Review of Olive Garden becomes Internet sensation

[jpak]

http://bangordailynews.com/2012/03/09/living/review-of-olive-garden-becomes-internet-sensation/

FARGO, N.D. — A North Dakota newspaper columnist sat down to review her town’s hot new Italian restaurant, rhapsodizing about the chicken Alfredo, crisp greens and “two long, warm breadsticks.”

But because the restaurant was the Olive Garden, Marilyn Hagerty’s earnest assessment swiftly became an Internet sensation, drawing comments both sincere and sarcastic from food bloggers and others. For the 85-year-old Hagerty, the response was bewildering — and it threatened to make her late for a bridge game.

Hagerty’s column in the Grand Forks Herald focuses on local food, and in North Dakota that means chain restaurants that are shunned by big-city food critics. She’s reviewed Ruby Tuesday, Pizza Ranch, Applebee’s and Country Kitchen. Even fast-food joints such as KFC, Qdoba and Subway have undergone scrutiny.

But it was her unfailingly polite prose about the Olive Garden — complete with a detailed description of the bustling waiters — that catapulted her to online stardom, at least briefly.

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