Not what it looked like in commercial! Pizza structure implodes!

For his birthday, MrD thought it would be fun to order online from one of those pizza places and have it delivered. He wanted to try one of their new products, a lasagna. MMMMMMM. On tv a bunch of Italians sit around a restaurant babbling in Italian about the lasagna, how it's just like homemade.

People, listen up...those Italians are all blind and are the only ones in Italy with mothers who can't cook!

First, the lasagna was so flat, that the only way to make it look tall like on tv would be to fold it into thirds like a business letter. We would have been better off ordering flat bread from the Armenian restaurant next door.

The other pasta dish we ordered looked like when my kids were in preschool and brought home pasta shapes glued to a piece of construction paper. Only our order had what looked like white glue poured over it.

Then, the breadsticks that came with the order resembled the shapes extruded from a Playdough machine. And tasted like it, too!

Why didn't I complain then? Well, you see, I had started sipping my REAL Italian red wine while waiting for the meal...look, even with wine goggles I could tell this meal looked weird! I just couldn't drag myself to, let alone talk on, the phone to complain...

Here's another story from this same place. The first time we ordered from them online, we checked off extra sauce on our pizza. When we opened up the box, there lay a sauceless pizza! Forty-five minutes later, when the delivery person returned with the sauce, he told us that we wouldn't believe how many orders they get for pizza without sauce.
This he told us as he handed us the bag containing our missing sauce. When we opened it up, we found three containers the size of eyewash cups, instead of the pint of sauce we were promised (or so we thought; maybe it's all an illusion as to the amount of sauce they put on their pizza).

Interesting thing is, the button for "no sauce" is next to the button for "extra sauce", so maybe they have some cross eyed employee who can't read the online orders. Our order did say xsauce.

My advice to anyone ordering from this place. Don't start drinking the Italian wine until after you've inspected the order.

reply to post by desert


I come from Chicago, and will never, ever order pasta from a fast food chain. I do believe that is a law somewhere here, and is punishable by death.

It is funny how the commercials make the food look so good. I have also noticed MickyDees shows sandwiches that are much bigger than in real life.

Very true mate. The food looks amazing on the commercials only to want to make you puke when you order it yourself. Some of the food doesn't even travel well. I think ordering 'real' food from a fast food chain is a crime and punishable up to 7 years of prison food. But the again, being from the South your not supposed to even eat fast food, your supposed to know how to make Cajun all by yourself. Good ol' Cajun food.....

The problem with Fast Food, is that the employees taking the orders rush and do not really care what they order for you. If you say extra sauce they only give you 2 sauces, you say no sauce and they give you 50 sauces. Same with with extra napkins, I think its a language that needs to be decifered or explained...

Originally posted by kidflash2008
reply to post by desert

 

I come from Chicago, and will never, ever order pasta from a fast food chain. I do believe that is a law somewhere here, and is punishable by death.

It is funny how the commercials make the food look so good. I have also noticed MickyDees shows sandwiches that are much bigger than in real life.

and you are now my friend...I live in the city...I refuse to eat pizza outside of this city...I just can't do it

Giordanno's in Oak Park...Bacci's slices in the west side...oh I am so hungry right now...

Sorry to hear of your misfortune

-Kyo

reply to post by desert


So does this mean we shouldn't be expecting your patronage in the future?

Sure order form the Armenian resturant next door. Good luck with that!!

reply to post by KyoZero


When I lived in Louisiana for a while, the only decent pizza was Pizza Hut. Pretty sad, but they were better than all the other chains. I always would place my order over the phone, and they usually got it right. When I visited Chicago, I would go to Giordano's or Aurelio's for pizza. (There are others that have good pizzas, but time was always a factor.)

Chicago! Yes, real pizza!
Sometimes by the time great regional pizza hits CA, it's lost something along the way. Or, if it doesn't taste like a fast food or microwave pizza, people think something's wrong with it.

