ya this hurt to watch as someone who understands the restaraunt industry. You NEVER order the lasagna. Its frozen lasagna cooked in microwave 90% of the time. The only time you order lasagna from an italian restaraunt is if its a high-tier or high-end restaurant where everything is made in-house and they will TELL YOU the lasagna is made in-house. If you're not sure ask - they typically won't lie to you and tell you that its made fresh if its not. This is why the waiter looked panicked, he knew it was the worst item on the menu and has gotten complaints before.
Exactly, I’m from Rome and I wouldn’t order Lasagna in Italy let alone in the US, it’s actually very hard to nail and most times its microwaved dog food.
Connor is right about the star rating, here in America if it's not at least 4.5 it's probably not that good. I've seen plenty of mcdonalds and burger kings with 4 stars it means nothing lol
The general rule that I go by, is that the larger the menu, the worse the food is generally going to be, if a restaurant hands you a 6 page menu you know you're up for something dreadful, if they hand a single page menu with like 3 items on it that usually means that the items fucking slap.
I mean, diner menus tend to be pretty large and they’re ok. Same with Chinese banquet restaurants. Guess it depends on the kind of restaurant in my experience.
@@FoulUnderworldCreature For real, thats one of the sole exceptions. I went to a Thai restaurant and it had a wicked long menu, but they gave me this crispy ass duck with savory brown sauce and it was incredible
It's easy if you look for it. These guys need to make a living. "It was alright. I had fun" wouldn't get many youtube hits. Exaggerate like hell. Tell people what they want to hear(America is shit). Get a million views. Buy a house. Repeat. Act confused when americans get pissed at being treated unfairly, like you aren't doing it to get money. Try to sleep at night in your american house you bought with money you spent being unfair to the america you pretended was shit in every way.
I swear they purposefully go to bad American restaurants to keep up the America bad schtick America is such a big place that surely after this much time they’d find some good food.
The star rating in the US is like that because we mostly just rate it 5 stars if it's good and 1 star if it's bad. We basically have a like - dislike bar when it comes to ratings.
@@JACpotatos 5 stars if its good and it's always good (rare) and it has to be really good to motivate anyone to click anything positive. 3 and below is trash; a great McDonald's is a 3 max, and it worse from there, there are mom and pop places out there worse than any 2 star McDonald's. 4 stars is hit or miss, it's good almost 5, but sometimes they fuck it up bad or 1 terrible thing exists about the establishment (location, noise, staff, etc).
@@JACpotatos As an American, it’s absolutely true. People only care if they enjoy it or if it’s it’s awful. 3.7 is the lowest fast food we have in my area.
It's always shocking how few people know this obvious truth about reviews. Don't just look at the average score. Drill down and look at the rating DISTRIBUTION. If the total score is 4.5, but there are a crap load of 1 star, you know there's something seriously messed up. The 5 star might be bot accounts, or that they changed management and the 5 star are from previous management. Recent patrons all rate 1 star.
Bro I wouldn't trust giving the keys to my car to some random stranger. What if it's an actual car thief posing as a valet for the place. Goodbye car. Can't risk that for a minor convenience AND you're paying $$$ on top of it.
With reviews I read them only when I am going to an authentic place. Many times people from other cultures will rank them lower simply because they are not used to how the food is cooked so I make sure to read their complaints to see if they are reasonable (i.e bad waitress, or tasteless food). As a Nicaraguan I have seen it happen with my country's cuisine, where Americans complain about the food being too greasy even though they ordered literal pork fried on its own lard. I saw it from some Asian restaurants too where they steamed meat I think? and ends up having a very strong smell.
Yeah-sometimes the pallets of a place just don't really go well. If you want to make it successful you have to adapt to the place your selling too. Hence I don't really understand why some people in the comments are so gun ho about "authentic" Just cause it's changed a bit doesn't make it bad in my opinion.
@@baronvonjo1929 Well most ppl looking for authentic are looking for that home feeling. I could buy good tasting food at most places (and I do!) but authentic tasting Nicaraguan food I have to drive an hr to just feel like I am back in my home country. And based on the entertainment and products sold people like me are their intended clients so it is fairly deliberate that they don't adapt some foods.
fellow nica! if anything the only problem i had with 'em, is the rare chance of overcooked meats. 1 time i got a thin cut pork that felt like chicharrones.
There’s also always complaints in reviews about the service at authentic Chinese restaurants, because they’re not as obsequious towards you, and that tends to throw off the review scale as well in my experience
Italian here, Lasagna is NOT an easy to make dish, 4/5 italians don't even know how to make a good Lasagna, I shudder to think what garbage they're feeding you overseas.
It's most definitely something that had been frozen. You're not getting fresh lasagna unless they specialize in it or it's a super authentic Italian place (that specializes in lasagna). You're better off just getting a 2.7 kilo pan of frozen lasagna for $18 from costco.
lasagna is a super easy dish to make what the heck are you talking about. you just need a noodles sauce, cheese, and a bechamel. then if somebody orders a slab of lasagna at a restaurant, if they have any standards they'll assemble it and cook it for you right then and there because they'll already have the ingredients made
Fries on the pizza or as a side? There used to be this one pizza place in my town. Friez were the main side dish and they were the best fries in town. I never really thought about it, but no other pizza place did fries and pizza.
@@rangered_64 yes actual fries xD you can also find pizzas with thinly cut baked potatoes, but that's not really what I am talking about xD it's very amusing to me to see how this part of italian 'junk' food didn't really make it across borders xD and it might also be made with sausages, like the one in the thumbnail. That depends on the restaurant xD
@@BarbarooTheKangaroo In my country, the pizza with cut potato shavings made it, and it's really popular, it's even part of a joint called Shakey's, they serve good oven-baked pizza, but I don't think you'll approve our carbonara here lol
Yes, if an Italian restaurant has only fried calamari, they’re not authentic. I want a fantastic garlicky, fra diavolo calamari. Anyone can throw a squid in grease.
