Lunch at The Olive Garden

Once a month my good friend Rhonda (Rhonder to those of you in Rhode Island or Montville!) and I get together to meet for lunch and catch up on each other's lives. We've been doing it for several years now and we both enjoy it immensely. This month's get-together saw us celebrating Rhonda's recent birthday and she chose The Olive Garden for their unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks lunch. An excellent choice no matter what the occasion may be!

Being that none of you could join us, I was kind enough to bring along my camera so that you could "share" lunch with us. Rhonda isn't a blogger so this whole "take pictures of your food" stuff is new to her and she was quite bemused by the whole thing. As long as I promised not to include her in any of the pictures she was good with it and even helped "pose" some of the food for me.

This is Thomas, he was our waiter and quite willing to pose for a picture when I asked him. And yes, he did have rosy cheeks!"

Thomas asked if we'd care for a complimentary sample of wine before our meal and even though Rhonda passed, I opted to try their house blush. It was actually molto saporito effettivamente! I was almost tempted to order an entire glass but Rhonda doesn't drink at all and it's no fun having a glass of wine when your lunch partner doesn't so I just enjoyed my sample and then had ice water.

We started out with salad first and of course I opted for the grated cheese on top! Olive Garden has some of the il la cosa migliore mai salad ever!

And of course there are the breadsticks ... who doesn't love Olive Garden's breadsticks made even better by the fact that they're unlimited?? Magnifico!!

This is the Zuppa Toscana which is my favorito assoluto when I go to the Olive Garden. If I could learn how to make this soup, I would be in Italian-hog heaven. It's made with spicy sausage, russet potatoes and cavolo greens in a creamy broth and - of course - I had Thomas load it up with shredded cheese, too!

Recently, Olive Garden added a new item to their menu - Chicken & Gnocchi soup which is a creamy soup made with roasted chicken, traditional Italian dumplings and spinach. I thought I'd give it a try (with shredded cheese on top, of course) and found it be abbastanza buon effettivamente! Now I'll have a tough time choosing between my beloved Zuppa Toscano and the Chicken & Gnocchi soups the next time we go for lunch. Guess I'll just have to have both!

Though we had thought about it, unfortunately (molto deludente!)we had no room for dessert while we were there as it's just too darned hard not to overload on the really good soup, salad, and breadsticks. Instead we opted to hit the Godiva store after walking around a bit at the mall next door. Rhonda's favorite there is the dark chocolate with marzipan filling while I chose a piece of dark chocolate almond bark ... after all, aren't dark chocolate and almonds both supposed to be good for you?!?

As always, it was a delightful lunch and time well spent in the company of a special friend. I look forward to it every month and hope you enjoyed your virtual visit, too!

What wasn't delightful was coming home to this ...


Those big white spots you see in that picture of the lamp outside my house are snowflakes - big, enormous snowflakes which had the nerve to show up here after our 60-degree temperatures this past weekend! Oh well, at least they didn't accumulate and stick around - that really would have put the wrong ending on an otherwise great day! With any luck, I won't be seeing anymore of them this year but with March in New England, you just never know!