Features --> Restaurant Reviews
The Olive Garden
2 Times Square
New York, NY 10036
Phone: (212) 333-3254
Fax: (212) 664-1952
Last week, Alex Z. suggested we go to The Olive Garden before checking out
The Animal Club at Caroline's. "It would be fun," he said, "In an ironic sort of way."
Now I'm all for irony. What else encourages us to enjoy places normally condemned by the good-taste-having flat-screen-owners of society? However, there's a difference between being ironic and consciously diving headfirst into a pool of feces.
In short, The Olive Garden sucked. In long? The Olive Garden sucked then, still sucks now, and probably will go on sucking forever and ever.
The remainder of this restaurant review of The Olive Garden will be a critical analysis of the children's activity book that I filled out with crayons while I was there.
A Descriptive Journey through Ollie & Friends Italian Adventures, Tour of Venice!
There's no exclamation point at the end of "Venice" in the actual activity book, but I included one to suggest a sense of excitement.
The Tour of Venice issue of Ollie & Friends focuses primarily on the character, Bene Breadstick. Bene is in Venice "to meet up with his pals for some sightseeing." I imagine that Ollie the Olive is usually the main character, so I'm happy that Bene Breadstick finally got his chance to shine. After all, the unlimited breadsticks that accompanied the bottomless salad were perhaps the only redeeming aspect of the entire terrible meal.
Sorry. I promised myself that I would focus solely on The Olive Garden activity book, and not on the terrible terrible Olive Garden food. My apologies.
So anyway, yeah, Bene is a breadstick. A good breadstick. He wears a cute little red-striped hat on his head and a knotted red bandana around the part of his breadstick-body where his neck would probably be. I like Bene because he doesn't allow his lack of arms to interfere with his having a good time with his friends. Not even while rowing a Gondola down a Venetian canal.
Hey! Did you know that "Venetian" is the word for a person from Venice? I did. That was only one of the amazing fun Italian facts that Bene and his friends shared with me during their Italian Adventure.
In addition to being a breadstick, Bene always smiles and is constantly looking upwards. This is also true of Ollie the Olive and Bene's other friends, Tonya Tomato, Ricky Ravioli, and Gina Grape. They're always looking up. Do you know those portraits of Jesus that just gaze directly at you, no matter where you go? Well, Bene Breadstick is just like that, except he's always looking just up above your head and a little up to your left. Now I know it doesn't sound bad, but it is. No matter what, it's like he's staring at a large dangerous projectile object that's about to hit you in the back of the head. And his strange gaze is even more disconcerting when you're eating at The Olive Garden, as it makes you feel like there's a waiter constantly hovering right behind you, threatening to serve you more terrible, terrible food.
Oops. Somehow The Olive Garden's massive suckiness managed to sneak its way back into this review again. My bad.
Hey! Did you know that you can find Venice in the northeast part Italy? I actually didn't, but I'll just pretend that I did so I can make fun of it. Ha! What a stupid activity book!
Here are some more FunFacts, not found in Italian Adventures:
1) Chris once wrote a sketch with Geoff about falling into a Bottomless Salad Dimension. It was never performed!
2) The Crappy Olive Garden Caesar Salad is even worse when all of your friends order entrees that come with the bottomless salad which is both fresher and better-tasting than the Crappy Caesar Salad that you ordered!
3) Chris's experience at The Olive Garden gave him an idea for a sketch. It's called "Palmolive Garden!" It will never be written! Or performed!
So yeah, back to the Italian Adventures. Unfortunately, my impression of Bene Breadstick soured during our first Italian Adventure together. Almost immediately (on page 2), both Bene and Ollie demanded I find them identical Venetian Glass Goblets. I helped them choose goblets that matched exactly to the smallest detail (Goblet C and Goblet D). I shouldn't complain; it wasn't very difficult, and Jeff helped me while he munched on his limp, tasteless Three Meat Ravioli, which according to him had two meats, tops. But I gotta say, all five of the goblets I saw were really very similar, and I'm sure any two would have been perfectly fine for any normal anthropomorphic olive and breadstick creatures.
The rest of the Italian Adventure was really just helping Bene and Ollie and their other stupid friends find each other. First Bene needed my help: "Bene wants to pick up his friends for their next adventure! Guide him through the watery streets of Venice!" I reluctantly helped as Bene rowed his Gondola to the dock where his cronies awaited him. Mostly because I admired the whole no-arm rowing thing.
I guess the creatures got separated immediately, because the next adventure was helping them find each other again. Apparently, Tonya was in Rome, Ricky was in Sicily, Gina was in Pisa, Bene was still in Venice, and Ollie the Olive wanted to get everyone back together. They all probably needed to regroup in order to lose each other again. I decided not to help. But here's another FunFact. Fettuccine Alfredo is available with whole wheat linguine upon request! And here's a FunOpinion! It probably sucks!
Anyway, I didn't really have any more Italian Adventures other than that. However, I did learn something, and so did the rest of Elephant Larry. The olives in the salads at The Olive Garden are, in reality, the very worst part of the salad. And that's irony.
- Chris Principe
Click Here to Download the Whole Activity Book!
Please Note That Most Activities Have Been Finished by Chris.
