I Ate at Olive Garden for First Time in Over 20 Years; Worth the Money

The Italian-American restaurant chain opened its first location in Orlando in 1982. It’s owned by Darden — the same company that owns brands like Longhorn Steakhouse, Ruth’s Chris, and Yard House.

Today, there are nearly 900 Olive Garden restaurants around the world. However, my son and I visited a busy location in Long Island, New York.

Since I hadn’t been to an Olive Garden location in nearly 20 years, my son and I decided to order four different “create your own” pasta dishes to get a feel for the chain’s offerings.

Each meal came with the chain’s signature “never-ending” soup or salad and breadsticks. To try a bit of everything, we asked for two servings of salad and two soups — pasta e fagioli and chicken and gnocchi.

I wouldn’t call the Olive Garden breadsticks memorable, but they were definitely bountiful.

We were able to have as many as we wanted, which would have been great if we didn’t have so much food coming.

Although we enjoyed the bread, I found other parts of the first course to be more memorable. The salad was a bit overdressed and heavy on lettuce, but the croutons were tasty.

Both soups, however, were better than I expected them to be. The chicken and gnocchi soup was rich, creamy, and loaded with an excellent balance of meat, gnocchi, and spinach.

I also thought the pasta e fagioli was savory and balanced without being overly salty.

After sampling each, my son and I agreed that the latter was the better of the two.

I make a decent homemade marinara sauce from scratch using a can of tomato sauce, chopped onions and garlic, salt, sugar, and a basic blend of herbs. The process, not counting the slow simmer, takes less than 10 minutes and is anything but a challenge.

So, getting a dull marinara sauce from an Italian-themed restaurant was disappointing.

I thought the marinara ($14) tasted like it was poured right from a can, without any additional handiwork by a chef. It was salty and tasted like — well, tomato sauce.

The addition of freshly-grated Parmesan, black pepper, and red-pepper flakes helped some, but frankly, I’d choose my own marinara sauce any day of the week.

Olive Garden’s meat sauce ($14) tasted just like the marinara, but included ground beef and Italian sausage.

The sauce was a bit too thin for my linking (it wasn’t watery, but it wasn’t thick, either) and the beef was a bit on the tough side. Without the tomato sauce, I’m willing to bet the meat would have been quite dry.

Unless the chain changed up its marinara recipe, I likely wouldn’t order either of these dishes again.

I typically detest mushrooms, but in the name of honest journalism, I ate several of the noodles that came in the creamy mushroom sauce ($14).

I was pleasantly surprised at how good the taste was, even though I didn’t eat any of the sliced mushrooms in the bowl.

My son did, however, and said the dish was superb. My tasting of the noodles revealed a rich, creamy, flavor you’d expect from a classic Alfredo sauce, and I can see how anyone who enjoys mushrooms would’ve found the dish a pleasure.

The five-cheese ziti al forno was more expensive than the other “create your own” pastas we ordered, but it was well worth the $19.30 price tag.

It was heavy on cheese but didn’t feel overwhelming. Overall, the dish had a flavor that reminded me of vodka sauce, and I loved the fact that it was baked. The fresh parsley sprinkled atop the pasta also added a nice herbal profile.

Of the four meals we tried, we took home the least leftovers from this one.

If you go to an Olive Garden expecting a Michelin-starred experience, you’ll leave disappointed.

However, if you come expecting food that will be filling, satisfying, and priced fairly, I’ll wager that more times than not, you’ll be happy with your meal.

I never had a strong opinion about Olive Garden, but after visiting for the first time in almost 20 years, I’d definitely consider it on my list of places to return to.