Olive Garden Going Tuscan

On my latest trip to the US we went back to our old stomping grounds, The Olive Garden. Now I usually order ‘The Taste of Italy’ but we decided to order something different this time. They started opening their new ‘Tuscan’ style restaurants which apparently have a few different items on their menu.   

We went to a newly built on in the town of Williamsville (Buffalo).  

7700 Transit Road

Williamsville, NY, United States

We got the ‘Chianti Braised Short Ribs’ and ‘Chicken & Shrimp Carbonara’.   If you don’t know The Olive Garden, you get bottomless bowls of soup or salad and unlimited breadsticks. Their breadsticks get saltier every visit but the salt is just on the surface so you can easily remove. 

The soups I tried are the:

‘Pasta e Fagioli’ - White and red beans, ground beef, tomatoes and pasta

 ‘Chicken & Gnocchi’ - A creamy soup with roasted chicken, gnocchi and spinach.

 ‘Zuppa Toscana’ – a semi creamy soup with sausage, russet potatoes and cavolo greens.

 (sorry no pictures)

The Pasta e Fagioli is a tomato based soup and basically your minestrone. Nothing too special here but a good hearty soup.   

3 of 5 pairs of chopsticks

Chicken & gnocchi sounds and should be delicious but they are cheap with their chicken and their gnocchi is weak and they need to dip into a recipe from nonna (or my good friend Gino’s mom’s recipe).   

1 of 5 pairs of chopsticks

Zuppa Toscana is my favorite of the three. The sausage isn’t the greatest of quality but the combination of the broth, potatoes and (the star of the show) the cavolo greens makes it the winner.   

4 of 5 pairs of chopsticks

‘Chianti Braised Short Ribs’ (slow cooked beef short ribs in a chianti wine sauce with portobello mushroom risotto) 

The ribs were a hit or miss. Some of the pieces were very tender and juicy while some were hard dry. The portabello risotto was good but they ruined it by topping with green beans and carrots. It’s not even close to my wife’s mushroom risotto but it’ll do.  For $16.50 including the soup and breadsticks, its definitely a good price.
3 of 5 pairs of chopsticks

‘Chicken & Shrimp Carbonara’ (chicken and shrimp with bucatini pasta in a parmesan cream sauce with pancetta bacon and roasted red peppers, baked and topped with seasoned breadcrumbs)

This guy is super creamy and oily from the bacon and cheese but very good.  The shrimp cooked well and crispy and the chicken was tender and not dry. It also helped there was a cream sauce and fat from pancetta bacon ;)  This also is $16.50 including soup and breadsticks. I will get this again.
4 of 5 pairs of chopsticks

Overall, OG is always a hit. The wait times get a little annoying at times (30-60mins) when you are very hungry.

Phu'd and Travel