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| - I would normally give OG a 3-4. They are consistently decent, rarely outstanding. If I want outstanding, there are non-chain restaurants that can fill that need.
But today was different. We went there for Sunday lunch, party of six, and although it overall went well, it was one of the very rare occasions where my meal was screwed up. I had a steak off the menu, and since their web site sucks and I can't pull down a menu and find the actual name, I can't name it. But it had a parm sauce with bread crumbs, came with balsamic drizzled asparagus, and garlic mashed potatoes. The waitress asked if I wanted it medium or medium well, I ordered medium well. A straight-forward order, nothing custom.
Everyone's food came out, albeit slowly, and I started sawing through my meat. And I mean saw. It was tremendously over-done. I sent it back. And waited. And waited. And waited. Not only had everyone else finished their meals while I waited, but one couple had to leave. My remake arrived, delivered by the manager, and I stuck my fork in to it and found it was not over-done. First bite was great, then my wife commented that it was bleeding. I know the juice is not blood, but it was very rare, well below medium-well. I cut another piece and noticed something odd, so I scraped the toppings off and found that the cook (I will not use the term chef since they could not properly cook a small steak) had cut in to the meat to see how done it was, then covered it up with topping. If they saw it was under-done, why didn't they just continue to cook it?
So I asked again for the manager and explained the situation. She was very apologetic and It was taken off the bill, a substitution was offered but everyone else was done and I didn't want to detail the other three. So aside from salad and two breadsticks, my lunch was balsamic-drizzled asparagus and garlic mashed potatoes.
My wife theorized a possible explanation. Since I did not actually send the original plate back, they couldn't see how over-done my original was, and they deliberately under-cooked the replacement. Perhaps if I'd actually sent the plate back they would have seen it wasn't correct.
To be fair, everyone else's meal was fine. But I would suggest that if you order steak at this Olive Garden, make sure it is done properly.
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