Olive Garden - Yet another fake authentic Italian restaurant

Olive Garden, one of the places that has been on my check list for quite some time, thanks to my colleague who had the best things to say about this place. 

There were several plans made to visit Olive Garden, but unfortunately everything used to get cancelled for some reason or the other. Finally last week, a friend’s farewell was planned here.

First came in their complimentary garlic bread, which was very fresh and almost melted in your mouth. After which came the drink I called for, the Strawberry Fresco which was THE best strawberry drink I've ever had, it was sweet and sour at the same time. It was very refreshing. In fact I also sipped on to the same drink in peach flavour, that my friend had called for, that was equally good.

 

Garlic Bread

 Strawberry Fresco

Now since everything here was going great, I couldn't wait for the main-course since my expectations were really high. And I opened the menu and there was an attractive photo of a dish called Stuffed Chicken Marsala - This was basically chicken breast stuffed with cheese and glazed by Marsala wine. Appearance wise this looked quite rich and hearty and brought happiness to me and my tummy. The garlic mashed potato that was accompanying the chicken was quite good in taste, but the chicken was very average, and tasted like the fried chicken you get from KFC with a little topping of cheese and Marsala wine. This was definitely not worth 65 Dirhams. The Chicken Marsala came along with Chicken Creamy Soup (You can also opt for Salad) this was disastrous as well, the cream was so thick and tasted awful. 

 

Stuffed Chicken Marsala

 Chicken Creamy Soup

I also tried the Chicken Parmigiana, which is Parmesan- breaded chicken breast, fried and topped with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese. Here again the chicken tasted like the KFC fried chicken, just that this was a little tangy and had more flavour to it as compared to the Chicken Marsala.

 

Chicken Parmigiana

Food wise, this place definitely turned out to be a disappointment. And Olive garden just happened to be yet another Italian restaurant with overblown pretensions of authenticity. 

The interiors of Olive garden are calm and cozy, and the place is really huge, so it shouldn't be very hard to find a place here.

Olive Garden is on the expensive side, a main course would cost you approximately, 65 - 85 Dirhams.

The staff wasn't very friendly, but that's maybe because we are just a bunch of loud Indians. In fact we were asked to reduce our volume, but that's something you can't really blame them for, when there are a bunch of 22 year old loud Indian girls dining.

Red Lobster, which is located right next to Olive Garden is also owned by the same owner apparently and serves great sea-food from what I've heard. But I won’t believe it, until I personally try it.

I would rate this place a 2.5/5.

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