Olive Garden

My husband and I have never had a problem with Olive Garden. We've always received outstanding service and the food has always been good. Of course, the best Italian food I ever had was my grandmother's but I would highly recommend Maggiano's if ever in the Philadelphia area.

Olive Garden is to Italian food what Taco Bell is to Mexican.

My grandmother came from the old country. Her family's name is on the wall at Ellis Island. When you've had pasta and tomato sauce made from scratch, it's hard to stomach what the Olive Garden calls Italian.

Their salad and breadsticks are good though.

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Let us dig our gardens and not be elsewhere:
Let us take long walks in the open air...
Let us bathe in the rivers and lakes...
Let us indulge in games...
Let us be more simple: simple and true in our minds above all. Let us be ourselves.

Hey all. I'm a lurker, but I could not let this conversation go without getting my 2 cents in on OG. I think their food is consistantly really good. In fact I don't think I've ever had a meal there that was "off". I think a lot of people like to hold onto the thought of the old fashioned Italian restaurant in the Italian neighborhood. Trouble is....very few exist anymore. Most Italian neighborhoods (i.e. Little Italy/NYC, the North End/Boston) have become trendy tourist hotspots with tacky overpriced restaurants. I live in Providence, R.I., a city that's known for great Italian food. Believe me.. Olive Garden and Carrabba's both do great here. In fact, the only complaints I ever hear is that the wait is "always so long". Olive Garden's food quality compete's just fine with an "authentic" Italian restaurant. I'd put the Capellini Pomodora dish from OG against any Italian dish from an "authentic" Italian restaurant. I know it's tuff to accept, but the chain restaurants are doing it better than ever before. They have to, or they'd be gone. I think that just about every one of the best steak houses are chains. Mortons, Ruth Chris, Capital Grille, Shulas, etc. What's so different about Italian?

I'll have to agree with you. My grandmother came from Italy and she made sauce from scratch and even her pasta was hand made. She made gnocchi to die for. Nothing tops her cooking, unfortunately she passed away 6 years ago so I have to settle for places like Olive Garden. I do, however, love OG's Pasta e Fagioli soup.