This problem is awful in America. A McDonald's with a 4.0 in a major city might be alright, because it has many more reviewers and more to be compared to. I can't tell you how many times I've been burned traveling with google reviews. I've seen rural and isolated places have 4.6 restaurants that are just awful. But the locals like it and they 5* it enough to drown out more critical reviewers.
tbh rule of thumb in most of rural america is that if it isn't american food it will be mid at best. they just don't have the diversity in rural areas for the food to be that great outside of local classics.
@@Fatblue246 And even the local stuff probably won't be anything crazy. You have to lower your standards in rural areas. There's simply less competition.
Best Italian place in my area is an Indian guy (full accent) that is near autistically PASSIONATE about Italian food. I found out about it doing UberEATS and I walked in and was met with a bunch of old pasta-making machines near the entrance he used to make various kinds. As he was getting the order ready he told me to wait as he came up an extra dish for the client. Took my mom there on Mother's day. Completely empty, I made sure to run up 100 bucks because I want thisnplace to survive.
I used to work in a Subway, and they used to ask us to go online and rate ourselves 5* all the time and write positive reviews. I think a lot of other places in America are the same way, which is why you have to really scrutinize reviews here.
If you want to find really good Italian restaurants, New Jersey reigns supreme. New Jersey is basically the Little Italy of America due to it being the main state that Italian immigrants flocked to in the 1870s, so most of our Italian restaurants are small, family owned businesses passed down through the generations by their ancestors. It's where the stereotype of New Jerseyans being obsessed with pizza comes from. We're actually the diner capital of the world.
Can confirm. As someone who lives in NJ right next to the city, you can go to any random Italian place within a 20 mile radius and the chances of you finding a banger meal are extremely high. Italians in Jersey don’t miss with food.
Honestly Connor is completely right. Here in America if a restaurant or even a hotel has a 5 star rating it’s better. If it has a 4.5 rating it may be good but most likely it’s dog shit and anything lower
The valet was telling you that the spot was $8. Normally certain parking is reserved exclusively for valet and they probably parked there without knowing it. When they left the valet would have brought them their car for them.
As a cook , waiting 10 minutes for a main course isn't really realistic if you want to have good food. I'd say more 15. A steak including resting time and plating would at the very least take 10 minutes and then it has to be brought to the table as well and the order has to be taken first too.
I think the most consistent culture in terms of restaurants would have to be Filipino food. I may be biased because I am Filipino, but hear me out. Filipinos never argue that a certain restaurant serves the best version of a dish. “You’ve never had good pho until you’ve eaten here.” “You’ve never had real Southern BBQ until you’ve eaten here.” “When you have the fish and chips here you won’t want to get fish and chips anywhere else.” It just doesn’t happen with Filipino food. When you walk into a Filipino restaurant you know exactly what you are walking in to. I live in California, but I’ve been to Filipino restaurants in Idaho and South Carolina and the conclusion upon leaving was, “that was Filipino food.” There is no secret spices or regional seasonings or family techniques. It just is Filipino food. I have never been to an exceptional Filipino restaurant and I have never been at a terrible Filipino restaurant. They basically operate in the same range of quality.
$28 for shitty lasagna? Wow. Even in LA I can at least spend around only $20 for a colossal bowl of jambalaya from Cheesecake Factory and I bet that mass produced franchise jambalaya would have tasted better than that lasagna.
@@randomperson-sn4rj LA has some decent cheesecake factories tbh. As op noted, its not great and is mass produced, but the one on Rodeo Drive is pretty nice.
Speaking as a Lousianian, it’s just kind of hard to screw up jambalaya. It was originally made as a “leftover dish” for poor people, and as long as the people making it have at least a little bit of dignity, it’s going to taste good for cheap. I don’t know if Jambalaya Shoppe is just a local thing, but I’m always happy spending ~$10 to pick up a big bucket that feeds multiple people from them.
if you review something negatively in the uk, you're gonna start a fight when the restaurant owner is offended by the review or they beg you to take it down.
The worst lasagna I’ve ever had in a pub. Best way I can describe it. It tasted like taco sauce instead of pasta sauce. Also there was more pasta and cheese than sauce. Extremely dry too. I think they used left over taco sauce in the lasagna to get it done quick.
I kinda feel Garnt, my mom (who is not Italian at all) makes a banger lasagna, so its raised my standard for it to such a degree that I just cant order it anywhere, cuz chances are I've just always had better at home. And why go to a restaurant if you dont expect to get better than at home?
I only go to one family owned Italian restaurant, but yeah I usually try to only go to places people recommend. But to be honest, whenever I eat out now, I just really want a cheesteak...which is hard to find a good one that's uses actual ribeye, good bread and hots.
I feel you everybody cheaps out on the "steak" anymore. As a former butcher and kitchen manager I find it offensive to call something steak when its probably trim. Its not a real cheesesteak unless its made with a whole rib loin on a deli slicer. And you gotta have fresh sautéed peppers, onions, mushrooms, REAL cheese and REAL bread. Anything less is a 5 dollar footlong masqerading as a cultural classic.
Damn now I'm hungry and I miss having access to a professional kitchen and free quality ingredients. Just being able to experiment with random new recipes every day was nice. Ain't no bacon wrapped beer battered mac n cheese stuffed jalepenos or shrimp and scallop stuffed chicken wings in this kitchen. But I do have a ribeye lol
How did you even find this place. I lived close to Houston for like a dozen years and every Italian restaurant was absolutely god tier. I’ve only had better pasta or pizza in Italy itself or Argentina
there are some restaurants here in texas that are also first come first serve. it really depends on the restaurant. like most places accept reservations but from my experience the more popular the restaurant the more likely they aren't going to allow reservations.
