The Fast Food Thread

McCheese

McCheese

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Jysin_sl said:
Yes and no. Stuff like spaghetti noodles can be boxed. But any stuffed pasta like ravioli, etc are all pre-cooked and frozen then shipped to the Olive Garden restaurants. I think the Olive Garden / Red Lobster comparison is pretty good, though frozen seafood is far worse than frozen pasta. I'd take Olive Garden any day of the week over Red Lobster.
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That's exactly what I'm saying. Olive Garden's stuffed pastas (ravioli, canneloni, stuffed shells, etc.) are all pre-packaged, frozen, and shipped. I almost guarantee that 99% of mom and pop places also bring in those same frozen, pre-packaged stuffed pastas.

Most of them do that with their desserts, too. I have literally seen the same brand boxes of white chocolate raspberry cheesecake, tiramisu, and lemon cream cakes being unloaded at Mom and Pop places that I saw in the freezer at Olive Garden. It kills me when people rave that such-and-such little place has amazing ravioli, or tiramisu, when it's quite literally the same exact shit you get at Olive Garden or other big chain Italian places.

Now, if you go to a truly upscale establishment you might actually get some in-house stuffed pastas and freshly made desserts, but that is NOT the majority of mom and pop Italian joints.
 
BrutulTM

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There is a family owned restaurant in my town here that has some pretty unique pizza and a few of us on a local message board started talking about it and wondering if we could get the recipe until a former employee posted and it was something along the lines of "Sysco pizza crust #11 and Sysco pizza sauce #6 or something like that. Sort of disappointing but I still like the pizza.

And I agree that OG is way better than Red Lobster just because pasta is way harder to fuck up than seafood. I only ate at Red Lobster once because my impression was that it was the same shit you get at Long John Silver's for twice the price.
 
Noodleface

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Olive Garden is fuckin' great, and now you can buy dinner and take home a meal for the price of a single meal - fuck yeah.

The food isn't bad at all (I am Italian). Sure it's frozen and re-heated shit, but it tastes good. The breadsticks are fucking awesome. My only real problem with Olive Garden is they're way too expensive for what they serve. If they aligned more with the $10 meal that you find in most american chain restaurants they'd do much better.

Also they got rid of Garlic Chicken Con Brocolli so fuck them.
 
Fight

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Olive Garden should put a drive through window on all their stores and have a limited/express menu to choose from. That might turn the franchise around.
 
Soygen

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Fight_sl said:
Olive Garden should put a drive through window on all their stores and have a limited/express menu to choose from. That might turn the franchise around.
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It would also then be "on topic" for this thread.
 
McCheese

McCheese

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I believe I've mentioned it here in this thread before, but Olive Garden is mostly NOT frozen and reheated shit.

For example, all of the soups that they serve were made mostly from scratch from fresh ingredients each morning. For the zuppa Toscana they'd ground up the sausage, slice the potatoes, and tear up and add the kale, for example. They kept a constant cauldron of pasta boiling, and it might sit for a few minutes in a pre-portioned baggy before being brought from the back of the house to the line to be added to food, but it never sat for hours or got frozen and reheated. Lasagnas were made fresh each morning and throughout the day by hand, with people layering out the noodles, cheese, and sauces. Leftover stuff was never frozen and reused the next day. All of this was the same at two different locations I worked at, and I imagine except for the absolute most shitty locations it is similar everywhere else.

*Edit* The only frozen and reheated stuff were the stuffed pastas, which as I mentioned a few posts ago, is standard practice for pretty much ALL Italian places that don't require you to take out a second mortgage to eat there.
 
Noodleface

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I wonder if it has changed much since you worked there though. I remember Olive Garden being amazing quality and tasting incredible (and worth the price), now it is way different - they even changed their logo and are doing that B1G1 meal thing. They can't be doing well, and I imagine they have had to cut corners. I mention the frozen stuff because a cook recently did an AMA on reddit and he said almost everything was frozen now.
 
McCheese

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speaking of drive-thrus, little caesars has a drive thru. That's the first drive thru for a pizza place that I've ever seen. I went into it by accident and was like wtf.
 
Soygen

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All the Little Caesars around here are in plaza/strip malls. I don't think they can put a drive through in them.
 
lurkingdirk

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Yeah, drive through pizza is weird.

