Ask for the dressing on the side.

You can request the dressing on the side for the salad bowl.

During the visit with buy one take one home promotion, the waiter asked us if we wanted a fresh salad at the end of the meal with a wink.

You can also request Light Italian dressing for the salad.

One of my co-workers always takes home the extra left over salad and breadsticks after we have lunch. I can't remember if they bring a fresh one out though.

I don't like salads that are coated with dressing to sit in the fridge for more than an hour or so. The lettuce gets soggy.

I really should ask for 2 salads, both with dressing on the side. Mrs. BV prefers it with grated cheese. I cannot eat cheese. She compromises and has them sprinkle cheese on her salad plate. That only works for the first serving unless she wants to wait for the server to come back with the grater. Maybe they could leave the grater at the table!

They would probably bring two salads. I doubt they would leave a grater at the table, as they seem to have a very limited number of those.

I confess I am not a salad person, but I can eat 9 breadsticks and not think twice about it. LOL!!!

While I like my salads drowned in dressing, you could always do what my wife does, ask for the dressing on the side and add the amount you like personally. She has preferred the Chicken Gnocchi soup over salad during recent visits, so I get my salads the normal way, sans olives and pepperoncini.


Sorry, I didn't see all the recent responses as the post I was quoting was the last on the page before all these recent post

We prefer salads without olives and tomatoes. :D

They will bring two salads. I get mine without cheese, which of course every one else wants.

I assume the server actually prepares the salad. It was that way in every restaurant I worked in as a kid. Ideally, that means you can have it your way. And this is one of those instances where you can penalize the server's tip for a food screw-up.

​​​​​​I assume they do as well.

It's actually probably very easy and quick to prepare. They probably have the salad mix pre-bagged, and the servers just need to throw it in to the bowl, add the toppings and dressing and serve.

Yes. IME there's a big barrel of the basic salad with bowls of add-ins. It's a pretty quick job to scoop the lettuce and add the onions, peppers, olives, croutons & tomatoes.

This thread has inspired me to visit OG tonight (after the gym). I will ask the server.

Do report back. :D

I have a feeling we'll end up there sometime this weekend.

I skipped the gym and went directly to Olive Garden after work. I ordered angel hair pasta with marinara and meatballs. It was pretty bland and uninspired but overall ok, although it came before I'd finished my salad.. Filling, for sure. I tried a breadstick and regretted it. Less than warm and fresh. I asked the server to go easy on the salad dressing and she did. I asked her if she prepared it herself. Her response was that the servers "assembled" the salads. I finished 2 bowls and had no desire for more. Accompanied by a bottle of Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Service was friendly and relatively prompt which is no surprise at 5:00 PM on a Wednesday in the South. Everyone else in town is getting ready for church.

It sounds like what you expected. :)

And isn't that why people eat there?

Generally, yes, unless you think it's real Italian food and are disappointed with the Italian food in Italy. :rolleyes:

This thread was quite entertaining, I think I spent about 30mins reading it half way through...

I think my most amusing Olive Garden story was when I was living in Richmond, Virginia. My (now ex) wife had a friend who lived in the boonies that we'd see periodically. We'd always see her parents and other family members whenever we caught up with them. My travels were always of great fascination and intrigue to the friend's family members and I saw them once the week after I'd got back from a few days in Rome. When the father of my wife's friend found out he was so excited. "I love Italian food...have you had the <whatever dish> from the Olive Garden?...you know we drive all the way to Roanoke (about 2hrs drive!) to get me some Olive Garden...if you like Italian food you should definitely check it out". That was in 2009 and I've still never been to an Olive Garden.

Even in Richmond which was hardly a hotbed of Italian American culture still managed to provide a decent selection of pretty authentic Italian-American restaurants. I moved to NYC (well the LI/NYC border) four years ago, having been in Richmond for 9yrs before that, and I can't even fathom how Olive Gardens are still in business here in NYC/LI. I can see why it works in the tourist areas but suburban Long Island just confuses me. You find yourself tripping over Italian restaurants that leave that manufactured Darden food in the dust, there's just no reason to go an OG.