MickyDees! MickyDees ! There have been times I've searched the bag for the mansize burger MrD ordered, only to realize that the small wrapped burger IS his order. Get rid of the pictures, MickyDee. You, too, King.
There's a local hamburger place. No pix, and the food actually is what you expect. Great homemade burger and fries.

reply to post by whaaa


Look, it's like this. You don't have one Italian working in your place. At least next door, Grandma Boubouchian never messes up the order. She might not use a computer, but that old gal can whip up the best stuffed grape leaves and baklava.

reply to post by desert


At least the Whopper is as big as shown. It is the Quarter Pounder and the Big Mac that are much smaller than they appear to be. I did notice how they are shown holding the burgers to make them look bigger. They are not lying about the size, but are using some visual tricks to make them look larger than they are.

Watch the commercials, and notice how the actor holds the burger.

Ah, yes, the pictures of the product being held in a hand. When the IPhone came out, didn't the commercials have it being held in a large hand, to make it look smaller than it was?
This reminds me of someone I knew who was making a public service video. The intoxicated driver was supposed to hold a can of beer, but because the actor was a tall and big guy, the can of beer looked like a small can of fruit juice.

reply to post by desert


When the actor holds the burger, he (men have larger hands, usually) always holds it with his hands toward himself, showing the burger to be larger than it is to viewers at home. I also notice they hold the burger closer to the camera, helping create the large burger illusion.

iPhones, and the like are advertised to look really small, unless the commercial is geared to us older persons whose eyesight is beginning to get a little fuzzy. Those commercials make it look bigger, with the digits and information being quite legible. It depends on who they are selling it to.

kidflash, very perceptive!

Another thing I find mind boggling is packaging. I've opened up a box with a single serve frozen food item, to find that the picture on the box definitely is the larger brother to what I hold in my hand

Hey, I resemble that comment about fuzzy vision! Fuzzy math is one thing, but fuzzy vision is a whole lot worse in my book, which gets added to in worse ways everyday. You know, my vision is so fuzzy, I bought a hairless cat thinking it was a Persian

Speaking about aging (oh, hell, we all do it, so I just get over it, we gotta live with it!)...anyway...I think my next cell phone will be about the same size as the original ones, box included, just so I can have unassisted viewing...all right, reading the damn thing without glasses! Bah, I'm getting too old for euphemisms...

reply to post by desert


They do make cell phones that are small, but they still have large digits so us older persons (and those who have always had eyesight issues) can see them. You don't have to get a super huge model to see the digits. (I forget the name of the one I saw advertised, but you can find it on the internet.)

My problem with frozen foods (especially pizza breads) is they never look as appetizing as advertised. They always come out dry and tasting like cardboard.

Originally posted by desert
I'm getting too old for euphemisms...

Your way with the English language made me snort coffee into my sinus cavities. Thanks a lot!

[edit on 13-2-2009 by whaaa]

If you see in the bottom part of the image/ad in tv or on the internet, you will see a small text that says, "The image above is for illustration purpose and actual may vary". And sometimes it might say, "The toppings may change based on their availability or at the discretion of the store staff". For cell phones and other electronic devices, "The product displayed is only for illustration purpose and the choice is subject to market availability".

Have a nice day.

Very observant, peacejet. The disclaimer.
Kind of like how my grandmother could make a lemon meringue pie without any lemons, the main ingredient subject to availability. My mom always had great discretion when it came to preparing a meal the night before her weekly grocery shopping trips to restock the pantry and fridge; whatever it was, whatever it looked like, we ate it.

kidflash, I'm still thinking of the Iphone and similar items. A big hand holds the phone, while a smaller hand with small fingers touches the apps buttons or keys. Oh, yes, you're right; my friend shared with me an advertisement for a cell phone with big buttons. And I gave her a gift membership in AARP.

Sigh, whaaa, dear sweet whaaa. Thank you for the compliment. You have such a ....such a....manly way with the English language.
Whaaa, I have tried to have my way with other languages, Russian, Hawaiian, the highly romantic French, and I was forced to take two years of German in college but had a rough time because I was speaking it with a Spanish accent after having had completed two years of secondary Spanish. These other languages spurned me, so I must continue to entertain myself with my first and only language, English.

Ok, so it's Valentine's Day, greetings and felicitations to you all!! And this brings to mind how chocolates are packaged. I love to open a heart shaped (or rectangular will do) box of chocolates to see the contents nestled snugly within the paper perimeter.
What I don't like to see is what happened my first Valentine's Day with MrD, when I bought him his favorite candy, chocolate covered cherries. I was so embarrassed. I bought him a large box containing (or so I was lead to believe) these huge, luscious treats, dripping with cherry cordial. When he opened it, I gasped. Not only were the pieces minute, (come on, you can't even grow a cherry that small!) but in the plastic holder in which they each had their own dinky compartment, the distance between them could have been used to illustrate the light year distance between stars.

