Queer dates be like "wanna play smash brothers in the library basement?"
Lmao Cheesecake Factory
Cheesecake factory cakes are so bad. They don't even taste like real cheesecake, they just taste like watery corn syrup. This is a common thing with American food it seems. Watered down but also somehow too sweet.
Watered down but also somehow too sweet.
Besides corn syrup - they likely use some artificial sweeteners which are insanely sweeter than sugar.
Ninja edit
Facts About Sugar and Sugar Substitutes | Johns Hopkins Medicine
Most artificial sweeteners (also called nonnutritive sweeteners) are created from chemicals in a lab. A few are made from natural substances like herbs. They can be 200 to 700 times sweeter than table sugar.
Sucralose Damages DNA, Linked to Leaky Gut: Study
June 1, 2023 – A new study reveals health concerns about the sugar substitute sucralose so alarming that researchers said people should stop eating it and the government should regulate it more.
Sucralose is sold under the brand name Splenda and is also used as an ingredient in packaged foods and beverages. The researchers found that sucralose causes DNA to break apart, putting people at risk for disease. They also linked sucralose to leaky gut syndrome, which means the lining of the intestines are worn down and become permeable. Symptoms are a burning sensation, painful digestion, diarrhea, gas, and bloating.
When a substance damages DNA, it is called genotoxic. Researchers have found that eating sucralose results in the body producing a substance called sucralose-6-acetate, which the new study now shows is genotoxic. The researchers also found sucralose-6-acetate in trace amounts in off-the-shelf products that are so high, they would exceed the safety levels currently allowed in Europe.
I hate knowing what all of these things are. My mom used splenda for years. Fuck.My father is a chud but also a medicinal chemist, for as long as I can remember he was telling people to not use Splenda
Considering he thinks concerns about Round Up are overblown...yeah.
My wife informed me that Olive Garden was not actually a fancy restaurant... this was a shock to me...
I have no idea how any of these rank. I assume cheesecake factory sells cheesecake. Does applebees sell apples with bees (or maybe honey)? Who knows, I'll never find out on a date I assume. We have a cheesecake shop here but that's about it.
That is peak yankee. I can't imagine anything more USA than that
lol even cheesecake factory's exotic around here. their gimmick is basically that they have EVERYTHING on the menu - like a ridiculously long menu of nearly any food you could think of, all done servicably but none of it really standing out. cheesecake is merely one of the bajillion things they have. it's popular because if you bring a group there everyone will find something on that menu they're willing to eat, whereas if you go to red lobster or something and someone doesnt' like seafood then lol they can eat chicken strips i guess.
Applebee's is essentially a fast food place with slightly better presentation and servers.
Oh, we have like... Nandos and various pubs. Our America themed local is actually pretty popular, but it's about 30% more expensive than Hungry Jack's
"American" restaurants in other countries are so surreal because they get the food wrong in the same way America usually gets other places' food wrong
unironically an important step in my radicalization was receiving a meme to this effect like a decade ago and it clicking. "oh, rich people literally do not understand most people don't eat at upscale places. this person actually thinks they're culturally superior to me because i do not eat at 'actually fancy' restaurants. they think the reason I have never eaten at a three star restaurant is because I'm close minded, not that i can't afford to blow that much of my money on a single meal or spend an hour just driving each way. the entire joke is that they're not racist because they have an open mind and eat at a lot of sit down restaurants and poor people are racist because they've only ever eaten at olive garden a few times and just refuse to try anything different."
i've learned enough since to understand that not all of the US is as utterly fucked as this and in some places there's affordable restaurants that are much higher quality and that the restaurant industry as a whole is an abusive nightmare, but that really did get me thinking about the liberal contempt of the masses.
Is the USA really this level of suburban hell? I have never been on a date, taken a partner on a date, even thought of having a date in a chain restaurant. Aren't you guys supposed to be the small business republic?
I see this image and I wonder where the fuck else people are going to eat. Tbh this reads as a very urban take, if you're living in an area that basically exists to service people driving on the interstate it is just all chains. Any "family" restaurants are serving food from the same bulk supplier so they're identical to one another as well on top of tasting bad and being overpriced. People say chains are bad but like theyr'e at least consistent, paying $20 for really bad pizza that's worse than the $10 pizza you can get from Pizza Hut of all places is the extent of commercial food culture in much of so-called flyover country.