...and yes, to respond to comments from about 12yrs ago ( :D ), a neighbourhood Italian restaurant isn't "snobby", they're cheap and prevalent, and fresh and taste good. The one thing that confused me about the premise of an Olive Garden is that a Italian food is driven by fresh and tasty ingredients that taste "bright", yet Olive Garden and other chain restaurants by definition are not that. Stodgy offsite manufactured food is the complete opposite of what Italian food stands for.

Neighborhood Italian restaurants are hit and miss too. Some are amazing, authentic, fresh ingredients but there are also plenty that use frozen and pre-pared foods.

I've living in NYC my whole life and I have been to at least a dozen local Italian restaurants that are lower quality than Olive Garden. Local doesn't always mean good

We had lunch at Carrabba's in Destin on Saturday and it was much better overall than any of my many Olive Garden visits. That was true in terms of the food as well as the atmosphere. There is a Carrabba's about 10-15 miles from our house. Olive Garden is about 15 minutes closer. I wish the two could swap places. Does anyone know what herbs Carrabba's adds to the olive oil for dipping bread? I love that stuff.

This recipe is close

https://www.savoryexperiments.com/tr...bas-bread-dip/


Copycat Carrabba's Olive Oil Bread Dip
Prep Time
5 mins
Total Time
5 mins

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon crushed red pepper
• 1 tablespoon freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon dried basil
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 1 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
• 1 1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt
• 3 cloves fresh crushed garlic
• extra virgin olive oil

Instructions

1. Combine crushed red pepper, black pepper, oregano, basil, parsley, garlic powder, onion powder, rosemary, sea salt and crush garlic. Mix well.
   
2. If serving immediately, place dry spice mixture in a shallow plate. Drizzle desired amount of extra virgin olive oil over, serve. Wait to combine extra virgin olive oil and dry spices until right before serving.
3. If you've made this recipe at home, come back and let us know how it was!
   

Thanks, I'll try it.

Having lived in the US for three years, I actually miss the Olive Garden. :p

I think it's due more to the memories with colleagues after a long day at the client sort of thing though.

Well, I have to say, I will actually be glad when my $100 Pasta Pass expires. :)

I have become friends with one server and she treats me so well...

I go a few times a week at lunch time and have either the salad or soup (never tried their soups until this promotion). I then get the full pasta selection to take home for the hubby for work the following day. (Note, he also has a Pasta Pass but has only used a few times for dinner). I then get the refill of a different pasta for myself. She then makes another one with extra protein and sauce... as well as soup to go. So, I get my lunch.... and at least two more meals to go.

My total cost is $3.01 for my Diet Coke or Iced Tea.... and then the nice tip I leave her.

The hubby has literally had pasta for lunch every day at the hospital for the last month.... :) Good thing he does not gain weight at all!

It has been a great chance to try out different pastas... and I actually enjoy Olive Garden.

That's very nice of her!

Olive Garden has been using kale (in their Zuppa Toscana) long before it was hip.

I'm pretty amused to find this thread. I travel throughout the US these days for meetings and I judge how civilized a town is by whether I can find an Olive Garden there :-) I've been to about 40 or 50 of them in different cities / towns. It's a running joke on facebook when I check in at one of them. My Italian friends yell in Italian (I'm assuming its cursing) and then some other friends simply are envious. They left Ontario (Canada) a number of years ago; couldn't make any money competing against the local firms it seems. I wish they'd come back we used to have fun going there in my late teens and early twenties with friends.

I get there's better quality food out there, but the tour of Italy does it for me with a couple breadsticks. Can't usually even eat it all.

Oh absolutely, I'm not saying they are all great, but somewhere like NYC/Long Island there is surfeit of Italian places that you don't have to put much effort into finding somewhere that is far, far better than an Olive Garden.

Need I say Umberto's of Long Island?

For the first time ever. Olive Garden Lifetime Pasta Pass
 

I don't get the point of this stuff when gratuity is excluded.

Similar to how "free delivery" excludes tip. So it's not really free.

I'll never forget that one faux-luxury hotel I stayed in where the valet parking was described to me as free "and they work on tips." Gee, thanks?