with a restaurant - or often the other way around)

If you want more than burgers, aren't a rush or shopping (or both), you go in one of the various restaurants you find even in smaller places (or to a Greek/Italian/Turkish restaurant)


For lunch, I prefer the restaurants in supermarkets, often run by local butcheries (and in France, we often have even dinner at the supermarket restaurants).

Am I missing something?

We don't get chains in this town unless you count MacDonalds , CFC, Piza Hut and Dominoes as restaurants ( most people can't even spell their names hereabouts).

I was only in Germany long enough to stay overnight (arrived late) then fly out in the morning. But mr. G'bag was on business several times in Germany. He fell in love with the food and beer. That's actually a surprise because he seldom drinks and if he does it's just one then off to water.

One of my great uncles came from Germany and my grandmother lived with them for about 12 years (long story). She learned how to make devine saurbauten and dumplings, and there were a few other specialties like a warm potato salad and a lovely slaw. She was a wonderful cook, she cooked with love.

We are just getting swamped with terrible salty chains. Everything is deep fried, salty or smothered in the wrong type of cheese....it's just better to prepare meals at home. I'm actually thrilled that Germany isn't saturated with artifial food, and I'm jealous that we aren't s lucky.

I don't know where you live but we have been over run by chain Chinese food, Mexican, Italian, so-called American, California Pizza Kitchens, Outbacks, and a number I can't think of, but they mostly are salty, fatty, over-processed, just entirely unsatisfying. Think of Pizza on steroids for 400% higher cost.

I have been in a small restaurant/bistro/bar/café in the museum's district in Bonn a couple of times - they have a notice on the menu that due to "insurance reasons and labour laws" their kitchen staff isn't allowed and can't open tins nor packages of deep frozen food.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/mcdonalds-vatican-city-opens-rome-anger-catholic-cardinals-residents-fast-food-italy-branch-a7509396.html

I did notice a building signed "Olive Garden" in Southampton High Street the other day, but I don't know if it's part of the American chain or even a restaurant come to think of it.

Oh Izzy, if it's a restaurant, don't go. Their idea of Italian food is unrecognizable.