In defense of pablum

Megan is, like, so totally not an elitist. Sure, she's a vegan, and sure, she couldn't eat the meat at Outback if she weren't as it ain't cruelty free (I presume), but just because she doesn't actually eat chain-restaurant grade junk food that doesn't mean she wouldn't, were it to meet her not at all elitist requirements. She's not a food snob, and, like David Broder, Megan knows how to connect with the little people.

Matt Yglesias points out just how affected most of the wide-eyed contempt put on by New York snobs is:

Ezra Klein's right to bemoan the sneering condescension in this NYT piece on suburban chain restaurants. For me, this is made all the worse by the knowledge that the attitude of contempt is almost certainly fake. I was actually born and raised in Manhattan by fancy-pants parents who wouldn't dream of darkening the door of an Outback Steakhouse. Indeed, to the best of my knowledge by father has never tasted the joys of Chili's (those two are my favorites).

All of which has mostly made me aware of how rare this is. Most of New York City's elitists grew up in very conventional middle class suburbs and then moved to the city sometime after college. They may look like -- indeed, be -- Greenpoint hipsters now, but they come from the same places as all the other college educated white people in this country.

Matt, tho I live in Bushwick, not Greenpoint, I'm otherwise probably the type you're trying to smear as a hipster. I grew up in the suburbs, and guessthefuckwhat? These chains didn't really exist back then. When I was a kid, we went to local restaurants owned by individual people that served their own menus. Sure, I also went to Pizza Hut and Friendly's, but trying to lump those places in with theme chain restaurants is yet another stroke of fucking stupidity. Pizza Hut is a pizza place, and Friendly's is a high end diner attached to an ice cream shop. But let's move on from Matty Y's not at all snobby presumption that hipsters from the suburbs were actually raised in malls without a hint of culture or taste to Megan's attempts to validate this reverse snobbery. Matt, at least, actually eats at these places, as opposed to independently owned restaurants producing much higher quality food. Megan can't eat at Outback, yet she's still not a snob, dammit.

I was raised on the Upper West side by a woman who made her own croissants. I am actually one of the three people in the country who is neither an Orthodox Jew, nor living in a vegetarian cult, and yet has never eaten in an Outback Steakhouse. And there is nothing--nothing--more grating than born again food snobs writing articles like this.

First of all, as Matt points out, the odds that you grew up like we did, without darkening the door of a chain restaurant, are slim-to-none. I probably meet someone else who was raised in Manhattan an average of once or twice a year. Raising two children in a six room apartment and paying half a million dollars to educate them is the province of a few dedicated hobbyists.

There's just so much bullshit in that small section I don't know where to begin. I've never eaten in an Outback Steakhouse. When I visit friends or family outside the city and we eat out, we go to good restaurants, not glorified fast food joints. Megan is basically acting like your friend who, when growing up, wasn't allowed soda or fast food or processed junk by their parents and thus always thought they were some forbidden ambrosia, as opposed to crap that you're better off not putting in your body. Chain restaurants are exotic treats, because she didn't have them. Those of us who grew up understanding there are always better choices are just snobs.

Second of all, if there's anything sadder than people who act like having grown up in New York makes them the apex of the social universe, it's people who act like this when they grew up in Shaker Heights.

... what? wtf does that have to do with anything? Megan's exorcising some personal demons, here. Or at least putting them on display.

And third of all, those of us who enjoyed that rare experience have a genuine sense of the exotic when confronting a suburban chain restaurant. I've been on multiple first-time excursions to various chain restaurants with native New Yorkers, and the modal reaction is to wriggle with joy like a small puppy. I have no idea why it should be so exciting to eat what is basically decent hotel food, but I suspect we all have a lingering sense of having been left out of some vast national shared experience.

Besides, I have eaten perfectly good meals at places like Ruby Tuesday's, Friendy's [sic], Legal Seafoods, and Chili's. I like Pizza Hut breadsticks, KFC mashed potatoes, and Houlihan's stuffed mushrooms, even though these things were not easily available when I was growing up. In fact, that article made me so indignant that I'd march out right now and eat at Outback Steakhouse right now, if they had more vegan options. [Emphasis mine]

Like I said, it's an exotic adventure to Megan, which is in no way among the most ridiculous things I've ever had to contemplate. Megan has just demonstrated why even native New Yorkers can be as provincial as peasants from Romania and she thinks it makes the rest of us snobs to find it laughable. She can't even get the names right, ffs. Megan, you sound like an NYC tourist who says, without a hint of irony, that they had authentic NYC pizza because they went to "Ray's".
The sad part is I think Megan and Matt feel like they've displayed their connection with the common man here, or the connection they'd have if they actually ate like the common man, in Megan's case. They don't understand, or recognize their own participation in, the basic rich asshole fallacy of thinking that "slumming" is some kind of kitschy adventure where they connect with the common man. M&M truly are David Broder. Stopping in a Cracker Barrel must be the closest these people get to anthropology, at least in their own minds.
Know why people go to Outback? Because they're all over the fucking place, and they make your life simple, especially if you have kids. The kids can order something they know, as opposed to legit good restaurants which might involve trying something new, and there are often enough distractions to give adults a moment of peace. Sure, some of these places have items that taste good, but fried fat and sugar are available in a large variety of places. If Megan had to eat like a harried, underpaid middle class American the allure of these places would vanish inside a week. People go to them because humans are creatures of habit, and you don't have to cook or clean up afterwards.
There are Olive Gardens in NYC now, but Little Italy is no more than a block in Chinatown. I wonder if M&M can even see the problem in that. Probably not, they do love them some breadsticks.