Been to Olive Garden Lately?

I'm not sure if you ever go to Olive Garden, but we went there last night for my mother's birthday. It's where she suggested we go so, since its her birthday, that's where we went. I used to really enjoy Olive Garden, but the place just seems to continue to decline every time I go there, or, my palate has really changed. I'm sure it's a little bit of both. By the way, those are the folks at the Culinary Institute of Tuscany, I guess...I really don't think they make Italian food like Grandma used to make, though.

We had nine guests, if you count my niece Stella, so eight of us ate. I can't vouch for everyone, but I can say that most of us ate all of our food or close to it. I ate about half of my ravioli di portabella and took the rest home. They're usually not bad, and they were ok tasting, but the pasta was a little overdone. The minestrone was watered down slightly as well.

Three of the people at the table had a newer dish called Shrimp Carbonara. Two of them liked it, but my mom didn't like it. Two of the people who ate it, including the birthday girl, got very sick for the entire night after eating it. I was happy to have SP join us. He ordered the manicotti and ate it all, with some salad, but he got sick as well. My stomach was a little touchy through the night as well, but not as bad as the other three. So, half of us who ate there got sick.

On top of that, two of the meals had to be remade because the waiter ordered chicken carbonara instead of shrimp carbonara. One of those dishes was my mother's, so the birthday girl got her food after we were all half done eating. They did take her meal off the bill. She had what is molten chocolate cake, but it's called something else there, and it was good, she said.

Aside from that, I have to say that they don't seem to spend a great deal of money on the place considering the gold mine that they obviously have. I mean, $11.25 for a plate of linguini or fettucini and $15.25 if you add a few shrimp to it, or $11.25 for a few overdone stuffed pasta is a lot of profit, I'm sure. The flooring is tired, the tables are worn out from overuse or too much weight sitting in them or both. The lighting is like sitting under interrogation lamps, only there is a whole string of them everywhere you look. Someone keeps leaning on the dimmer switch, so the mood keeps changing, and you can barely hear your family as the rounds of Buona Festa (Buena Festa is the way they sing it...guys, it's Italian, not Spanish-ish) keep being sung over and over...it can't be that many people's birthdays. The location we went to is in Racine, and it always has a wait. We were told the wait would be thirty minutes at 4:30 p.m. on a Sunday. I mean, doesn't anyone know of any other places to eat?

I suppose I'll have to start pointing out the good restaurants so that folks don't wait in line for overpriced, overdone pasta in as good as canned sauce that keeps them up on the toilet all night long. I'll keep you posted as I visit some of our favorites that don't make us ill.

Next year is Mom's 50th (oops, did I say that out loud?) so I'll have to have a party and serve better food.