When you come to Boston, remember. There are TONS of places to eat. Some are more tourist-y than others, of course. You got Cheers, you got the Union Oyster House (the oldest contiguously operating restaurant in the United States), Mike's Bakery. They're neat the first time you go but there are other alternatives, like instead of Mike's Bakery. . you can go to Bova's. You got the neat locations to go eat like the Prudential Center/Copley Place, Faneuil Hall, Coolidge Corner in Brookline. The whole North End. I definitely recommend looking up Tasty Burger, Anna's Taqueria, the Botega in Brookline, the Boston House of Pizza. There's Maggiano's if you wanna get upscale. These are some of my recommendations so you DON'T have a "worst experience".
As an American, I detest the fact that every restaurant seems to have TVs everywhere. Many ethnic restaurants don't, so that's mostly where my money goes.
A lot of "family" restaurants in America play sports game. I used to work for one of the chain steakhouses and was asked by a family to put something else on and was notified by management that we were only allowed to play sports and the news so I had to tell the family no. I don't get why that's a law, or they made it sound like it was a law
Din Tai Fung in Taiwan also doesn't take reservation. The usually packed restaurants in the world tend to be like this because they don't want empty seat at any moment, I think.
No reservations I get it, the main issue is booking tables that maybe empty because human error and you usually cant put your bills on the expectation the customers will follow through the reservation when you can fill the table immediately with other customers waiting at the location already.
TBF I've done some Google reviews when I've been annoyed by Google enough; usually it's for a branch of some chain, so in those cases if the service is adequate I would give it 3 stars because that's kinda what I expect, e.g., I gave a McDonald's a 3 stars, with the explanation of "it's a McDonald's"
Went to a 4.5-star, 500-reviewed Japanese restaurant expecting it to be good. My sushi and the sashimi my friend ordered had a fish bone in them and the fish was overly chewy and not firm.
For the Phoenix leg of your tour: Pane Bianco: Best sandwiches in Arizona/southwest Little Miss BBQ: best BBQ in Arizona Cocina Madrigal: Best Mexican you’ll ever have JL Patisserie: Best French pastries in Arizona
I also use Calamari as a way to determine the quality of the restaurant. It is a really easy to mess up the dish and you know when you get the perfectly cooked Calamari that the restaurant is worth a damn.
"Italian" restaurants abroad are almost always fake. If the chef speaks English and they're not giving you free bread while talking in Italian, skip it.
not true at all because language is lost usually by 3rd generation and since most Italian families in the united state are between 3rd and 4th generations so many family restaurants with recipes handed down over those generations will have basic american english speaking owners etc. key is to be in the correct area of the country where those families congregated after immigrations new jersey, chicago, new york and alot of the northeast. find the family owned italian restaurants in those areas they are going to be pretty damn good most of the time
@@zackmandarino1021 that's not how any of this works lol. Language is lost? Are you crazy? Language is always retained. It mixes and changes, it creates different accents and even ways of speaking previously unknown. If you open an Italian restaurant and you don't speak Italian, something is wrong
@@zenkichihitoyoshi9513 you seem to not have a lot of historical context about the USA. It was quite common until really the past 30 years for immigrants to not teach their children their mother tongues when immigrating to the USA. Germans, Irishman, and Italians all spoke their native languages but were essentially forced to stop upon arriving here. Nativism was very strong in the 1800's to mid 1900's and as such most people made sure their children only spoke english as to allow them to assimilate and fit in better, as well as strict societal expectations to only speak english in public forum. It is a more recent trend in the US where this is no longer the norm. While some people did retain the language, the vast majority in the US did not, and you will be hard pressed to find european-americans who are not monolingual, albeit Italians and Greeks tend to have retained the language more than the Germans and the Irish did, but the bilingual individuals are definitely still within the minority overall. While language within european-american communities was usually not preserved other aspects of the culture often were, and as such you can see those influences in the different states across the USA. Such as a surplus of italian establishments in the north east, and irish pubs as well, etc.
American here. Unless you are getting Italian food from northern New Jersey or New York, you have to do your research on which Italian restaurants are good in your area. PRO TIP: If you are going to look at reviews online, only look at reviews from 2-4 stars. 1 star reviews are super critical and they probably had a uniquely terrible experience. 5 star reviews are probably people who have.....trash taste he he he....or are people who were paid or work for the restaurant.
Pizza with Wurstel and Fries is pretty common in Italy. Italians came up with it because of tourists liking both of it, some parts call it "The American" or "The German" really differs, but yeah
I generally go for anything above 4 stars, with the exception of older Asian establishments, because they always get rated lower due to someone not liking their service (aka no treating them like kings).
Trying to eat out in America is a game of Russian roulette. When I lived in Dallas, my family would find a restaurant with amazing reviews, drive down to the metro and eat there, and it was often extremely disappointing. The best restaurants are the hole-in-the-walls that are family run and just make phenomenal food.
There are a number of restaurants I’ve been to a dozen or more times that I think are quite good every time, but I end up seeing online reviews that totally trash the places and I just dismiss as some rare bad experience or they are just super-picky a-holes that trash non-perfection. Always remember that people are more likely to complain than praise!
I manage a coco ichi in the greater LA area and I can confirm that reservations are bad for revenue if you are busy. We are the type of place to have an hour wait on some week days and if you have a constant stream of customers you just lose money by holding a table for more than five minutes. This might drive away paying customers that want a reservation but when you have more people than you can seat already it doesn’t matter if you upset a minority in favor of the majority. Also next time you are in LA holler at yaboii for some free curry
If you don't hear Italian flying from the kitchen leave 95% it's low quality. It's the same with Mexican or Spanish and Cuban if you don't hear Spanish flying from the kitchen leave.
Yeah that 4.5 rating scale is definitely accurate. If it didn't make you immediately throw then that's at least three stars, it goes to four stars if you didn't see any bugs while you were there.
