I never thought there would come a day when I would anxiously CRAVE The Olive Garden, but a few weeks ago I made my mind up to eat there and had to make it happen. I assure you, it was all about the breadsticks.
The Olive Garden breadstick is one of the perfectly crafted food items of our time, like the Gray's Papaya hot dog or the Dunkin Donuts blueberry muffin. The leavened logs are perfectly fluffy, just underbaked, slathered in olive oil and sprinkled with salt. Like their salad - also quite tasty if you get a good scoop - the Olive Garden's breadsticks will continue to come to you throughout the meal until you can't lift bread to beak. All-you-can-eat anti-Atkins comfort food.
My great Aunt Mimi, also a lover of OG breadsticks, used to wrap them in a napkin and steal them in her purse at the end of our Olive Garden outings. They WILL give you a styrofoam container for that Aunt Mimi, I swear.
I'll tell you what The Olive Garden isn't about. Authentic Italian cuisine. If you go in hoping for a step above Chef Boyardee or Ronzoni covered in Ragu, your expectations will be perfectly met.
The Olive Garden's big mistake is in the marketing of their dishes as authentic homemade. Their commercials feature big, obnoxious Italian families rounded up by plump, jovial grandmothers promoting the sharing of entrees off steaming platters. "Buon appetito!" Everyone clicks forks and snags bites from one another's plates, raising their overflowing glasses of Olive Garden house wine, (promoted in laughably painstaking detail by the OG waiters, btw) while an accordian rendition of "Mama Mia Pizzeria" plays in the background. How festive. Just like Italy. As my coworker Murph quipped one day, "All those commercials do is give you a license to be loud at The Olive Garden."
But the Olive Garden seems to take it's role as an authoritative Italian kitchen quite seriously. When D-Hardcore (my two-time UEE dining partner) and I plopped down in the eatery's synthetic leather booths a couple weeks ago, we immediately noticed little markings next to certain dishes on the menu, which indicated "Specialties Inspired by our Culinary Institute of Tuscany."
Wait.
The Olive Garden has a culinary institute in Tuscany?? And the best they could come up with was Chicken Marsala?
Other Institue options included the less-than-inventive Italian staple, Shrimp Primavera, as well as the moderately experimental Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo, which proved, as I once theorized, that The Olive Garden will cover just about anything in Alfredo sauce. Miss Stacia was not impressed.
But I didn't make the trip for the food. This chick came for the breadsticks.
After much deliberation I chose to keep my meal simple with spaghetti and meatballs while D-Hardcore went balls-to-the-wall with the Tour of Italy, a sampler plate consisting of lasagna, chicken parmesean and, what else, fettuccine alfredo. T-Money and Big Mo (Mo Money) informed me the morning after my meal that I had played it too safe with my entree selection, but I have serious doubts that the Olive Garden has a specialty I missed out on. I just wanted some red sauce to dip my breadsticks in, and that's pretty much what I got. A shitload of spaghetti with three, tennis-ball-sized meatballs that tasted like, well, meat. Covered in red sauce. Perhaps the scary thing about the food at this place is that it's not distinctive, but it's not inedible either. It kind of just is. Hardcore said his food was okay too, although even his six-foot-three frame wasn't up to the task of cleaning the monster portion plated for him on The Tour. I wasn't surprised to see the only dish of the trifecta he knocked off was the alfredo. (A sidenote about pasta alfredo: I understand a ton of people LOVE milky cheese sauce, but I just think that stuff is narsty. I can eat about two bites before I feel like I'm drinking cream for dinner.)
We decided to go in for dessert because I can never resist, sharing a raspberry swirl cheesecake that looked "delectable" in Hardcore's words, but was overrefrigerated and way too rich for my taste. That didn't stop me from eating it. We also indulged in coffee, although I'm not gonna lie, I kind of wanted to end my meal on the breadstick note.
Our meal came out to about 60 bucks between the two of us, hardly the IHOP bargain (about 15 dollars for just as much, if not more, food) but decent for a dinner out in New York City. After we paid the check I asked the waiter if there was any way to dine at the Olive Garden, ordering only breadsticks and salad. Apparently this IS possible. In fact, when I returned home stuffed full o' Prego and bread and chocolate crust, I flipped on the television, which immediately flashed a commercial for the Olive Garden's new lunch special: Soup, salad and breadsticks for $5.99. Now that's an AUTHENTIC bargain I can get down with.
**Apologies to Juju and Jay-Z, both of whom were promised an outing to the Olive Garden prior to my trip with D-Hardcore. For the sake of blog writing and curb craving, I gave into the temptation to visit early, but I will return again, if only for the breadsticks.
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2 comments:
You know Ms. Jones, you should have someone follow you around with a camera on this little food odyssey of yours. You could turn this into your own "Supersize Me", document how eating at crappy tourist filled restaurants affects your physical and social well being...Will you get fat? Will people stop wanting to hang out with you if dinner is always at Bennigan's or Chili's?
I'm really enjoying this series and am anxiously awaiting further write-ups. In fact, McMattress and I were also tossing around other ideas for this series: Outback Steakhouse? Friday's? Hooters? Denny's? Bonanza/Ponderosa? I'd also like to see more photographic evidence of these outtings. And I think you should do a mini segment on how your friend who goes with you always seems to choose the sampler. In fact, maybe his new blog identity could BE "The Sampler". I'm intrigued by him.
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