Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[dnjan]

The front desk at Wild Ginger in Seattle will ask you if they can take your coat and hat.
As will Canlis.

Both have wine lists that are long enough that they really should be read ahead of time (numbers in the thousands).

Perhaps there is a correlation ...

 

[Flicka]

Both have wine lists that are long enough that they really should be read ahead of time (numbers in the thousands).

In places I trust, I don't even open the wine list. I'll ask the sommelier for recommendations.

 

[dnjan]

In places I trust, I don't even open the wine list. I'll ask the sommelier for recommendations.

And those places have coat/hat checks!

I always thought that Wine was the key to everything! (especially around the second or third glass!)

 

[LizzieMaine]

This is kind of a "foodie" town, with restaurants second only to art galleries as our number one industry, but of the dozens of places to eat, from greasy spoons to trendy tourist-oriented I'll-take-your-word-for-it-that-stuff-is-food places, they all have a single thing in common: there isn't any place to put your coat and hat. Of course, the trend now is not only not to wear a hat, but also not to wear a coat. The overwhelming majority of people, no matter what the occasion, go around in those short ski jackets, which they drape over the backs of their chairs while eating. If they wear a hat, it's either a ski cap or one of those trendy variations of the Army jeep cap, and they stuff it in their pocket. Classy.

 

[jamespowers]

Coat and hat checks. Just discussed it at work today. I had told my friend that he should take his girlfriend somewhere nice for her birthday. He told me he took her to the Olive Garden and I said that I meant someplace fancy, with a dress code and a coat and hat check. He told me those places don't exist anymore.

Olive Garden?! That is a place you go to with your mother-in-law not your girlfriend.

 

[Wally_Hood]

Olive Garden?! That is a place you go to with your mother-in-law not your girlfriend.

That, sir, was brutal.

 

[jamespowers]

That, sir, was brutal.

:rofl: I never liked that place. Mall food.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Hmmm... never been to Olive Garden. Been meaning to try it out.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's my mother's favorite restaurant. "One of them places where when you order ice tea, it comes with the tea bag right in the glass, stead o' bein' mixed up from a jar."

 

[John in Covina]

It's my mother's favorite restaurant. "One of them places where when you order ice tea, it comes with the tea bag right in the glass, stead o' bein' mixed up from a jar."

Makes me think of a Simpson's episode. bart is tracking stolen lemons and accosts a kid with a lemonade stand.

Bart: Where'd you get the lemons?!
Kid: It's Country Time lemonade, there are no lemons in it!!!!

 

[John in Covina]

In respect to the Olive Garden, I have not eaten there in many years BUT!

One of the things that has created a sense of production lunch even at many non-chain restaurants is the use of prepared foods of supposed restaurant quality. In our area Smart and Final has many of these platoon sized cartons and containers of "restaurant" quality items. One that always seems to just disappoint every time is Potato Salad. It is often undercooked potatoes with the consistancy of a raw turnip. Also so many preprepared foods use bell peppers as a filler. I am "sensative to most bell peppers and wind up feeling like I have been stabbed in the stomach by a beserker. It's the mystery food since it was not made tby the cook or the various chefs nobody knows they are in there.

Pre-prepared restaurant quality food sucks the life out of us with ingredients no home ever had and chemicals that are a step away from toxic plastics.

 

[jamespowers]

In respect to the Olive Garden, I have not eaten there in many years BUT!

One of the things that has created a sense of production lunch even at many non-chain restaurants is the use of prepared foods of supposed restaurant quality. In our area Smart and Final has many of these platoon sized cartons and containers of "restaurant" quality items. One that always seems to just disappoint every time is Potato Salad. It is often undercooked potatoes with the consistancy of a raw turnip. Also so many preprepared foods use bell peppers as a filler. I am "sensative to most bell peppers and wind up feeling like I have been stabbed in the stomach by a beserker. It's the mystery food since it was not made tby the cook or the various chefs nobody knows they are in there.

Pre-prepared restaurant quality food sucks the life out of us with ingredients no home ever had and chemicals that are a step away from toxic plastics.

That describes Olive Garden well. It ain't real Italian food even though they try to make is sound like some old time Italian restaurant. Yeah right.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

But then again most Italian food in this country isn't real Italian. I read somewhere that a lot of what we consider Italian is practically unheard of in Italy.

 

[jamespowers]

But then again most Italian food in this country isn't real Italian. I read somewhere that a lot of what we consider Italian is practically unheard of in Italy.

Olive Garden food is from Mars.

 

[John in Covina]

But then again most Italian food in this country isn't real Italian. I read somewhere that a lot of what we consider Italian is practically unheard of in Italy.

Lidia Bastianich (Lidia's Italy on PBS) has done a number of seasons of real EYE-talian cooking with trips to regions and cities that are the name sake of many dishes. She is doing a program that takes on the American interpretations of Italian cooking. I seen it on one of the local SoCal PBS stations.

I also saw a program where a young NJ woman was using sweet n low as a key ingredient for her family spaghetti sauce. Crimeny - Sweet N low! Oh how we have fallen.

 

[jamespowers]

I also saw a program where a young NJ woman was using sweet n low as a key ingredient for her family spaghetti sauce. Crimeny - Sweet N low! Oh how we have fallen.

:rofl: Like sugar was going to kill her.

 

[LizzieMaine]

What we eat here is Italian-American food, popularized by immigrants around the turn of the century. Ettore Boiardi was one such immigrant, who began selling a jarred spaghetti sauce in the 1920s and parlayed it into a packaged "Italian Food" empire by the 1940s. For most Americans not living in the North End of Boston, this was the "Italian Food" of the Era.

You know him, of course, as Chef Boy-Ar-Dee.

 

[dnjan]

What's sad, is one frequently finds "... -Americano" at food places (I hesitate to use the word "restaurant") in touristy parts of italy. This is a multi-course (usually three) meal assembled to meet the expectations of Americans. So the American tourists can eat what they expect to eat.
And never learn what Italian food really is.

 

[scottyrocks]

Olive Garden food is from Mars.

I think OG has major stock in the salt mining industry.

 

[MisterCairo]

That describes Olive Garden well. It ain't real Italian food even though they try to make is sound like some old time Italian restaurant. Yeah right.

The whole chain up and closed across Canada a number of years ago. It's an odd feeling when we see an American commercial for it on tv and go, "oh, ya, THAT place!".