Depending on where you are in the country some star ratings get faked. In LA I can imagine that happens a lot. But I've easily gotten great good from places with 2 stars all over the east coast. Could be better but certainly not as wild as what happens in this videos story at 4 whole ass stars
reminds me of a place called old spaghetti factory somewhere in san diego. everything looked terrible and no one at my table was satisfied with the quality of their meal.
With the familiarity argument, I really wonder if any of the guys have watched the Memphis Belle movie released in the late 90's. They nail a point made about chain restaurants made there.
For me I don't really check stars. Instead I look at the comments to see if both the 5stars and 1stars are the same. Or if there are more 1 stars then 5 stars. If that's the case then it's and immediate no. However, I'll also go and check "most recent/newest" comment and see how long it's been and what rating they give it.So take this advice if you want.
Italian restaurants and one of the most hit or miss places here in the states. They are so expensive and the restaurants are always greasy like the walls and tables. And the bad ones all get there food from the same nasty supplier that I had friends work there and say the foods treated awful
idk about LA but in New York there were a few places that took reservations but took a deposit that if you didn't show up they kept. Only for like busy places though
Is it good or bad? You guys are right across the mediterranean from italy, which I would guess means italian food and culture is close to you, so must be decent? But I'm not sure how removed the culture is in Libya from Italy, from the limited things I've seen of Libya feels pretty removed....super curious what you meant by this (if italian food is good or bad in Libya) please explain!
@@Mamox45 It is good. but the italians would lose their minds bc of the way we use their recipes💀 I’m talking pasta being made in all ways possible with making absolute sure it’s spicy af👌🏼 also other types of baked goods that are originally italian but.. something happened in the process and made it what it is! if you search traditional Libyan food you’d get what I mean!🫡
America’s restaurant ratings are basically the same as IGN ratings. “The food was dogshit. 4/5 it has a little something for everyone”
7.8/10 "too much lamb sauce"
5/5 the food was edible
10/10 "didn't kill me"
Sounds like Cheesecake Factory
A restaurant in the UK had a ginger, honey duck on the menu. It was fantastic.
A two star review wrote: The duck was too flavourfull.
We have no idea what true flavour is in the UK lol
I mean it’s to be expected from a British person
"Water was a bit too spicey."
@@allot5530 We just take from every culture so its all good lmao.
british mfs think sriacha is too spicy for em
I've seen enough Kitchen Nightmares to know not to get a lasagna unless I trusted the restaurant
ya this hurt to watch as someone who understands the restaraunt industry. You NEVER order the lasagna. Its frozen lasagna cooked in microwave 90% of the time.
The only time you order lasagna from an italian restaraunt is if its a high-tier or high-end restaurant where everything is made in-house and they will TELL YOU the lasagna is made in-house. If you're not sure ask - they typically won't lie to you and tell you that its made fresh if its not. This is why the waiter looked panicked, he knew it was the worst item on the menu and has gotten complaints before.
Kitchen Nightmares also had tons of example where the menu had over 100 items on them are the bad places.
My default italian dish is carbonara. Put cream in it? Get the egg curly? Fuck up al dente? All right not comming back.
You are right, but if you are paying $20, you don't expect it to be microwaved.
Exactly, I’m from Rome and I wouldn’t order Lasagna in Italy let alone in the US, it’s actually very hard to nail and most times its microwaved dog food.
Connor is right about the star rating, here in America if it's not at least 4.5 it's probably not that good. I've seen plenty of mcdonalds and burger kings with 4 stars it means nothing lol
no wonder 7/10 is considered bad in video games. You guys fked the scale with your ratings bias.
That’s because when you go to McDonald’s you expect McDonald’s. When people get what they expect they’ll be satisfied.
@@ceresbane There's also the fact that most gaming companies will use bots for 100 or so 4.5-5 star ratings.
@@ceresbane 7/10 is 70%, which is passing in US schools. yup...our scales are FUCKED bc of school.
@@liz_violet 70 in school is a D it means you did shit but barely passed. 75-80 eh average.
The general rule that I go by, is that the larger the menu, the worse the food is generally going to be, if a restaurant hands you a 6 page menu you know you're up for something dreadful, if they hand a single page menu with like 3 items on it that usually means that the items fucking slap.
on point
I mean, diner menus tend to be pretty large and they’re ok. Same with Chinese banquet restaurants. Guess it depends on the kind of restaurant in my experience.
Not if you eat Chinese food
@@FoulUnderworldCreature For real, thats one of the sole exceptions. I went to a Thai restaurant and it had a wicked long menu, but they gave me this crispy ass duck with savory brown sauce and it was incredible
Not usually.
How do you keep finding these awful experiences lol. You’re right about the review thing. People are far less critical when compared to Japan reviews
To be fair, they just went to a random place
because they go to LA
they keep going to LA
It's easy if you look for it. These guys need to make a living. "It was alright. I had fun" wouldn't get many youtube hits. Exaggerate like hell. Tell people what they want to hear(America is shit). Get a million views. Buy a house. Repeat. Act confused when americans get pissed at being treated unfairly, like you aren't doing it to get money. Try to sleep at night in your american house you bought with money you spent being unfair to the america you pretended was shit in every way.
I swear they purposefully go to bad American restaurants to keep up the America bad schtick
America is such a big place that surely after this much time they’d find some good food.
The star rating in the US is like that because we mostly just rate it 5 stars if it's good and 1 star if it's bad.
We basically have a like - dislike bar when it comes to ratings.
As an American, that's not true
@@JACpotatos 5 stars if its good and it's always good (rare) and it has to be really good to motivate anyone to click anything positive.
3 and below is trash; a great McDonald's is a 3 max, and it worse from there, there are mom and pop places out there worse than any 2 star McDonald's.
4 stars is hit or miss, it's good almost 5, but sometimes they fuck it up bad or 1 terrible thing exists about the establishment (location, noise, staff, etc).
