Despite Olive Garden’s advertising that it has a cooking institute in Tuscany, news outlets have reported that, in fact, there is no institute or school. Olive Garden does send a number of managers, trainers, and cooks to Tuscany each year, but they stay in a rented hotel and spend only a few hours at a local restaurant in its off-season.
Her review of a local Olive Garden and the way she is impressed by the mundane reminds me of the Key & Peele sketch with the guy visiting the hotel continental breakfast.
Getting here a little late but honesty no matter how neat the dish is… You lost me at Olive Garden. Unless their food has magically gotten a magnitude better in the last 10 years I have much better places to get faux Italian food.
This is simultaneously incredibly depressing and yet a rabbit hole I’ll be falling down all day; I wonder if she’ll review the pasta nachos. I also love that she seems to give out her personal email address and phone number at the bottom.
I think, since she’s writing for the local paper, it’s probably her work email. It’s not uncommon for the journalists email address to be included in articles. I doubt she expected that people would read it outside of her community, though.
I made these kimchi nachos last week. They were very good but too salty. I think I’ll leave out the fish sauce next time; it’s just too much with the salt from the tortilla chips.
Each to their own, but having once eaten at an Olive Garden (once was enough), I can imagine what these taste like, and it’s literally making me nauseous.
For faux Italian I’d rather get a nostalgia fix at an old-style place that serves what passed for Italian in the 70s, the kind of place that probably had all you can eat spaghetti and meatballs on Wednesday nights and never bothered to update their decor.
well shucks, these have been on the menu for years at Carino’s and they actually call them Italian Nachos :
ITALIAN NACHOS**
Crispy pasta chips, black olives, pepperoncinis, roma tomatoes, jalapeños, alfredo sauce, mozzarella and parmesan. Your choice of chicken, sausage or combo. Get it Johnny Style! Topped with Green Chile Jalapeño Alfredo Sauce** for only $1
Regardless of the fact that it is Olive Garden, one thing is sure: pasta chips are delicious, and definitely worth eating. Also good as an alternative to crackers for sprinkling in soup, or an alternative to croutons for topping salads.
Sadly, there are plenty of places where Olive Garden or its equivalent is the closest alternative to Italian food available. Frankly, I’d take it over a lot of the places that have been around for 50 years serving crap Italian to the same now-old locals and their families who give the places great reviews and ratings.
