The Family Garden

A quick look at my first trip to the popular Italian American Chain, Olive Garden.

Inarguably the strongest cuisine in the world, evoking emotion of delight every time it is muttered. People will drive, swim, and even fight over this food, of course I’m talking about Italian cuisine. Is the olive garden Italian? They market it as such, but is it? Not sure if my ancestors in Italy would have welcomed this food but I will so they don’t have to.

Let’s start with the breadsticks, the immaculate breadsticks that have next to no flaws, none that I could recognize at least. Certainly they crack the top five breads at American chain restaurants and it surely does not sit at five.

Then the salad came out where the only complaint that could be mustered up was it was a little too dressed. Swimming in dressing this salad still impressed me with flavor.

The tour of Italy that consisted of three dishes, two of which I would imagine you would be hard pressed to find in Italy. Chicken Parmesan, Lasagna, and Fettuccine Alfredo make up the tour and while they don’t encapsulate Italy, they do all complement each other in a way that is amusing and inspiring. Each trying as hard as they can to impress yet each folding into the dish to make the sum greater than the parts. The Chicken Parmesan cutlet was salty with a sweet sauce that worked together in a way that I didn’t expect from a chain. The Fettuccine has a warming white sauce that has become a stable in America, with good reason. Its fattening, sweet, and delicious to make a blend that just flat out works. The lasagna is layered with meat red sauce and mozzarella being the stars of the show. The dishes work together to encapsulate what American Italian cuisine has become and that is not a slight but a celebration of what we have made.

Walking into the garden skepticism was at an all time high. As an American with Italian ancestors (really Sicilian ancestors) Olive Garden is blasphemy, everything I should hate is within these walls. Yet, I left full and happy, isn’t that the important part of an Italian meal? I won’t be rushing back but I now know if I need a meal and am craving a chicken parmesan (not an Italian dish), that there is a place across the US that will be able to fill that craving.