I know probably many of you must have visited Olive Garden but not me, until recently. The thing is, for some reason, whenever I played any video on Youtube, the restaurant’s ad used to keep on playing. It was so tempting that one day I was like – that’s it! We HAVE to go there! Olive Garden…I must say your attempt at luring me was successful.

I had looked up their ‘Lunch for 2’ deal which I must say was pretty neat. The location we went to was the one in Times Square, NYC. Now, as much as people love Times Square, one should also know that sometimes, certain food places can get a little pricier as compared to their counterparts in other locations. So when we told the waitress that we are looking for the ‘Lunch for 2′ deal, she said that it would be a few dollars extra since it was at this location. We should have expected that considering I had seen on their site that certain locations’ cost may vary.

The Lunch for 2/ Dinner for 2 basically gives you the following options:

1. Start with unlimited soup or salad and breadsticks
2. Choose 2 entrees out of 7 entrees on the list.
3. Choice of Dolcini – little dessert treats 

Now, this may vary as per the deal going on at that time.

So we started with unlimited soup. We ordered the Chicken and Gnocchi soup and Minestrone soup. Loved the simplicity of it… as I like to say, a good way to warm up the stomach. Since I wanted to savor the main course, I avoided the temptation of going for a second serving.

For the entrées, we ordered the Penne Pasta with diced tomato & Fresh Ricotta Cheese and Stuffed Chicken Marsala.

Both the dishes were delicious; the Marsala being better amongst the two. I always tend to be a little biased towards dishes which are creamier and richer in flavor.

Okay, now there is something I’d like to confess. Does it ever happen to you that sometimes you are so hungry, you feel you can eat an entire town but end up eating really less? Okay, that maybe an exaggeration, but does this ever happen to you guys? Or maybe it’s just me. Weird right? So even though I thought I was super hungry, I couldn’t really finish it and had to take the rest of the entrée for a to go. 

Now even though we were practically full, the sweet tooth inside us kept looking at the Dessert menu.

The Dolcini or “little dessert treats” as they call it are really cute and small in size which was perfect for us. We ordered the Tiramisu one out of the many options. You can say its consistency was more like a mousse or pudding rather than the normal Tiramisu cake so I guess if one is expecting to have the authentic taste of Tiramisu, they are better off ordering that rather than the ‘Dolcini.’

Finally, with a full stomach, I felt that I won’t feel tempted the next time I see an Olive Garden ad playing. Well, I can at least hope for it.