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| - i know, I know--Olive Garden, how pedestrian of me! I don't have too many chain restaurant reviews, so I figured I'd write one. We went for a surprise birthday party. My friend had made a reservation which they somehow didn't have (maybe she called the wrong one? Anyway, I'm not going to dock for this). The staff was very accommodating, they were able to put a table together for us on short notice.
When we sat down, I was immediately hit by a gross smell. I asked my friend "Do you smell that? It smells like..." to which he replied "wet dog!" which is exactly what I was thinking. It smelled badly like wet dog. How disgusting. Maybe it was the table--can you say dirty rags? While we waited for the rest to arrive, we got breadsticks and were also told that dessert for the birthday would be a charge. Really? Come on now. The bread sticks were pretty underwhelming--there was no garlic or flavor really. Booo.
Once everyone arrived, we placed orders. I got the Bruschetta Salmon. When I asked the waiter how it was, he said he hadn't tried it in forever but that people say it's decent--I appreciated that honesty! They served salad shortly My goodness this place was slow though. The food took forever. When it came out, it was pretty lousy. I found two bones in the salmon before I quit eating it. The risotto pasta thing under it was so heavy and the salmon was sort of hard and the toppings made no sense. It felt like two or three dishes in one. Others' food didn't come out, so the manager came out and apologized and comped several meals. He even went up to the birthday boy and told him he'd comp his dessert as well. Thumbs up.
Dessert was actually pretty good--I got the chocolate tuxedo mousse cake which was quite good and it seems everyone else enjoyed theirs as well. The only reason this place is getting 2 stars instead of 1 is for service. Our waiter was personable and friendly, and the manager was excellent. I'd stay away from this garden like the plague, though.
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