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Frenzied Wombat

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NoodleAnus_sl said:
Olive Garden is fuckin' great, and now you can buy dinner and take home a meal for the price of a single meal - fuck yeah.

The food isn't bad at all (I am Italian). Sure it's frozen and re-heated shit, but it tastes good. The breadsticks are fucking awesome. My only real problem with Olive Garden is they're way too expensive for what they serve. If they aligned more with the $10 meal that you find in most american chain restaurants they'd do much better.

Also they got rid of Garlic Chicken Con Brocolli so fuck them.
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If you're Italian your Nonna would fucking hit you upside the head with the rolling pin she uses to make fresh Gnocchi each Sunday just for saying this. My ex-stepmother is Italian, and her mom would cook a fucking homemade feast each Sunday that would forever preclude anyone from even calling Olive Garden Italian food.

If anybody is in LA, check out Osteria Mozza. You'll never taste Italian so good.
 
Void

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I would be surprised if Olive Garden hadn't given in to "cheaper and faster" like most places. Back when I worked at Taco Bell (late '80s), everything was made fresh except the tortillas and the sauce (powder and water, but still yummy). I even had to cut fucking olives into slices (although those did come in a can, but that's pretty much the only way you buy olives in bulk, isn't it?). We'd be in there at 7am for a 10am opening, pressure-cooking beans, frying up shells, slicing tomatoes and onions, chopping lettuce, grating cheese, etc. The ground beef came in 10-lb tubes of real raw ground beef that we had to brown/cook in giant pans 20-30 lbs at a time, with taco sauce mixed in.

It was wonderful. It was almost exactly like making tacos at home with stuff you bought from the store. Now, from what I can tell (thankfully I haven't worked there since then), almost everything is pre-made and just needs to be poured out of whatever bag it comes in. The beans in particular taste like shit compared to the old way. I don't know exactly when they switched over, probably quite awhile ago, but there is a pretty noticeable difference between the taste and quality of stuff I made vs. what they make today. I'm sure they save a shitload of money though
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lurkingdirk

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What kind of retard uses a rolling pin to make gnocchi?

Also, someone made me get WhiteCastle burgers again. I just can't get into them. Largely because they're just disgusting.
 
Jysin

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Vvoid_sl said:
I would be surprised if Olive Garden hadn't given in to "cheaper and faster" like most places. Back when I worked at Taco Bell (late '80s), everything was made fresh except the tortillas and the sauce (powder and water, but still yummy). I even had to cut fucking olives into slices (although those did come in a can, but that's pretty much the only way you buy olives in bulk, isn't it?). We'd be in there at 7am for a 10am opening, pressure-cooking beans, frying up shells, slicing tomatoes and onions, chopping lettuce, grating cheese, etc. The ground beef came in 10-lb tubes of real raw ground beef that we had to brown/cook in giant pans 20-30 lbs at a time, with taco sauce mixed in.

It was wonderful. It was almost exactly like making tacos at home with stuff you bought from the store. Now, from what I can tell (thankfully I haven't worked there since then), almost everything is pre-made and just needs to be poured out of whatever bag it comes in. The beans in particular taste like shit compared to the old way. I don't know exactly when they switched over, probably quite awhile ago, but there is a pretty noticeable difference between the taste and quality of stuff I made vs. what they make today. I'm sure they save a shitload of money though
frown.png
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That didn't last long then. My stint at the Bell in 94/95 had us chopping tomatoes (in a machine), shredding lettuce, tipping olives out of a can, etc but most of the rest was premade. Refried beans were dried (just add boiling water). All meat products were in plastic bags which we put in very large pots of boiling water to reheat then dump out of the bag into the prep line pan. The taco salad shells were fried every morning though. Pretty much everything else was pre-made in bags and reheated in various methods. Sauces were all "add X cups hot water".

I'd be curious how it is all done today.
 
BrutulTM

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The pizza hut here has a drive thru pickup window. I think you have to call ahead first though.
 
Cybsled

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All the Pizza Huts around here are pretty much RIP, except for one that still survives near a strip of shady motels.

Anyways, for leftovers potential I usually do Chipolte by getting the burrito bowl, because they give you way more food than the other options. I usually eat like half for lunch then eat the other half later.
 
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Donatos has a drive-thru. I've never used it but I think it is really for pick-up only and not placing orders and waiting around.
 
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