I love eating in New York. The endless refectories of the city have given this foodie a lifetime to work out my addictive shortcomings. It’s the most delicious wagon you could ever fall from: I’ve fed my way through the olfactory troves of each of the five boroughs, from every cultural possibility and reinterpretation, an endless menagerie of meals at my disposal, the very skyline my culinary canvas. Truth be told, I’ve had my share of romantic outings in NYC restaurants, too. To be sure, I thought I had done it all. That is, until I decided to take a girl to the Olive Garden in Times Square.
We arrived at the Olive Garden with big appetites and bigger dreams. And boy, the Times Square Olive Garden sure is big! The restaurant offers three floors of dining experiences with a variety of decorative options (from the quaint villa trappings of the third floor, the playful Miranda of the second, and the sports-bar moderna themes on the ground floor). There are two full bars (the larger bar on the second-floor offering a wrap-around view of Times Square). Make no mistake about it: we were in the big time.
“Buongiornio!” I said to the hostess. According to the apron, her name was “Amber.” I told her we had a reservation for dinner (that’s “cena,” for all you rubes who don’t know any better). When the hostess replied that Olive Garden doesn’t offer reservations, my first inclination was to bang my fist on the counter (I’d even practiced my “This is an Outrage!” impromptu for the occasion). I vied on the passive though, even when told there would be a thirty-minute wait for the next available table. We were soon seated, however, when we were told there were tables available on the first floor, which was not our primary choice. Fact: this would never have happened at Applebee’s.
Soon our waiter arrived (I think his name was “Brad”) and drinks were served. We were then invited to try one of Olive Garden’s signatures, the “Endless Bowl of Salad.” Intrigued by this metaphysical quandary, I accepted. As one of the establishment’s oldest M.O.s, the “Endless Bowl of Salad” isn’t the black hole of legumes the name would imply, but rather, the result of a bit of logistical haggling on behalf of the establishment, that if you finished your salad before the entrée arrives, you are entitled to seconds or (hypothetically) endless amounts until said event horizon of said main dish occurs. This elixir of greens offered varying vegetables of questionable origin, including corners of red onion, withered banana peppers and sponge-like croutons, all doused in a hearty soup of Italian “dressing.”
The “Endless Breadsticks,” a series of baskets bearing bone-hard, torpedo-shaped loaves smothered in butter and garlic, faithfully accompanied our salads. The resulting bounty, while admittedly endless, heeds the maxim that omnipotence and eternal life do not always ensure the highest quality. Ho-hum.
Bon Appetit!Finally, our main dishes arrived. For myself, there was the Ravioli di Portobello: a Portobello mushroom-filled ravioli in a creamy, smoked cheese and sun-dried tomato Alfredo sauce.
For my lovely date, the Chicken Marsala: Sautéed chicken breasts in a savory sauce of mushrooms, garlic and marsala wine, served on a bed of Tuscan potatoes and bell peppers. Molto Bello!
The Alfredo sauce at Olive Garden is an odd thing. It looks like yogurt and it tastes like cheese whiz and it’s on almost every dish they offer. Like a dwindling stock or a plentiful natural resource, it almost seems like they’re trying to unload as much of it as quickly as they can. It wouldn’t surprise me if they offered vodka and Alfredo shots at the bar.
The most iconic weapon in the Olive Garden waiter’s arsenal is the cheese grater. I asked “Brad” if I could borrow his for a minute, and that’s when I snapped this pic. Truth be told, I want one of these around the house in a bad way. It’s probably for the best that I don’t have one, though, as I’d probably use it to sprinkle cheese on everything within arm’s reach (food, pets, sleeping friends, etc.)
The New York Olive Garden sure is fancy! I was delighted to find a winery on the 3rd floor, stocked to the ceiling with libations such as Sutter Home and Red Tail! I snapped this pic right before a staff member told me that photos of the wine room weren’t allowed. Mi scusi!
Olive Garden restaurants are impeccably designed, with no attention spared on detail. Utilizing a vast knowledge of Mediterranean foliage, fauna and interior design, teams are hired to recreate everything from the stucco walls to the background music. According to the restaurant’s official Website, some newer locations are now styled after actual farmhouses in the town of Castellina in Chianti, Tuscany.
Ten Olive Garden facts:
1- Black people love Olive Garden.
2- You can slather garlic and butter on anything and it will taste delicious. Try it on doorknobs, leftover Easter Peeps and the fingers of the homeless.