Hey, this is my thread, so I think I will digress, derail it if you will, but then, you know what happens when trains get derailed. Nonetheless, speaking of VD...no, that's not right!!...how does one test message "Happy Valentine's Day"??...anyway, I do love the English translations of Mexican romantic poets, and the translations of the Sufi songs of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Ok, back to topic...

reply to post by peacejet


You are so correct peacejet as the box containing the frozen food or items will have something to state it may appear differently as advertised. One thing I notice is the "contents of the box (or whatever the food items come in) may settle to explain why a bag of chips will only be half full. There is nothing illegal about what they are doing, it is just a little sneaky.

Happy Valentine's Day, desert! I think BTS allows a little diversion in this area. They are much more diligent at ATS because it is so much busier, and there are hundreds of threads daily to monitor. The rant is basically about products not looking or resembling what is advertised. The majority of the problem lies in food products, as the idea is to get consumers hungry to order or go out to the restaurant.

back to topic indeed...

You Know what chaps my ass? You go into a 7/11 with a powerful thirst and a hankerin for some ships, so you get a cold 40 of Colt .45 and one of those puffy bag o chips. Out in the PU, you open the chips and what do you find?
Air with just a few morsels down at the bottem of the bag. Jesus Christ, that makes me mad every time I fall for that...you would think I would learn!

reply to post by whaaa


the air is in there to protect the contents.

if they just put chips and no air in the bag, your post would be complaining about how you got a bag full of smashed up chip bits and not one intact chip.

the label says "100g", thats what you get. they could package 100g of chips into a massive bag, but you'd still be paying for 100g of chips..
your paying for weight, not size.




[edit on 14/2/09 by Obliv_au]

reply to post by Obliv_au


Right you are! Personally, I got over the half full bag of chips years ago; yes, to keep the chips from crushing in shipping. But...lately, as the world has been made figuratively smaller with the internet, the economy has made prepared food sizes shrink, literally. Stately round containers of ice cream shrinking to the appearance of a portly Santa's elf. The bags of half filled chips starting to take on the appearance of single serve. For heaven's sake, MrD's package of his favorite burritos seems to have undergone a weight loss program, shedding a couple of burritos and package length while keeping the same price.

Originally posted by kidflash2008
reply to post by peacejet

 

... the idea is to get consumers hungry to order or go out to the restaurant.

Ack! I fall for it, I fall for it! Get my MIND going on about how I need to eat this food product. Another example is the meal-in-a-box I had started to buy as an easy meal to prepare in the rv. Open can, tear package, put in pan, stir, bake; no pots, and limited preparation utensils. After a few of these, we realized it really was mostly cheap white sauce with a few (as a couple implies two pieces, and these had at least three) pieces of vegetable and meat, to qualify as chicken/vegetable dinner, all to pour over cheap noodles. Glop.

MrD and I disagree on how to eat. I won't go into why he prefers prepared food, but he has been warned that once I retire, it's back to cooking from scratch. (He does all the cooking now, which is why we buy...GRATED cheese) I love that man and will not deny him his prepared food. He already has been made to suffer enough with salads every other night. Plus, I refuse to buy chopped onion. (My ex-mother-in-law may not have been right about her son, but she was right about how all you need in a kitchen is one good knife. And that woman could cook!)

reply to post by desert


the biggest trick they use is not in how much air they put in, and its not about giving you less than the stated 100g on the bag.

they do it by reducing the size, as shown on the label.
however the average person gets to the shop and grabs their favourite snack, without noticing that the package went from 100g bag to say 85g bag.

they are charging you the same but didnt have any notices or warnings on the weight change. so legally they are off the hook, however it is sneaky, no doubt about it.


i eat muesli bars as a before lunch snack at work.
years ago they went from a solid bar to a bar which is like several speed bumps joined together.
marketting says "now in bite size chunks". but the weight was actually reduced because instead of a bar its now a bar of chunks, all the little grooves between each chunk is lost product... all for my own convenience so i dont have to bite the bar but can break away a section.