Let it be written, let it be said: I could eat at Olive Garden daily until the day that I’m dead. Especially when the Olive Garden in question is as stellar as our Olive Garden in Owensboro. On a recent Friday excursion, my husband, our oldest daughter (Emily) and I enjoyed a wonderful lunch at the Owensboro Olive Garden. My husband and I both had the Chicken & Gnocchi soup. This is, hands down, one of the best soups in the world. The Chicken & Gnocchi is a creamy soup made with roasted chicken, traditional Italian dumplings and spinach. The Italian dumplings are the stuff culinary dreams are made of. Emily ordered her favorite, the Zuppa Toscana ( Spicy sausage, russet potatoes and cavolo greens in a creamy broth).
The Soup, Salad, and Breadsticks lunch is just $6.95. You get their delicious garden-fresh salad, choice of homemade soup (you HAVE to try the Chicken & Gnocchi) and Heavenly warm garlic breadsticks. The $6.95 special price is only until 4 p.m.
We ordered a dessert on this trip and haven’t quite gotten over it yet. It was the Dolcini: Three beautiful and delicious little desserts served on a platter (pictured at the top). The unforgettable 
trio consisted of: Chocolate Mousse with Dark Chocolate Cookie Crust • Strawberry & White Chocolate Cream Cake • Limoncello Mousse with Vanilla Cookie Crust
The chocoholic that I am, I immediately dove into the chocolate dessert. Then the Strawberry one… then the Lemon one. The Linoncello Mousse with Vanilla Cookie Crust – or, as this Kentucky gal refers to it, the lemon one, had a scrumptious little candied lemon on top.
Each time I eat at Olive Garden, and if you’re a regular reader, you know it’s weekly, I’m struck by the friendliness of the staff and the deliciousness of the food. We also marvel at how fast they are – at lunch, anyway. Most of us want our lunch to be fast but filling and inexpensive but memorable. If we can have a gorgeous, relaxed setting and friendly people, we consider it a wonderful bonus. If anyplace delivers all of this any better than Owensboro’s Olive Garden, I’ve yet to find it.
Pictured below is another Olive Garden obsession of mine: The Raspberry Peach Tea. SO GOOD!
See more places to eat lunch in Owensboro Kentucky.
- Crummy sides. I hate for a restaurant to rest on the laurels of their meat and/or main dishes. If it’s on your menu, it should be able to stand on it’s own, as if it were the ONLY thing on the menu.
- Unfriendly servers. If you read a restaurant review on Genuine Kentucky and the server is not mentioned, rest assured that they either weren’t very friendly or weren’t exactly on the ball. Or both!
- Unfriendly hosts and hostesses. Hello?! You’re paid to be friendly. Your job exists to welcome visitors and make them feel like you’re glad to see them.
- Off brand condiments. I LOVE to see a restaurant owner who cares enough about his/her guests to serve them Heinz or Hunt’s, Red Gold at the very least. Off brand Ketchup is gross. It screams “Someone’s cutting corners!!!”
- Overcooked fries. Come on, take them out before they’re brown. Brown fries aren’t cool.
- Watery soft drinks. Servers should be taught that if you see the beverage come out of the machine and there is NO fizzle, DO NOT serve it to the guests. Blech.
- Servers who “Push the Wrong Button.”Servers charging the wrong price for menu items is becoming an alarming trend. A server can get annoyed with a customer and, bam, “accidentally” hit the wrong button. A word to anyone who eats out: Examine your ticket. For example, if the restaurant offers 1/2 off Sushi, make certain your server doesn’t charge you the full price.
- I am, by nature, a very friendly guest when I visit restaurants. I always, always leave tips. When the service is good, I don’t just tip, I over tip! My oldest daughter is the same way. One sweetheart of a server in Olive Garden once got a $10 tip from us for lunch. She made us smile, so we wanted to make her smile. It’s really as simple as that.
- Real butter is always better than Margarine.
- Options, Please. As someone with a vegetarian daughter, I love for restaurants to offer completely meatless dishes. Bonus points for the restaurants, like Denny’s, with Boca Burgers on their menu.
One final thought: If an owner really wants their restaurant to be the best it can possibly be, he or she should have comment cards on the tables. Guests will tell them what they’re doing right but, more importantly, they’ll tell them where they’re messing up. A closed, secure box should be provided for guests to put the cards in. Get the opinions from the people who’s opinions matter most.
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