Olive Garden Italian Restaurants

Top Chef: Seattle Episode 6 Recap: Nobody Likes a Dry Taco

Lots of Top Chef QuickFires and elimination challenges are sponsored by brands (it's a TV show, product placement happens), but this week was especially annoying. See also: Top Chef: Seattle Episode 5 Recap: The Ginger Curse Is Real Truvia sponsored the QuickFire, and the prize for the Eliminatio ... More >>

Blue Mesa at the Ballpark: Tex-Mex Chain Plots Arlington Expansion and Uptown Spin-off

News out of Cowtown via the Star-Tele is that Blue Mesa Grill is planning on opening a new restaurant at Lincoln Square just west of the Ballpark in Arlington this fall, to capitalize on sports traffic in the area. President Jim Baron said the new Blue Mesa Grill in Arlington is in a very "tried a ... More >>

Over Dinner at a Fort Worth Olive Garden, Michelle Obama Heard All About Oak Cliff

​Maybe you saw KXAS-Channel 5 last night -- why, yes, that was Jason Roberts and wife Andrea seated next to First Lady Michelle Obama at a Fort Worth Olive Garden last night. But, but ... how'd the would-be congressional candidate and the missus land the seats? And what did they talk about? Beside ... More >>

WhataFail: How Some Dallas Restaurants Treat Their Employees

Restaurant Opportunities Centers United has released a new restaurant guide. The 52-page guide makes no mention of food quality, ingredient sourcing, or a customer's dining experience, but instead focuses on how well restaurants treat their employees. Wages, benefits and advancement opportunities ar ... More >>

At Deli News, the Bagel and Lox Just Might Make You Forget You Live in a Deli Wasteland

Alexander Nham writes about breakfast for City of Ate. It's not his full-time job, though. Although that would be a sweet full-time job. Moving from north to south has been tough, no way around it. Some things I take as a birthright are nowhere to be found around Dallas: Italian beef, salted road w ... More >>

Italian Eats, Stackhouse Love, and a Cheap-Ass Sandwich: This Week in Dallas Grubbing

​Ugh. On the heels of a massive bowl of Pho with a Dallas Super Yelper (more on that next week), I'm ready for a quiet night at home. I wonder how many minutes I'll last alone on my couch before I get the bug to get out and look for something to interesting to eat. I give myself till 7:30 tops ... More >>

Can Mormons Be Trusted? A Shallow Guide to Managing Your Most Ill-Informed Fears.

Mitt Romney CampaignConcerns have been raised over Mormonism's decision to move to Cleveland. Because, you know, it's Cleveland.​Last month evangelical leaders gathered in D.C. for the Values Voter Summit, where disciples of the Pissed-Off Jesus harrumphed and yammered about how much America sucke ... More >>

Café San Miguel: A Failed Restaurant Through the Eyes Of Yelp

Cafe San Miguel's star rating rocketed from two to nearly four stars in two months​City of Ate had just posted its monthly revolving doors column when the Dallas Morning News reported on the closing of Cafe San Miguel yesterday. The owners sent out an email to diners saying, "After making a ho ... More >>

Eddie V's Chef Brad Albers on the Best Food City in the World (And Dallas, Too)

​Chef Brad Albers is charged with keeping everyone fat and happy at Eddie V's in Dallas, a job at which he seems to excel. Originally from Dallas, he attended the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco followed by an unplanned German-language immersion program in Switzerland, where he le ... More >>

Anthony Bourdain On Colbert: Another Interview In Which Colbert Defangs His Guest

The Colbert Report has some of the funniest writers on TV, but the interviews tend to make me uncomfortable. That may be the point, part of Colbert's send up of American punditry, but I still feel a little bad for the guests, whose tours of self-promotion always run smack into a starred-and-stripe ... More >>

Small-Town Muckraker Joey Dauben Will Run the World Some Day. Just Ask Him.

In the little towns outside of Dallas, publisher and aspiring politician Joey Dauben is on a crusade to expose abuses of power, civic mischief and -- most of all -- himself.

Suze's Jeffery Hobbs: Making Something New from the Familiar

Robert BostickSuze's Jeffery Hobbs.​Like many chefs, Jeffery Hobbs fell in love with the kitchen because both his grandmother and his mother were in it. Born in Indianapolis, the 40-year-old Hobbs spent much of his time as a kid in the kitchen peeling carrots and potatoes or in the family gard ... More >>

More Things You Shouldn't Give Your Mom This Mother's Day

A gift for the constipated mom who likes gnats.​She boned someone, got super fat, made your whole body from scratch and then successfully shot you out of her lady parts. And to thank your mother for all that, you give her a Hallmark card and call it even? No. No, you do not. You're an adult n ... More >>

Brackets' New Lunch Menu Might Make You Skip The Olive Garden

Mike MezeulThe burger at Brackets is bigger than your face (and your biceps).​Sure, the unlimited soup, salad and breadstick lunch at The Olive Garden is cheap and filling, but there's a new lunch menu that will make you want to skip those chain restaurant deals. As Hanna Raskin reported in M ... More >>

Olive Garden Rolls Out Remodel in Texas

A plan to revamp Olive Garden restaurants nationwide is getting its start in Texas. Three Dallas area stores are among the nine "remodel locations" recently announced by the Italian-American restaurant chain. According to spokesperson Kristen Johnson, more than half of the chain's 700 stores will e ... More >>

Toulouse Brunch, C'est Bon!

