Are Italian restaurants the biggest scam in the industry? $20 for a plate of pasta, some bread, and some salad

Are Italian restaurants the biggest scam in the industry? $20 for a plate of pasta, some bread, and some salad.

>$20 for pasta
Do you live in NJ or go to bad restaurants?

I'm Italian and I think so too. I've never eaten to an Italian restaurant abroad for this very reason

Italian cuisine is the biggest meme in the world. It's all the same and it's all pleb.

Yes. At least, in the US. I live in a large metro area, and there's only maybe 3 or 4 Italian restaurants worth going to. Everything else is pasta, pasta, pasta....Italian cooking is about much more than pasta.

This. If I want some Eggplant Parmesan I make that shit myself, piss easy, and I get a fuck ton more than spending FIFTEEN fucking dollars at an Italian restaurant.

Still, some good lookin' noodles OP!

It feels like a scam because it seems easy to make.

It IS easy to make.

Yes and the only reason is because barbarian food (anglo-germanic) is so fucking disgusting and bland that Italian was "exotic" and caught on back early. In reality most of the garbage you see is Northen Italian which caters to the bland sensibilities of the barbarians by drowning everything in butter, cheese and cream like French food instead of proper cooking like what you see in the Southern areas of Italy and France where they use olive oil.

You're paying for more than just the food when you go to a restaurant m8.
If the experience isn't worth $20 to you then don't go, it's as simple as that.

Italian-American, fuck yes. It's one of few cuisines I just won't eat out. I dated an Italian for a few years and got enough "insider tips" to know my way around any sort of pasta dish and there's no way I'm going out for it.

Obviously brick fired pizza and fancy Italian meats are another story, but since Eggplant parm, lasagna, and seafood pasta are my favorites, yeah no I'm not even throwing down $15 for an entree.

Southern France and Northen Italy are not so different

THATS A SPICY MEATBALL

It's usually a fucking huge serving of pasta though.

A pound of pasta is under 2 dollars retail

>he orders spaghetti or some shit instead of cioppino

>google
>"Cioppino is a fish stew originating in San Francisco, California"

Kind of true that most Italian food is easy as fuck to make at home.
If you go out to an expensive place and order pasta, I will fucking punch you.

Southern Moor detected.

I, too, like my authentic Italian dishes to be from America

Another dago reporting in...we're from the north and what has been popularized is largely southern style cooking. My parents had more vegetables than pasta, more chicken than pork/beef, and bread was not a big deal. Pizza was a one-off; an appetizer consisting of sauce (or not--white pizza) and some tomatoes...not the meal. The vegetable/healthy side goes very underreported in this cuisine. Family gatherings were a ton of side dishes (mostly vegetables, with olive oil, garlic and salt) and then some juicy baked chicken...aaah da fuckknn best

But go to any Italian spot USA and it's "sausage tomato sauce spaghetti meatball pizza dipped in bread with bread and double bread with double sauce and triple meats...wit dem chesses I like too"...60 year old fat Sicilian gangster meals. Gettt da fuccckk outtta heeerrrr.....

Johnny, bring me the asparagus...and da paper...

That's right moolie. Pay up.