5 Menu Items You Should Never Order From Olive Garden

Nobody is too good for Olive Garden. We can quibble about authenticity in Italian cuisine all we'd like (preciousness about tradition being one of several Italian food myths you need to stop believing), but what kind of person could turn their nose up at unlimited breadsticks? Not anyone we'd like to hang out with, that's for sure. (Unless you can't handle gluten, in which case, more power to you and best of luck on your journey.) Whether you're availing yourself of one of Olive Garden's many pastas or enjoying one of its made-fresh-in-house soups, there are no shortage of options when you sit down in one of Olive Garden's Tuscan design-inspired dining rooms.

But that doesn't mean there are no bad choices. In fact, there are some menu items that you would probably be better off avoiding altogether. Now, it's entirely possible that one of these dishes is your personal favorite, and we assure you that we mean no offense. If you enjoy it, that's splendid! But based on personal experience, as well as some customer testimonials on social media, here are five Olive Garden dishes that are somewhat less than bellissimo.

The name may sound like an off-brand version of mozzarella sticks, but fried mozzarella is actually its own kind of dish. The focus is usually on higher-quality cheese, which may be fried in triangles or rectangular strips. You'll often find them in somewhat higher-end Italian restaurants that also want to provide a dippable appetizer for any young children in a given party. In theory, this is a solid idea for an Olive Garden appetizer, but unfortunately, the execution is all wrong.

Is it possible that, when I first tried it years ago, I was predisposed to be annoyed with this dish due to it not being a mozzarella stick? Yes, it is. But whether fried mozzarella is shaped like a baton or a plank or a triangle, it should at the very least be crispy, no? It should not be aptly described with words like "squishy," or "spongy," or "so saturated with grease you could sign your name with the drippings." 

That was, unfortunately, what I remember most vividly about trying this appetizer. The cheese isn't exactly low quality, but it's far from the house-made stuff that typically fills fried mozzarella at non-chain restaurants — if ever there was a cheese that cried out to be fashioned into mozzarella sticks, it would be this. In the meantime, stick to the breadsticks.

If you're the type who likes their pasta laden with a rich, creamy sauce, Olive Garden has you covered. Not only can you enjoy its fettuccine Alfredo, much like the original recipe raised to fame by Hollywood stars, but you can also sample dishes like chicken Alfredo, shrimp Alfredo, and seafood Alfredo, which is basically just shrimp Alfredo with scallops added. We guess the idea is to provide a menu option for those whose taste for seafood isn't satisfied by a few shrimp or, at least, for those who want to speedrun gout.

But here's the problem: The shrimp Alfredo already isn't a great choice, with one review from Business Insider lamenting, "The noodles were pretty limp and quite mushy as though they'd been overcooked, and the sauce had an artificial, straight-from-the-jar flavor." The seafood Alfredo has all those same problems, with the addition of rubbery, overdone scallops that bring to mind pieces of chewing gum someone dropped into the ocean — certainly not the best introduction to scallops if you tried a bite off your aunt's plate as a curious child, speaking from my experience. (Like most other Olive Garden proteins, the scallops were frozen ahead of time; unlike most other Olive Garden proteins, you can really, really tell in this case.) Luckily, Olive Garden's huge menu means you're not wanting for alternatives — the chicken tortelloni Alfredo is much better.

What could be more innocuous than cheese ravioli? It is, of course, just one manifestation of savory filling stuffed inside dough, a staple of cuisines around the world (see also: pierogi, baozi, empanadas) and one which has rarely led me wrong in the past. That was the thought process behind my ordering this dish, only to be disappointed when I cut into the ravioli with a fork and saw liquid squirt out.

Be warned if you order a plate of these ravioli: If you're not careful, you may end up with a bowl of soup within a minute of it arriving at your table. Granted, the moisture here doesn't mess with the texture the same way it did with the fried mozzarella — the mouthfeel of the ravioli itself is inoffensive, unlike the word "mouthfeel" itself — but it does end up making the sauce taste less like marinara and more like salty water. And speaking of salt, it's more than a bit overwhelming. One Yelp review complained, "The cheese ravioli was edible [if only] just. The sauce? Super salty." If you're looking for another ravioli option, the ravioli carbonara is 10 times better.

"Chicken parm, you taste so good!" sang Peyton Manning in one famous commercial for Nationwide insurance; based on the available evidence, we can only assume he wasn't in an Olive Garden at the time. We mentioned earlier that most of the meat that comes through the Olive Garden kitchen is frozen, but we also said that most of the time, that fact isn't too obvious. Unfortunately, however, the chicken Parmigiana is one of those times where it really is.

Again, contrary to popular belief, not everything is prepared frozen at Olive Garden. Its soups are made in-house every day, and dishes like eggplant are freshly breaded each day as well. But its chicken parm, a stale, bland cutlet doused in a quantity of sauce and cheese that is both hearty yet not quite sufficient, doesn't rise to the occasion. 

One review on TripAdvisor was sharply critical. "At $14.99 for the chicken Parmigiana, I would have thought I would have been served a nice piece of chicken. Instead I got two skinny pieces of chicken with more breading than meat, marinara sauce and cheese." (If you can't tell from the price being $14.99, the review was written in 2015.) For such an Italian-American staple, you'd think Olive Garden would make this one a little more special.

Do you remember that episode of "The Office" where Michael Scott carbo-loads with fettuccine Alfredo mere minutes before embarking on a 5k fun run, with predictably disastrous results? Well, if you try the Tour of Italy from Olive Garden's menu, you might be suffering right alongside him. (This should go without saying, but please do not embark upon a 5k fun run after eating it.) On paper, the Tour of Italy seems pretty inoffensive: It's three smaller servings of popular Olive Garden entrees, including fettuccine Alfredo, the previously mentioned chicken Parmigiana (this was, in fact, where I first tasted Olive Garden's chicken parm, having been an indecisive 15-year-old), and lasagna.

But ... well, okay. Imagine eating a serving of Stouffer's frozen lasagna. Then, right after that, imagine eating a serving of frozen chicken parm from the brand of your choice. And once you're done with that, imagine eating a serving of frozen fettuccine Alfredo. Even if you got the fettuccine from Lean Cuisine, you would end up feeling like you'd swallowed three bricks tossed in various savory sauces. Now imagine all three of those dishes were made as hearty and indulgent as possible by Olive Garden. It was enough to make me, firmly in the bottomless-pit era of adolescence appetite, practically crawl from my bedroom the next morning for a bottle of Tums.