"Olive Garden in Escondido offers a satisfying dining experience. The food is consistently good, and the service is generally friendly and attentive. We enjoyed the never-ending salad bar and soup, though we found ourselves having to ask the servers for soup refills more often than we'd like.
My wife had the rotini pasta with shrimp, and she loved it. Overall, it's a solid choice for a casual Italian meal."

Francois G

""What a waste of calories", the wife says. Only two stars because the food presented in the commercials is waaayyy better looking than how the actual food tastes.

Some interesting observations: There was no Cacio y Pepe on the menu. Thats OK. But, they did have a "Toasted Ravioli", straight outta St Louis. Interesting target demographic. And, despite what the commercials say, I never really felt . . . "like family".

"I don't remember the salad tasting like this, it was much better before", I said to the wife. The pepperoncini in the salad was fresh, but probably the worst tasting pepperoncini I have tasted. Perhaps use a different corporate brand going forward. I think the breadsticks were about the same, except we did experience an overwhelming food saltiness that brings all of the flavors together.

We got about two fork fulls into our main entrées after filling up on salad and breadsticks. The portions were very adequate, however the food just was not worth attemtpting to break through the wall for another bite. "Save it, maybe it'll be better as leftovers , , , possibly with an egg, or saving it for the dog", I said. The Gorgonzola Steak Fettuccini was very "gorgonzola-ie". Luckily, I asked for the parmesan cheese on the side.

After dining, the wife and I talked about doing OG service by robot. Not that the service was bad . . . just not necessary. OG could cut costs and still deliver the same quality (to be defined) of food to the table after ordering from the payment/table-game tablet. A paradigm change. I likened this visit to similar popular corporate restaurant visits of yesteryear. Places that have picked up and moved away or other brand restaurants that are soon to close. The OG excitement has been lost from this customer.

Generally and normally, large corporate restaurants would get 3 stars from me, because it is safe to eat. Not too sure on this one.

The OG signature mint chocolates were still given at the end of the meal with the check, but only one per guest nowadays. Next time we see a commercial, we'll stay home and take out a steak.

Oh, and BTW; the left-overs seemed much better the next day just without the hype of “feeling like family”.

Dicks"

CritDicks

"I have a good and bad. I did a drive up order. As soon as i got there someone came right out to verify who I was and only waited about 5 mins to get my food. The waiter was nice.
I have eaten at this Olive Garden before but inside. The food was decent which is why I returned but, this time a pick up order.
The manicotti was definitely not good at all. The pasta was hard and when I got it. I thought they looked like enchiladas. Nothing like the appetizing pictures
The kids meal fettuccine and spaghetti were both flavorless with very little sauce.
I definitely will not be doing a drive thru order again."

Michelle Ditsch