@@JACpotatos As an American, it’s absolutely true. People only care if they enjoy it or if it’s it’s awful. 3.7 is the lowest fast food we have in my area.
@@FindingAHandleThatIsntTaken that's just your area then. I guarantee where I'm at, in the city, that isn't the case
@@JACpotatos I also live in a city, and the lowest rated places I see in google are 3.4
It's always shocking how few people know this obvious truth about reviews.
Don't just look at the average score. Drill down and look at the rating DISTRIBUTION.
If the total score is 4.5, but there are a crap load of 1 star, you know there's something seriously messed up. The 5 star might be bot accounts, or that they changed management and the 5 star are from previous management. Recent patrons all rate 1 star.
wow shocking! what a revelation!
The "valet" wasn't robbery, but it was a hustle. Also, if lasagna costs $28, it'd better be half the damn tray.
Same difference
robbery is technically a hustle
Bro I wouldn't trust giving the keys to my car to some random stranger. What if it's an actual car thief posing as a valet for the place. Goodbye car. Can't risk that for a minor convenience AND you're paying $$$ on top of it.
Agreed about the lasagna. $28 should get you enough to feed an American family not a dish for a single person.
excuses.
With reviews I read them only when I am going to an authentic place.
Many times people from other cultures will rank them lower simply because they are not used to how the food is cooked so I make sure to read their complaints to see if they are reasonable (i.e bad waitress, or tasteless food).
As a Nicaraguan I have seen it happen with my country's cuisine, where Americans complain about the food being too greasy even though they ordered literal pork fried on its own lard.
I saw it from some Asian restaurants too where they steamed meat I think? and ends up having a very strong smell.
Yeah-sometimes the pallets of a place just don't really go well. If you want to make it successful you have to adapt to the place your selling too.
Hence I don't really understand why some people in the comments are so gun ho about "authentic"
Just cause it's changed a bit doesn't make it bad in my opinion.
@@baronvonjo1929 Well most ppl looking for authentic are looking for that home feeling. I could buy good tasting food at most places (and I do!) but authentic tasting Nicaraguan food I have to drive an hr to just feel like I am back in my home country. And based on the entertainment and products sold people like me are their intended clients so it is fairly deliberate that they don't adapt some foods.
fellow nica! if anything the only problem i had with 'em, is the rare chance of overcooked meats. 1 time i got a thin cut pork that felt like chicharrones.
There’s also always complaints in reviews about the service at authentic Chinese restaurants, because they’re not as obsequious towards you, and that tends to throw off the review scale as well in my experience
Was it steamed pork ribs with fermented black bean? :D
The smell seemed weird at first, but then I tried and it actually tasted amazing. lol
Italian here, Lasagna is NOT an easy to make dish, 4/5 italians don't even know how to make a good Lasagna, I shudder to think what garbage they're feeding you overseas.
It's most definitely something that had been frozen. You're not getting fresh lasagna unless they specialize in it or it's a super authentic Italian place (that specializes in lasagna). You're better off just getting a 2.7 kilo pan of frozen lasagna for $18 from costco.
gatekeeping lasagna
@@JAFrk or just learn to make a great one at home if you have the necessary resources, time and energy
lasagna is a super easy dish to make what the heck are you talking about. you just need a noodles sauce, cheese, and a bechamel. then if somebody orders a slab of lasagna at a restaurant, if they have any standards they'll assemble it and cook it for you right then and there because they'll already have the ingredients made
@@BioYuGi idk you didn't say anything about being Italian so I don't think I can trust this
The accuracy in Connor's "MLB Announcer" take was nuts. Forgot he was a voice actor for a second, somehow
Glad I’m not the only one who noticed. I literally thought I had accidentally turned on my TV.
Pizza with fries is actually very common in italy, that's generally what kids order xD and we call it 'american' pizza xD
Fries on the pizza or as a side? There used to be this one pizza place in my town. Friez were the main side dish and they were the best fries in town. I never really thought about it, but no other pizza place did fries and pizza.
@@arcanask on pizza! Like in the thumbnail of the video
@@BarbarooTheKangaroo Though is it like actual fries? And not like potato shavings
@@rangered_64 yes actual fries xD you can also find pizzas with thinly cut baked potatoes, but that's not really what I am talking about xD it's very amusing to me to see how this part of italian 'junk' food didn't really make it across borders xD and it might also be made with sausages, like the one in the thumbnail. That depends on the restaurant xD
@@BarbarooTheKangaroo In my country, the pizza with cut potato shavings made it, and it's really popular, it's even part of a joint called Shakey's, they serve good oven-baked pizza, but I don't think you'll approve our carbonara here lol
The idea of trying to reserve a Denny's is unbelievably funny to me.
As an American, I hate the sports broadcasts on high volume in almost all restaurants
100% agree with Connor about calamari. There's a noticeable difference in quality
It depends on of the place has the heads. Any real Italian will tell you the best part is the head.
Yes, if an Italian restaurant has only fried calamari, they’re not authentic. I want a fantastic garlicky, fra diavolo calamari. Anyone can throw a squid in grease.
This problem is awful in America. A McDonald's with a 4.0 in a major city might be alright, because it has many more reviewers and more to be compared to.
I can't tell you how many times I've been burned traveling with google reviews. I've seen rural and isolated places have 4.6 restaurants that are just awful. But the locals like it and they 5* it enough to drown out more critical reviewers.
tbh rule of thumb in most of rural america is that if it isn't american food it will be mid at best. they just don't have the diversity in rural areas for the food to be that great outside of local classics.
@@Fatblue246 And even the local stuff probably won't be anything crazy. You have to lower your standards in rural areas. There's simply less competition.
If it's a family restaurant and the cook speaks English don't eat there.
If it's broken English it's gonna be your best meal in your life.
If the area has pot holes around it and lawn chairs, best Mexican food
😂
@@isa300100
Even better, if the guy RELUCTANTLY communicates with you in calculator and pictures of dishes, it's going to be a fantastic meal.
