Olive garden!!!

haha now time for new food review, ok although this isn't really appropriate for ppl living in singapore, i guess i'll still review this restaurant. Yesterday as part of the culinary expedition of america kelvin and i went to restaurante italiano Olive Garden, yeap, olive garden, most probably u guys wouldn't have heard of it b4 its coz its not even in Singapore, guess they only have it in the states. Anyway here family style restaurants are present in the thousands, so there's no fear of not being able to find food :)

Ok first up, appearance wise this place looks real decent, i mean look at this, its just a normal, affordable italian restaurant, compared to those fine dining italian restaurants in Singapore the designs are like 10times much better, just see it for yourself..



Next comes the food, for starters i had minestrone, a classic italian hearty broth infused with a medly of herbs and spices, in it were generous portions of both white and red kidney beans, pasta, tomatoes and other greens. It was delish, i mean every sip of this soup brings you to some happy playground, it didn't need any extra seasoning and had the right balance of most of the things you would expect in a nice hearty soup. Accompanying it came freshly baked garlic 'salted' bread, boy was it good, the crusty loaf would just crumble in your mouth, and the garlic salt didn't really spoil the bread, in fact it gave it a different dimension, just that oomph to enhance its characteristics..





















After that came the appetisers, had this special olive sampler platter, where one gets to choose and create their own appetiser platter, it was a unanimous decision: Stuffed mushrooms, toasted ravioli filled with beef and fried calamari. MAN WAS IT AWESOME, the mushrooms were stuffed generously with breadcrumbs and mozzarella, the ravioli was crisp and flavourful. My only concern was the fried calamari, given its reputation i was expecting something a little more spectacular, after all the chefs from olive garden are claimed to have graduated from the culinary institute of Tuscany.

Halfway through our appetisers came the main course, Kelvin had a seafood portofino, which was linguine in a lemon butter sauce tossed with mussels and shrimp, while i had Chicken Giardarno, which was grilled chicken tossed in a lemon herb cream sauce together with farfel pasta. Both pastas were cooked to al dente perfection, the chicken was moist, juicy and tender and the portions were generous, all elements of a good meal. Overall the experience here at Olive garden was good, though i'd better times in other restaurants, this would be considered as one of the better ones, and people thought that america was just about burgers.. Ciao!!