"Espresso" at Olive Garden

I know. Expecting to get a good espresso at an Olive Garden is like, well,
expecting to get good Italian food at an Olive Garden. But this experience was
beyond the pale (literally, as you'll see below).

A couple months back my wife and I stopped into OG for lunch -- their soup and
salad is actually a pretty good bet if you can manage to fight off the wait staff
that is trying to sell you a glass of crappy, get this, *pink* wine. I guess they
figure most people can't decide between red or white, so "Olive Garden University"
in Tuscany figured pink is a good compromise. I digress.

I should probably have learned my lesson long, long ago that it is a rare
restaurant that understands what espresso is, much less how to actually make a
decent shot. And the rare restaurant that "gets it" is almost universally never
part of a chain. I guess one of the tip-offs should be that the bartender does
double duty as the barista. Not that some people couldn't actually pull off both
roles admirably. The second tip-off is that the espresso machine, which usually
does not have a portafilter anymore these days, is flanked by bottles of scotch
and bourbon. Not there there is anything wrong with scotch and bourbon, per se. I
digress.

So what was I thinking? After we finished eating, the thought of an espresso
seemed really good to me. So I ordered one. Can't remember what my wife ordered.
Not espresso. Probably brewed coffee. And probably a much better bet. Relatively
speaking.

I didn't expect perfection. I didn't even expect a shot as good as I can make at
home. But I damn sure didn't expect what was placed in front of me.

It was delivered in a shallow, sort of wide-ish, coffee cup. Not an espresso cup.
There was absolutely no crema. Though, if memory serves, there was some form of
bubbles along the outside, against the wall of the cup. But the bubbles were more
like scum or dirty dishwater bubbles, than crema. The lack of crema, of course,
allowed me to see the actual "brewed" (I use that term loosely) "espresso" (again,
loose term). The color of the liquid before me was sort of a pale, medium
grayish-brown (is that what taupe is?). It was literally "beyond the pale".

As if the sight of it was not proof enough that this was not espresso, I actually
tasted it. Mostly because I figured I could hardly send something back without
actually trying it. It didn't taste like anything in particular. Just nasty liquid.

When I caught the wait person I said something like: "I don't know exactly what
this is, but it is definitely not espresso." She seemed a little taken aback. Sort
of as if she delivers espressos on a regular basis, they always look the same, and
no one ever complains.

But, she took my word for it. She went and checked with the bartendista who told
her something to the effect that it was indeed an espresso and (at least a silent
assumption) that the machine is working correctly.

The server apologized for my being dissatisfied and promptly said she would remove
the charge from my bill. No harm, no foul.

As we were leaving Olive Garden, I glanced into the bar and saw their espresso
machine, flanked as it was by various bottles of hooch. I quickly realized that it
would be a futile effort to engage in a conversation with the bartendista.

The Olive Graden espresso machine was one of those machines with four entrances
(beans, water, milk, electricity) and two exits (liquid and spent grounds) with a
few push button switches on the front.

That machine sums up everything that is wrong with America.

That, and the length of this post. Sorry.
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