There isn't really such a thing as a public space out here. Any other kind of date is simply going to be at a bar or at someone's house. You simply do not socialize like how people socialize on TV out here, you either have to be visiting your friends' houses regularly or you're going to simply go direclty home and watch TV. There's simply not enough rich people to support anything more upscale.
in my country - or at least were i live - chain restaurants are something that mainly exist in cities
I cannot stress enough that I am not exaggerating, this is what a majority of this hell country looks like
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Only major cities and tourist towns really have local restaurants worth thinking about. The rest of it is the same chains.
If you’re lucky you get to pay an absurd amount of money to live somewhere that looks like this instead
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And then it’s still mostly chains they’re just much more expensive ones.
in the US midwest, they're more suburban or rural, or at least if you live near major highways. it's very easy for golden handcuffs to choke out any local businesses in these places that simply lack the population density to support anything more niche. they literally pay employees more than local businesses, abuse their workers less because they have an actual HR department that provides some level of protection against the most obvious abuses of individual managers (ie mangers get fired for groping people, where small business tyrants just get away with it), charge less than anything local, and then once anything speciifc to that location has closed down they let the entire community rot.
the norm is much more around people visiting each other's houses, you don't really go anywhere other than a chain to hang out. there's a nice playground but that's generally not for adults on dates, that's for people with kids. there's not completely nothing but it's nothing that would wow someone that is turning up their nose at olive garden of all things. you simply are not going to be eating at a michelin star restaurant without a very long ass drive.
hell at weddings i don't think i remember ever actually being professionally catered. it's always either a pitch in or certain relatives assigned the task of making all the food. everyone just cooks at home. i've eaten much more baking sheet/pan pizza than i've eaten pizza at an actual pizza place, there's like two pizza places that aren't chains around here and i hate both of them.
the norm is much more around people visiting each other's houses
for first dates? that sounds kinda scary. here the norm is either coffee shop/cafe, grabbing a drink at a bar, or just going on a walk/hike
blind dates aren't super common, most people aren't really meeting on apps or anything ('cause again, not enough population density to make those things work), so a "first date" is still often with someone you've met a few times at least. but yeah in that sort of situation you're going to fuckin' olive garden lol.
it's always either a pitch in or certain relatives assigned the task of making all the food
That is actually really nice though. Having the family involved in that way sounds really sweet
Personally have I live in a fairly rural areas in California and Nevada for most of my adult life, and I have never had trouble finding at least a few good local spots, though usually not right on the interstates, that tends to be dominated by the chains. In fact one of my favorite taquerias is this hole in the wall in a town of about 500. I wonder if part of the difference is that we have significant populations of assorted migrants in rural areas out west.
Yes, it really is that bad. I'm from bumfuck nowhere and Olive Garden is considered bougie. JCPenny is practically Tom Ford to the people here.
I'm not saying this to be mean, because by extension this applies to me too, but so many places in the US and Canada are just, for lack of better term, the burger zone. This isn't simply just places that are not the city. Rural places have at least some things that might make it unique, small midwest cities like Ann Arbor or Buffalo have at least a little actual amenities.
It's no one's fault that they are in the burger zone thanks to hellworld. It's practically a cruel joke played by porky to make our lives as boring as humanly possible.
A cruel joke would at least be funny
I guess at the end of the day this is also complaining about treats but that is a mindset I'm having skill issues picturing
My lover has told me that if I take her to Olive Garden, she'll know it's over between us.
That makes me think of a song.
Take the L out of lover and it's over
I wanted to make parody lyrics for Olive Garden but there's so little to work with.
spots = restaurants apparently.
the main problem is for large swaths of america, those are the nicest restaurants you can go to. chipotle is the worst in this list though, at least go somewhere there is a server.
at least go somewhere there is a server.
it's only romantic if there are personal servants to exploit
there's no ethical consumption in capitalism. you can go to a park and youre taking advantage of the park employees/landscapers that don't get paid much. being 100% stubborn ideologically is a great way to end up alone.
Also communism is not when no restaurants. The Soviet Union had restaurants. China has restaurants. Cuba and the DPRK have restaurants.
I mean Chipotle food wise is at least edible. I would go with my grandparents to lunch once a week and I'd let them pick so we'd either go to Chili's, Applebee's, or an actually good mom and pop Mexican restaurant and Applebee's is dreadful. Their Caesar salad was soup with how much dressing they put on it.
I'm too lazy to find the original, but this is ripped from a tweet where some guy just asked his female friends and listed 30 something answers.
Obviously they didn't survey the women in the southeast. Alabama loves first dates at Olive Garden.
Cuz when you're here, you're family.
Thoughts
The fact that these exist and are significant enough to make such a list elicits one thought: death to amerika
People are buying whole ass meals for a first date? Seems like a lot of commitment.