Best Italian place in my area is an Indian guy (full accent) that is near autistically PASSIONATE about Italian food. I found out about it doing UberEATS and I walked in and was met with a bunch of old pasta-making machines near the entrance he used to make various kinds. As he was getting the order ready he told me to wait as he came up an extra dish for the client.
Took my mom there on Mother's day. Completely empty, I made sure to run up 100 bucks because I want thisnplace to survive.
I used to work in a Subway, and they used to ask us to go online and rate ourselves 5* all the time and write positive reviews. I think a lot of other places in America are the same way, which is why you have to really scrutinize reviews here.
The L.A. no reservations thing is a combination of incredible flakiness and insane traffic.
Yep, and the people will be 30 minutes late and complain about it
If you want to find really good Italian restaurants, New Jersey reigns supreme. New Jersey is basically the Little Italy of America due to it being the main state that Italian immigrants flocked to in the 1870s, so most of our Italian restaurants are small, family owned businesses passed down through the generations by their ancestors. It's where the stereotype of New Jerseyans being obsessed with pizza comes from. We're actually the diner capital of the world.
Can confirm. As someone who lives in NJ right next to the city, you can go to any random Italian place within a 20 mile radius and the chances of you finding a banger meal are extremely high. Italians in Jersey don’t miss with food.
@@TheWTFBOOM We don't hold the title of the diner capital of the world for nothing.
Just don’t go to Nuovo Vesuvio that chef there talks too much.
@@richardharrow2513 Nani kore?
@@gabetalks9275 I'm sure you've seen the place. It's run by that wierd guy Bucco... Artie or Archie or something. He's a real piece of work you know.
Just waiting for Garnt to have a shit take about the pizza's crust
Honestly Connor is completely right. Here in America if a restaurant or even a hotel has a 5 star rating it’s better. If it has a 4.5 rating it may be good but most likely it’s dog shit and anything lower
7:41-7:53, The Cheesecake Factory is shaking in their boots rn.
Sounds like a restaurant that'd be on Kitchen Nightmares
A Korean saying: If an actual restaurant is packed. The food is probably good.
The valet was telling you that the spot was $8. Normally certain parking is reserved exclusively for valet and they probably parked there without knowing it. When they left the valet would have brought them their car for them.
As a cook , waiting 10 minutes for a main course isn't really realistic if you want to have good food. I'd say more 15. A steak including resting time and plating would at the very least take 10 minutes and then it has to be brought to the table as well and the order has to be taken first too.
I think the most consistent culture in terms of restaurants would have to be Filipino food. I may be biased because I am Filipino, but hear me out. Filipinos never argue that a certain restaurant serves the best version of a dish. “You’ve never had good pho until you’ve eaten here.” “You’ve never had real Southern BBQ until you’ve eaten here.” “When you have the fish and chips here you won’t want to get fish and chips anywhere else.” It just doesn’t happen with Filipino food. When you walk into a Filipino restaurant you know exactly what you are walking in to. I live in California, but I’ve been to Filipino restaurants in Idaho and South Carolina and the conclusion upon leaving was, “that was Filipino food.” There is no secret spices or regional seasonings or family techniques. It just is Filipino food. I have never been to an exceptional Filipino restaurant and I have never been at a terrible Filipino restaurant. They basically operate in the same range of quality.
Lasagna is an easy target for the freeze-microwave combo
The parking scam is gonna make me throw hands even in a foreign country
$28 for shitty lasagna? Wow. Even in LA I can at least spend around only $20 for a colossal bowl of jambalaya from Cheesecake Factory and I bet that mass produced franchise jambalaya would have tasted better than that lasagna.
Imagine eating at cheesecake factory
Wouldn't be me
I have heard many horror stories from people that actually work there
@@randomperson-sn4rj LA has some decent cheesecake factories tbh. As op noted, its not great and is mass produced, but the one on Rodeo Drive is pretty nice.
Speaking as a Lousianian, it’s just kind of hard to screw up jambalaya. It was originally made as a “leftover dish” for poor people, and as long as the people making it have at least a little bit of dignity, it’s going to taste good for cheap.
I don’t know if Jambalaya Shoppe is just a local thing, but I’m always happy spending ~$10 to pick up a big bucket that feeds multiple people from them.
if you review something negatively in the uk, you're gonna start a fight when the restaurant owner is offended by the review or they beg you to take it down.
The worst lasagna I’ve ever had in a pub. Best way I can describe it. It tasted like taco sauce instead of pasta sauce. Also there was more pasta and cheese than sauce. Extremely dry too. I think they used left over taco sauce in the lasagna to get it done quick.
I kinda feel Garnt, my mom (who is not Italian at all) makes a banger lasagna, so its raised my standard for it to such a degree that I just cant order it anywhere, cuz chances are I've just always had better at home.
And why go to a restaurant if you dont expect to get better than at home?
Worst Italian Restaurant in America is Olive Garden. At least the place the Boys went to _attempted_ to pretend to be remotely Italian.
I only go to one family owned Italian restaurant, but yeah I usually try to only go to places people recommend. But to be honest, whenever I eat out now, I just really want a cheesteak...which is hard to find a good one that's uses actual ribeye, good bread and hots.
I feel you everybody cheaps out on the "steak" anymore. As a former butcher and kitchen manager I find it offensive to call something steak when its probably trim. Its not a real cheesesteak unless its made with a whole rib loin on a deli slicer. And you gotta have fresh sautéed peppers, onions, mushrooms, REAL cheese and REAL bread. Anything less is a 5 dollar footlong masqerading as a cultural classic.