3- Italian cuisine also includes items such as hamburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches. Who knew?
4- Long Island Jews love Olive Garden.
5- Mussolini’s involvement in WWII can be directly traced to a real estate deal gone bad involving a strip of retail shopping properties outside of Orlando, FL.
6- Italians celebrate their culture with Bud Light, American football and big-screen TVs. And I respect their culture.
7- Dinner checks at the New York Olive Garden include gratuity. Too bad, given our waiter sucked an endless bowl of dicks.
8- Olive Garden was inspired by a village in the Tuscany region of Italy. Folklore has it the town lies between rivers of Velveeta.
9- Real Italian people don’t eat at the New York Olive Garden. Ever. But, if you make a mock Godfather impression while seated at your table, you are sure to get an approving laugh from the guy in the next booth over.
10- White people (especially from the Midwest) love Olive Garden. In fact, I saw more of “my people” from “the old country” in the restaurant than any other ethnic group. Salute!
As you can see, I learned a lot from our experience. I learned a lot about Italian culture, and dare I say it, I learned a lot about fun! Here’s hoping you too can take it upon yourselves to get out there and get educated to the other cultures of the world. As for me, I’ve discovered this is just the tip of the iceberg: There’s so much culture in New York … I think we’re going to the Benihana chain of Japanese steak houses next week!
Arrivederci!
22 responses so far ↓
1 Cookie // Jan 3, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Is your date drinking an Alfredotini?
2 kate // Jan 3, 2008 at 5:14 pm
One word on why you cannot take pictures of the wine cellar at OG’s:
Hoffa.
Another thing, I am not sure if you posture yourself as a fan of celebreality and E! TV, for some reason I thought you did, but I may be confusing you with someone else. ANYHOO, if you did posture yourself as a fan of celebreality and E! TV, I would know you were a LIAR because everybody know dat OG’s biggest fan is:
Heff’s third and youngest love bunny, Kendra “Yo Where My Grill At!” Wilkinson
3 kate // Jan 3, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Jon… I haven’t read much of your musings.. but I think I will make a habit of it.. .You are one funny mother fucker..
4 Chris // Jan 3, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Jon…
Here in LA I have a SIZZLER in walking distance from my apt. There is also a very authentic S Indian restaurant (cafeteria) about the same walking distance.. I’ve tried the Indian fare and it is delightful. But NO FUCKING SALAD BAR!
I love me some chain restaurants… And the best part about SIZZLER: they think that chicken is vegetarian.
God bless America.
5 mcfly // Jan 3, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Did you ask the waiter for the taser shot? You gotta pull that sometime on some poor, unsuspecting waiter or waitress.
6 Beth Biscuit // Jan 3, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Enchanting.
But why no dirt on the DATE?
I was going to criticize her drink, but then remembered you were at Olive Garden. So never mind.
7 nikki ruffing // Jan 3, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Haha….although it is alot nicer than any olive garden I have ever been to…and it is a well known fact also that at any given time you walk into olive garden, there will always be at least a 30min wait….11am? 30min wait….10pm? 30 min wait..haha
8 shannon // Jan 3, 2008 at 11:10 pm
wait, did i forfeit my italian heritage by participating in this experiment with you? fuck!
9 kate // Jan 3, 2008 at 11:18 pm
I gotta admit that after reading your detailed account, I’m hungry for some Olive Garden. It wouldn’t matter what I would order because it all tastes so “olive garden-y”. Ya know Jon, you didn’t need to move all the way to New York City for such total immersion in real italian culture - you coulda got that shit in mid Ohio!
10 don // Jan 4, 2008 at 7:43 am
dude, hilarious!
you forgot to mention one other fact though - midwesterners love a lot of *anything* - lots of breadsticks, lots of salad, lots of carpet tacks in their food, ya get the point.
11 sara // Jan 4, 2008 at 8:36 am
my friend justin once took a girl to that very same Olive Garden as his date to find out if she really liked him or not.
she never called him again.
12 Beth // Jan 4, 2008 at 9:07 am
fucking fantastic. it’s the new wave in restaurant reviews. love it.
you should come evaluate the shit show i work in…
13 Chad // Jan 4, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Oh boy good old olive garden, I make cracks about olive garden every chance I get. I like driving past olive gardens when they have the “never ending pasta bowl” specials. Its the personification of fucking bovine America lined up to get to their feeding troughs. You don’t not want to get in between a family of four that collectively weighs three quarters of a ton and never ending creamy alfredo sauce, you will most certainly lose and arm in the carnage.