Photos by Andrea Grimes and Man O' The HourToulouse's Bloody Marys came rimmed with a sweetly sour lime salt.​It is getting harder and harder not to eat brunch at a Lombardi family restaurant in this town. First, there was Penne Pomodoro. Then there was Cibus. Now, there is Toulouse, the French ca ... More >>

Newest Menu Items at Leading Chains Not Designed for Teetotalers

​Corporate kitchens are continuing to add wine and spirits to their dishes, apparently angling for sophistication and increased perceived value. Olive Garden is now pushing a pasta dish with shellfish "sautéed in white wine" and a stew "simmered in light white wine." Red Lobster's developed ... More >>

Come Young, Come Old, Leave Drunk
At Penne Pomodoro's Brunch

Photos by Andrea Grimes and Man O' The HourPenne Pomodoro's fruity brunch beverages.​To be honest with you, if I'd known before we sat down at the Lakewood Penne Pomodoro on Sunday morning that they're a beer- and wine-only joint, I'd never have gone. No liquor means no Bloody Mary, and no Bloody ... More >>

Seasons 52: Chain Food Minus Butter and Salt. What's the Point?

Restaurant Ava's Southern Brunch Done Way, Way Right

​Walking into the crisp, white linen-and-dark wood decor of Rockwall's Restaurant Ava on Sunday morning was a welcome change from my weekend of fireside beer-swilling in East Texas. It's not that campfire kebabs and Jiffy Pop don't make for a great meal, but it's nice to go from one extreme to the ... More >>

Eddie V's: Like Taking a Cruise, Minus the Good Food and Service.

Pairing Off: Wendy's Spicy Chicken Nuggets

Patrick Michels/Flickr user Photos8.comOh, no--the artist is entering a new and darker phase.​Each week, Pairing Off attempts to find just the right bottle of wine to go with ordinary food.National restaurant chains know how to stretch the limits of almost any word. Olive Garden tries to sell us o ... More >>

Breadstick Birbiglia

In The (Olive) Garden Of Eden

​A couple weeks ago, a reader by the name of Beth posted an interesting comment under one of our stories. "May I inquire as to why it is common practice on these blogs to look down upon other so-called 'middle-class casual restaurants?'" she (assuming) wrote, mentioning Olive Garden as a favored ... More >>

And The Winner Is...

​It is truly weird when City of Ate stories pop up in other venues, often without context. For instance, our Top 10 on foods to fry for next year's state fair somehow ended up in a Baltimore paper's blog, where some people show surprising scorn for things Texan.These cross-posts, or whatever they' ... More >>

Luby's vs Furr's: Buffet Brawl

Alex Flores​People tell me I have a glamorous job. They tell me over and over...until I respond with "gotta go to Furr's; want to come along?" As much as we dismiss pile-it-on buffets, however, we've all bellied along a serving line. Whether we regret it moments later or rationalize the experien ... More >>

Rules To Eat By

​An American style milkshake in part requires a blend that will stand a spoon but can be sipped from a straw without much trouble. Response to last week's ranking of ten different milkshakes, however, suggests some people really don't consider the difference between a milkshake and stirred up ice ... More >>

The Wrestler

Dude Food: Olive Garden

Olive Garden639 N. Cockrell Hill Road, DuncanvilleDude Factor: 3, or Roseanne (waitress/proprieter of loose meat sandwich specialty diner The Lanford Lunch Box), on a scale of 1 (Zach Braff in Garden State) to 10 (Jonah Hill in Forgetting Sarah Marshall)Last Saturday my lady and I--with tired bones, ... More >>

Nicola's: As Classy As All-You-Can-Eat Pasta Can Be

Though the idea sounds like it's lifted straight from The Olive Garden, chances are the endless tableside hand-made pastas offered at Nicola's Ristorante Italiano for "Pasta Amore" are a little more palatable than those of the chain pseudo-Italian restaurant. And at $19.95 a head, it had better be.I ... More >>

How 'Bout Them Knockers: i Fratelli Pizza

The Cole Brothers, famous from the pizza boxi Fratelli Pizza 6109A Greenville Ave. 214-891-0600 Promised delivery time: 45 minutes Actual delivery time: 40 minutes The ScoreSincere and easy ordering process uncharacteristic of most pizza joints in my neck of the woods: 15 Altering their flagsh ... More >>

Galilee Grill Delivers Buffet-Line Salvation

Cornerback Dwayne Goodrich: "The Cowboy Who Killed Those Kids"

Former cornerback Dwayne Goodrich comes to grips with his hit-and-run of three Good Samaritans as he plans for life after prison

Capriccio Ristorante shoots for Italian elegance but serves up tedium

Miracle at Santa Anna

No matter the runtime and budget, Spike Lee's World War II drama is an epic bore

Absolutely Fabulous

It's a fashion jungle out there unless you have the right guide

Titus Comedicus

Very Little Italy

Bravo Italia offers nothing offensive, nothing spectacular

Cool Girls

Fearless in Mesquite

Skip the suburban chains and head to Kamikaze Japanese Cuisine

Shtick Happens

Male or female servers--does it make a difference?

Euro-Hash

Who has the worst cuisine in Europe?

Boot Scootin'

Why is Italian food so popular?

Will Power

Mr. Ferrell comes into his glory in Old School

Happy Freakin' Valentine's Day

Some local CD-release shindigs make this horrible holiday a little more tolerable

Sweet Leaf

The Bay Leaf has plenty of personality

Shout Out Loud

Small-time restaurants battle for recognition

Hot Lunch

Or, how to find love among the dishes

Night & Day

September 17 - 23, 1998

Questions of taste

Generic Harper's seems to have an answer to just about everything