Damn now I'm hungry and I miss having access to a professional kitchen and free quality ingredients. Just being able to experiment with random new recipes every day was nice. Ain't no bacon wrapped beer battered mac n cheese stuffed jalepenos or shrimp and scallop stuffed chicken wings in this kitchen. But I do have a ribeye lol
who
Man I’ve had cheesesteak where they put a whole ass cut of meat between a subway roll, it’s pain compared to Philly
How did you even find this place. I lived close to Houston for like a dozen years and every Italian restaurant was absolutely god tier. I’ve only had better pasta or pizza in Italy itself or Argentina
there are some restaurants here in texas that are also first come first serve. it really depends on the restaurant. like most places accept reservations but from my experience the more popular the restaurant the more likely they aren't going to allow reservations.
When you come to Boston, remember. There are TONS of places to eat. Some are more tourist-y than others, of course. You got Cheers, you got the Union Oyster House (the oldest contiguously operating restaurant in the United States), Mike's Bakery. They're neat the first time you go but there are other alternatives, like instead of Mike's Bakery. . you can go to Bova's. You got the neat locations to go eat like the Prudential Center/Copley Place, Faneuil Hall, Coolidge Corner in Brookline. The whole North End. I definitely recommend looking up Tasty Burger, Anna's Taqueria, the Botega in Brookline, the Boston House of Pizza. There's Maggiano's if you wanna get upscale. These are some of my recommendations so you DON'T have a "worst experience".
REALLY late on this, but let’s not forget about Newbury Street.
Maybe expensive, but there are great spots for food.
@@galaxy_kitten95 I do hope they come back.
As an American, I detest the fact that every restaurant seems to have TVs everywhere. Many ethnic restaurants don't, so that's mostly where my money goes.
A lot of "family" restaurants in America play sports game. I used to work for one of the chain steakhouses and was asked by a family to put something else on and was notified by management that we were only allowed to play sports and the news so I had to tell the family no. I don't get why that's a law, or they made it sound like it was a law
Definitely not a law, just a rule for that place. I’ve put on Toonami on late Saturday shifts when the bar was slow.
They had the Kitchen Nightmares experience.
Garnt obviously never worked in a kitchen, because I dont know A single kitchen that doesnt microwave their lasagna
Experiencing Kitchen Nightmare first hand
For americans, as long as there is fat and sugar, it deserves at least 4/5 stars.
Din Tai Fung in Taiwan also doesn't take reservation. The usually packed restaurants in the world tend to be like this because they don't want empty seat at any moment, I think.
A LOT of small eateries in japan don't take reservations. I don't know what they are on about.
No reservations I get it, the main issue is booking tables that maybe empty because human error and you usually cant put your bills on the expectation the customers will follow through the reservation when you can fill the table immediately with other customers waiting at the location already.
TBF I've done some Google reviews when I've been annoyed by Google enough; usually it's for a branch of some chain, so in those cases if the service is adequate I would give it 3 stars because that's kinda what I expect, e.g., I gave a McDonald's a 3 stars, with the explanation of "it's a McDonald's"
Went to a 4.5-star, 500-reviewed Japanese restaurant expecting it to be good. My sushi and the sashimi my friend ordered had a fish bone in them and the fish was overly chewy and not firm.
Where was this? If its a sushi restaurant that isn't on the coast. Its gonna be a below average for me
Omg more than $20 for a lasagna? I can't imagine paying that much for only 1 plate at a restaurant 😥
garnt recreating "garnt is sad" after taking a bite of lasagna
For the Phoenix leg of your tour:
Pane Bianco: Best sandwiches in Arizona/southwest
Little Miss BBQ: best BBQ in Arizona
Cocina Madrigal: Best Mexican you’ll ever have
JL Patisserie: Best French pastries in Arizona
Local Welsh man trying to get used to Italian style American Restaurants/Bars that have TV screens of SPORTS all over the place.
I also use Calamari as a way to determine the quality of the restaurant. It is a really easy to mess up the dish and you know when you get the perfectly cooked Calamari that the restaurant is worth a damn.
It depends upon where you're at here in the states.
East coast: Decent quality Italian food.
West coast: Run for your life.
If the family doesn’t sound like they’re straight out of The Godfather proceed with caution
They really described it like it was a restaurant on kitchen nightmares
"Italian" restaurants abroad are almost always fake. If the chef speaks English and they're not giving you free bread while talking in Italian, skip it.
not true at all because language is lost usually by 3rd generation and since most Italian families in the united state are between 3rd and 4th generations so many family restaurants with recipes handed down over those generations will have basic american english speaking owners etc. key is to be in the correct area of the country where those families congregated after immigrations new jersey, chicago, new york and alot of the northeast. find the family owned italian restaurants in those areas they are going to be pretty damn good most of the time
in the USA most italian immigrants went to the east coast, states like New Jersey and New York are known for their italian food, not California lol.
@@zackmandarino1021 that's not how any of this works lol. Language is lost? Are you crazy? Language is always retained. It mixes and changes, it creates different accents and even ways of speaking previously unknown.
If you open an Italian restaurant and you don't speak Italian, something is wrong
@@zenkichihitoyoshi9513 you seem to not have a lot of historical context about the USA. It was quite common until really the past 30 years for immigrants to not teach their children their mother tongues when immigrating to the USA. Germans, Irishman, and Italians all spoke their native languages but were essentially forced to stop upon arriving here. Nativism was very strong in the 1800's to mid 1900's and as such most people made sure their children only spoke english as to allow them to assimilate and fit in better, as well as strict societal expectations to only speak english in public forum. It is a more recent trend in the US where this is no longer the norm. While some people did retain the language, the vast majority in the US did not, and you will be hard pressed to find european-americans who are not monolingual, albeit Italians and Greeks tend to have retained the language more than the Germans and the Irish did, but the bilingual individuals are definitely still within the minority overall. While language within european-american communities was usually not preserved other aspects of the culture often were, and as such you can see those influences in the different states across the USA. Such as a surplus of italian establishments in the north east, and irish pubs as well, etc.
@@Fatblue246 yeah, you hear stories where I'm from of kids getting corporal punishment for speaking Spanish, back in the day. Assimilation was a must.