14 Anon in NY // Feb 14, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Those were some pretty bigoted comments you made. You’re fairly privileged to live in NYC and to have access to such a wealth of culture and experience at your fingertips. But I’m surprised that anyone who lives in such a diverse place and touts themself as thriving on “every cultural possibility and reinterpretation” would be ignorant enough to make such statements of Blacks, Jews and Midwestern Whites. For instance, of course the Whites from the Midwest go to the Olive Garden. It’s a suburban restaurant chain and most people in this country live in the suburbs or the sticks so that’s what they’re comfortable with. An Olive Garden would not thrive anywhere in NYC except in a place rich with tourists looking for something to eat in a place where at least they can know what to expect, in a place where they feel comfortable. I don’t know about Blacks and Jews, but I’m fairly certain that they also wouldn’t appreciate your lack of respect for their cultures, and your sweeping generalization only serves to illuminate a broader point that maybe you have missed. Instead of criticizing people, why not enlighten them with other opportunities in NYC and encourage them to expand their horizons? And while you’re at it, you could learn to be a bit less narrow-minded, pompous and pretentious. I do wish you the best.
15 Mr. Fonzanune // Feb 15, 2008 at 10:18 am
If I was the host at Olive Garden and you came in and greeted me with a smug self impressed smile and belted out a hearty “Buongiornio”, I would either…..
A) Instruct the kitchen staff to masturbate all over your ravioli. (I could see the commercial for that one. “Alredo con semen anyone? My Italian grandfather loves it!”)
B) Kick you in the nixons as hard as I could to insure that there was no risk that you could reproduce any aspiring, to ironic for their own good, young food journalists such as your self.
But dare I say, I am looking forward to your soon to be posted piece about you making love to yourself in a Red Lobster bathroom. Shrimpfeast 2008 is coming up soon I hear.
Corporate America lookout! This man is armed with a vocabulary and he’s not afraid to use it.
16 Anon in Anon in NY's Ass // Feb 27, 2008 at 5:39 pm
You are from a pretentiousness. The use of many big words does not secure intelligence. Because the truth is true you must justify? Even if not true it is of a relativeness. I am not a hater of the gays and fats. You should consider this.
17 Mandy // Mar 17, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Anon in NY is a pretentious idiot! I am originally from the midwest, and I am a pasty, white female. I’ve lived all over the U.S., worked at Olive Garden, eaten at Olive Garden, and even visited NYC. Your statements about Olive Garden are sooooooooooooooooooooooo true and hilarious! Keep on writing and reviewing! Your abilities to write and entertain simultaneously are apparent. In the meantime, maybe Anon from NY, the sour-puss (is that spelled right?), will take the time to not be such a tight-ass, and lighten up a hair.
18 Drew // May 30, 2008 at 12:38 am
I don’t understand one thing. You say your date had the Chicken Marsala, which had “bell peppers” among other ingredients. But what she has in front of her in the picture is the Chicken Parmigiana, which is not remotely close in content, color, or description…
Why did she have that entree in front of her if thats not what she was eating?
Next question: You say that the Alfredo sauce is on everything. It is not, nor even on half of everything. Specifically it is in four. The Fettuccine Alfredo, Chicken Alfredo, Tour of Italy and Seafood Alfredo. None of the other ones have alfredo, nor alfredo as the base of their sauce. What were you referring to?
The place looked great, your article was very neat, a rare glimpse into the TSOG
19 Owner’s Manual One-Year Anniversary: the Yearly Craw. // Aug 15, 2008 at 2:00 pm
[…] comments on the blog; based on the clicks the site gets, I know more people would rather read about going on a date to the Olive Garden or how to get drunk on Steven Seagal’s energy drink than to read admittedly-dry items about how […]
20 James from Indiana // Jun 23, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I work at an Olive Garden and I LOVED your piece. I would love to see stuff like this in newspapers, then I might just read restaurant reviews inside them.
21 mike // Feb 25, 2010 at 11:09 pm
I read this like whole thing.. I jus wantd ta know how much it wuld cost ta take this chik ta olive garden, but u told me everything but that n tha menu.
22 Tjoode // Mar 26, 2010 at 8:41 am
I think you’re one dumb mf ur date look like she has sperm in her mouth and you look like a village retard that never enterd the city .
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