The Olive Garden of Eden

The promise of "endless salad and breadsticks!" kept repeating in my mind that Monday night as we were driving to our dinner destination: The Olive Garden. My boyfriend Drew and I have both worked in the food industry and pride ourselves on a good palate and decent taste in cuisine. Okay, we just won't tell anyone that we had a strange yet undeniable craving for pasta, salad, and breadsticks that could only be satisfied with a trip to The Olive Garden. All of the other Italian restaurants in town were either too expensive or the food quality was too unpredictable. Plus, even if our entrees were garbage we could at least gorge ourselves on salad and bread. We found a spot in the enormous Wal-Martesque parking lot and made our way through the doors under the sign with the giant olive on it. We dutifully accepted our black, light-up-and-vibrate-when-we-can-sit square and took a seat at the bar. I, deciding that it was a special occasion, ordered a vodka dirty martini and Drew followed suite with a gin and tonic. After a few sips of our cocktails under the overdone italian trellis and ivy decor our black square started squirming around on top of the bar; we have been chosen! We carried our drinks through the dining area and felt our drink choices may have been misplaced amoungst the chairs with wheels and the tables of families with small children. After settling into our table and rolling back and forth in our chairs a few times we ordered another round of drinks and, being the appetizeraholics that we are, ordered the fondita (basically a cheese dip with crostinis). When I took a sip of my fresh martini and ew, it was made with gin. After making my first mixed drink ever around the age of 15 with gin and juice (the Snoop Dogg cover of this song was my only bartending reference) I have since always thought that gin tasted like nail polish remover. I notified the waitress of the drink mix up and she sent it back to the bar for repair. The bartender himself came dashing back to the table and, although he swears he remembers putting vodka in the drink, he apologized and swiftly made me a new drink. A few moments later our waitress came by and informed us that the kitchen accidently burnt our fondita and it would take a few minutes more than expected for the dish to be served. Furthermore, she said that her manager would comp the appetizer for us. As we were discussing how these Olive Gardeners really know how to run a restaurant the manager herself comes to our table to again apologize for the overly-crispy cheese dip. Wow. We started going over other experiences at restaurants, which were 'supossed' to be fine dining. At Coast (on John St.), for example, they sent us out a burnt piece of fish on a $40 paella and we had to ask our snobby waiter for a replacement. Or at Wasabi when we read on the website Chucktownlowdown.com (great place to learn about drink and food specials) that Wednesday was half off hibatchi night only to learn that when our bill came this special was no longer valid. Instead of believing in 'the customer is always right' philosphy and honering the special as it was advertised, we had to pay full price. The manager did not even deem us worthy enough to step out of his secret lair to explain this to us.
The Olive Garden, on the other hand, knows how to run a restuarant. I am not ashamed to yell it from the rooftops that I WENT TO THE OLIVE GARDEN AND I LIKED IT! Our pasta was delicious and the service was impeccable. Our bill came and instead of looking at the total with a half worried, half dumbfounded look on our faces we smiled and figured that we could afford to give our waitress an extra hefty tip.
It is a shame that one cannot go to any restaurant in town and expect the same level of service and food quality and consistency that we found at The Olive Garden.
We left the restaurant with leftovers, full stomachs, and smiles on our faces. Next time, I will have to see if they sell t-shirts.