Let’s Review Olive Garden

Let’s review Olive Garden.

I’m sure some of you may be reading this and thinking one of these things:

• Why would you review Olive Garden?
• Why didn’t you go somewhere better?
• How dare you go to that place!

My response to that would be because I can and chains aren’t beneath me. Anything is open for review here at Wichita By E.B.

I was out with my cousins, parents, siblings, etc. We all decided last second to grab dinner together and I casually let them decide where to go. The suggestion of Olive Garden came up and when you’re trying to decide where to eat with ten people, you go with the flow and don’t argue.

So we made our way to Olive Garden. Let’s be honest here, the salad, breadsticks and soup aren’t half bad especially the salad. There’s just something about the lettuce mix, onion slices, olives, pepperoncini, tomatoes, and croutons drenched in dressing that hits the spot. The breadsticks can be hit or miss sometimes depending on how fresh they are. One batch of breadsticks were well-seasoned and soft while another batch was pretty tough. And while the soup isn’t anything fancy, it’s simple and does the trick.

I’ve been to many house parties where people brought Olive Garden salad and breadsticks which received zero complaints.

Next up were our pasta entrees. With a table of 10+, everybody ordered something different and I wasn’t about to go around the table and take pictures of everything so what you see is what you get. 🙂

People had the shrimp scampi, the all you can eat pastas, the beef bolognese with pappardelle pasta and more. While the salad and breadsticks are almost universally loved, the dishes were viewed a little differently.

Nothing at Olive Garden was horrible but at the same time it wasn’t five-star Italian food either. Most people probably realize that going into this place. It’s average Italian food that isn’t too memorable but at the same time will fill you up. You know exactly what you’re getting when you step inside. One thing many of us noticed is while they were generous with the salad dressing, they are very light on the sauce with many of the dishes which sometimes left some of the noodles tasting very bland.

But for a chain, you’d expect for the price to be a little more competitive than the local options who don’t have the margins to work with. That wasn’t the case. Many dishes at Olive Garden still ran $10-16 for us. Then you take into account drinks and it adds up. Then if you have kids, they have these tablets at the tables where they charge you to play games. Of course one of the kids chose to play games even though we have iPhones with games on them….total rip off! Don’t fall victim to those tablets!

The service was very friendly but it was slow and that was with two different servers at our table.

People have their opinions of Olive Garden. I probably haven’t dined there in a couple years and by no means is it as horrible as some of the strong opinions say it is. Are there better Italian options in town? 100%. To me Olive Garden is one of those places you don’t really recommend but if someone suggest it, you go with the flow especially if it’s your parents.

Happy Dining,
Eddy

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