Olive Garden

We had a coupon and so decided to venture to our nearby Olive Garden one evening recently. It was a good choice and we had a very good meal and a nice dining experience. We were quickly seated and Bryce, our server took great care of us. We came because of the $5 off coupon for their "3 Course Italian Dinner for $12.95" and we left full and with some leftovers. It was a good choice.

There are a lot of great choices on the menu and so we started out with the Grilled Chicken Flatbread for an appetizer. A god portion of tender chicken, mozzarella, roasted red peppers and basil with an alfredo and garlic spread was nicely grilled, warm and yummy. This was good comfort food. The roasted red peppers added a very nice gently heat to the tender and moist chicken. We liked this dish a lot.

The special is basically a choice of soup or salad, an entree, and a dessert. We both chose to begin with a salad. At Olive Garden, the salad is all you can eat, and we ate all we can. It's a nice salad, with mostly romaine but also tomato, olives, red onion, pepperoncini, cheese, and lots of goodness. It's served with their delicious, hot and fresh breadsticks, too. You cannot go wrong with this combination. We enjoyed the salad a lot and it was very nice and fresh, all a salad should be.

For my main course I had the Grilled Chicken Toscano. This is grilled chicken breasts that are brushed with a sweet red wine demiglace. It was served with fresh spinach and a parmesan risottos with tomatoes. Of course I also had it topped with a generous portion of fresh grated parmesan cheese. It was absolutely delicious. The chicken was nice and moist and tender. The sweet red-wine demiglace was not overpowering but gave a nice rich sweetness to the chicken. The parmesan risotto was done very nicely with still just a bit of tooth-bite, not mushy. I liked this dish a lot.

For his entree, Tommy had the Parmesan-Potato Crusted Chicken. It was really very, very good. The chicken was nicely cooked and the crisp parmesan-potato crust was amazingly good. It had a bit of a crunch and the chicken itself was tender and flavorful. It was served on a bed of linguine pasta with a creamy garlic scampi sauce. Now, Tommy is not a huge garlic fan, but he ordered this anyhow. And loved it. The garlic was not at all overpowering but had a nice, sweet, roasted flavor. Again, a great dish.

For my "dessert" I chose the Caffe Mocha. It was all it should be, tasting a lot like hot chocolate made with coffee. It was a nice end to a satisfying meal.

Unlike me, Tommy is not averse to sweet, calorie-laden desserts and so he chose the Chocolate Mousse. It was everything a chocolate mousse should be, very chocolaty and nice and rich and creamy.

We had a very nice time at the Olive Garden for dinner and certainly would return here. Bryce, our server, did a great job of taking care of us and we left full and with some leftovers to enjoy another day--which we did. Yumm!