American here. Unless you are getting Italian food from northern New Jersey or New York, you have to do your research on which Italian restaurants are good in your area. PRO TIP: If you are going to look at reviews online, only look at reviews from 2-4 stars. 1 star reviews are super critical and they probably had a uniquely terrible experience. 5 star reviews are probably people who have.....trash taste he he he....or are people who were paid or work for the restaurant.
The farther the understanding, the better the dish
Pizza with Wurstel and Fries is pretty common in Italy. Italians came up with it because of tourists liking both of it, some parts call it "The American" or "The German" really differs, but yeah
the rating is not for the food, its rating much less of chance of you getting food poisoning.
I generally go for anything above 4 stars, with the exception of older Asian establishments, because they always get rated lower due to someone not liking their service (aka no treating them like kings).
Trying to eat out in America is a game of Russian roulette. When I lived in Dallas, my family would find a restaurant with amazing reviews, drive down to the metro and eat there, and it was often extremely disappointing. The best restaurants are the hole-in-the-walls that are family run and just make phenomenal food.
The 8 dollars was worth it, reallt adds more value to by far The Best American Rant in Trash Taste
“How did they make tomatoes taste like nothing?!”
That’s an American staple! There’s even a joke about it in King of the Hill.
This restaurant sounds straight out of a kitchen nightmares episode
There are a number of restaurants I’ve been to a dozen or more times that I think are quite good every time, but I end up seeing online reviews that totally trash the places and I just dismiss as some rare bad experience or they are just super-picky a-holes that trash non-perfection. Always remember that people are more likely to complain than praise!
If i see a menu with more than one page or a bunch of bs customizable options i automatically assume the quality of this place is not going to be good
never use ratings to find a place to eat. always tweet @ the locals for a decent local place to eat
This is the type of place that ends up on Kitchen Nightmares
I manage a coco ichi in the greater LA area and I can confirm that reservations are bad for revenue if you are busy. We are the type of place to have an hour wait on some week days and if you have a constant stream of customers you just lose money by holding a table for more than five minutes. This might drive away paying customers that want a reservation but when you have more people than you can seat already it doesn’t matter if you upset a minority in favor of the majority. Also next time you are in LA holler at yaboii for some free curry
Some people just flake way to much nowadays. That’s why you just queue up.
hong kong cafes are notorious for having 200 menu items (at a minimum) and still pretty good
If you don't hear Italian flying from the kitchen leave 95% it's low quality.
It's the same with Mexican or Spanish and Cuban if you don't hear Spanish flying from the kitchen leave.
Garnt's spot on about UK food reviews😂
I remember the moment when I tried eating a pizza in a small restaurant in Denmark…it was a big fault xD
Yeah that 4.5 rating scale is definitely accurate. If it didn't make you immediately throw then that's at least three stars, it goes to four stars if you didn't see any bugs while you were there.
Depending on where you are in the country some star ratings get faked. In LA I can imagine that happens a lot. But I've easily gotten great good from places with 2 stars all over the east coast. Could be better but certainly not as wild as what happens in this videos story at 4 whole ass stars
lasanga is more of a food you make at home in the USA i feel like. At least here in the tri state area. not normally the go to at a restaurant
If kitchen nightmares ever taught me something is don't blindly trust family business
That lasagna was frozen then reheated in a microwave which explains why the pasta just turned to mush.
reminds me of a place called old spaghetti factory somewhere in san diego. everything looked terrible and no one at my table was satisfied with the quality of their meal.
McDonald's did actually used to take reservations. For kids birthday parties and such.
They 100% went to a front-restaurant for money laundering lmao.
With the familiarity argument, I really wonder if any of the guys have watched the Memphis Belle movie released in the late 90's. They nail a point made about chain restaurants made there.
Isn't that the military movie about a pilot crew bombing munitions factory?
@@Scruffy72 There is that one as well as a Harry Conick Junior movie from the mid 90's, which is where the line I'm referring to comes from.
you guys are lucky that guy didn't steal the car
In America, you can be sued for giving a bad review...
So Garnt obviously has no idea of the difference between how a microwave heats food and an oven heats food….
For me I don't really check stars. Instead I look at the comments to see if both the 5stars and 1stars are the same. Or if there are more 1 stars then 5 stars. If that's the case then it's and immediate no. However, I'll also go and check "most recent/newest" comment and see how long it's been and what rating they give it.So take this advice if you want.
The wurstel+french fries pizza in the thumbnail is actually an Italian thing lol.
Italian restaurants and one of the most hit or miss places here in the states. They are so expensive and the restaurants are always greasy like the walls and tables. And the bad ones all get there food from the same nasty supplier that I had friends work there and say the foods treated awful
My boss in London took us to his favorite restaurants around our office on multiple occassions. All of the restaurants were disappointing.
it's 2022 and restaurant still use microwave...? Somebody call Gordon Ramsey to visit that place
Fries on the pizza is typical in Italy, with wurster especially
idk about LA but in New York there were a few places that took reservations but took a deposit that if you didn't show up they kept. Only for like busy places though
Garnt’s lasagna arc continues
Basically this was kitchen nightmare.
dude the idea of italian food in Libya I feel like it’s nowhere near what it is in any other place on earth😭😭💀
Is it good or bad? You guys are right across the mediterranean from italy, which I would guess means italian food and culture is close to you, so must be decent? But I'm not sure how removed the culture is in Libya from Italy, from the limited things I've seen of Libya feels pretty removed....super curious what you meant by this (if italian food is good or bad in Libya) please explain!
@@Mamox45 It is good.
but the italians would lose their minds bc of the way we use their recipes💀
I’m talking pasta being made in all ways possible with making absolute sure it’s spicy af👌🏼
also other types of baked goods that are originally italian but.. something happened in the process and made it what it is!
if you search traditional Libyan food you’d get what I mean!🫡