The Olive Garden. Yes, the Olive Garden. Look, we were staying near
the Westfield Mall in Vancouver, WA, and all of our dining choices were
chain restaurants. Frankly, neither Red Lobster, Chevy’s or Azteca
sounded like a more appealing choice. Plus I hadn’t been to the Olive
Garden in almost a decade. And you know what? It wasn’t too bad.
Generic, uninspired? Sure. But the grub was tasty enough, even good,
and the prices reasonable as well. Would I go back? Well, let’s just
say that I wouldn’t go out of my way to avoid it.
The Olive Garden at the Westfield Mall looks from the outside as an
Olive Garden and from the inside as a mall restaurant. The textured
walls and Italianish decorations did not stand up against the flat roof
of our small dining room, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Service was swift
and attentive, though the waitress seemed somewhat taken aback when I
pronounced the food merely “fine”. Really, given my low expectations
that was a compliment.
The menu, as you can imagine, emphasizes pastas with a few heavier
entrees added for good measure. There are plenty of fried appetizers,
but Mike and I had had a late lunch and weren’t /that/ hungry. Plus
entrees come with your choice of soup (several choices here) or salad,
and neither of these are skimpy.
I had the spaghetti with meatballs and the salad ($14)
and Mike had the tilapia and the chili soup ($16.50. The meals came accompanied
by their greatly advertised bread sticks, which were warm but still kind
of tough and otherwise unremarkable. The salad was large enough for two
or more, but also nothing to write home about. I personally found the
dressing too acidic, but Mike liked it. There was plenty of crispy,
white lettuce, a few onion and tomato slices and an amazing number of
croutons.
Mike found his chili soup watery. He was somewhat surprised it had
pasta in it (hello?! It’s the Olive Garden!) and not much meat. Maybe
try one of the other choices.
My spaghetti with meatballs, on the other hand, was surprisingly good.
OK, the spaghetti was spaghetti, and the “meat” sauce had a generic
sweet flavor to it, but the meatballs were very nice. They tasted
pretty much like you imagine a meatball would taste; nothing gourmet,
nothing revelatory, but exactly what I was looking for that night. If
you are looking for classic meatballs, you could definitely do worse.
Mike thought his tilapia was “fine”, though I remember he liking the
sauce. The portion wasn’t too big so he ate some of my meatballs (the
chutzpah!), which he also liked.
We were too full for dessert so we skipped it. Maybe next time, but
they are about $7 which I find a bit steep for dessert.
And that was it, a pleasant meal that exceeded our very low expectations.
The Olive Garden
8101 NE Parkway Dr.
Vancouver, WA
(360) 256-8174
http://www.olivegarden.com
Marga’s Chain Restaurant Reviews
Marga’s Restaurant Reviews
Year: 2009 (Page 3 of 20)
I “won” this wine at a silent auction a couple of years ago (along with three other Bink bottles) and decided to bring it to Thanksgiving dinner. Most of the other wines I have are cabs, and I thought they’d be both too hearty for the turkey and the other guests. It was a good choice. The wine was very good, hearty yet crisp, well balanced, perhaps with a little bit too much alcohol for my taste (but that may have been the result of less than optimal storing conditions) but all in all a mature and refined wine. It went well with the turkey and by itself, and definitely called for a second glass. I’m looking forward to enjoying the other Bink wines I still have around.
I just discovered that you can get coupons for San Leandro restaurants at http://www.openfence.net/coupons.cfm (they also have coupons for other businesses, but this is a food blog). Featured restaurants include The Englander, Creasian and Porky’s Pizza Palace (but there are quite a few more). You have to register to get the coupons, but they are free – albeit limited in number and only good for a month after you get them.
They also have a couple of restaurant coupons for Castro Valley (Buon Appetito, Palomares and a couple of other ones) and Oakland (Mezze, Tropix, La Cucina Italiana). I suspect they’re working on getting more restaurants, so it’ll pay to check them out before going out to eat. I know I will.
I was very fond of my mother’s semolina gnocchis when I was growing up. I’ve always meant to make them for my kids, but have not yet gotten around to it, probably as I’d first have to go hunting for the semolina. Still, I went ahead and got the recipe from my mother, which I’m now translating into American measurements and posting for future use.
Mamá’s Semolina Gnocchi
- 6 1/3 cups (1 1/2 liters) milk
- 1 2/3 cups (300 g) semolina flour
- 1 cup (100 g) Parmesan cheese + more for sprinkling
- 7 Tbsp. (100 g) butter
- 2 egg yolks
- nutmeg
- salt
Instructions
Pour the milk and salt into a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Slowly pour in the semolina flour, stirring constantly. Gently boil, stirring, until it becomes quite thick. Remove from the heat and add the Parmesan cheese, the butter and the egg yolks.
Preheat oven to 375F. Grease a large baking sheet.
On a flat working surface, flatten the mixture with your hands to a 1/3″ to 1/2″ height. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Place on the baking sheet and sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top.
Bake in the oven until the gnocchi dry up and become golden. Eat warm.
When I was a little kid, once in a great while, my father would make cinnamon rolls. It was an all-day affair, usually done on weekends at our country house (it sounds fancy, but it was just a small bungalow in a yet undeveloped area outside La Plata). The warm cinnamon rolls were beyond delicious, definitely one of my favorite treats as a child.
Decades have gone by and I’m finally ready to attempt them myself, so I asked my dad for the recipe which I’m copying here. I’m thinking of making them soon.
Note that I don’t have the recipe for the sugar glace, though that should be easily found online.
Papá’s Cinnamon Rolls
- 2 Tbsp. yeast
- 1/2 cup + 1 Tbsp. sugar
- 1 cup warm water
- 1 cup cooled boiled milk
- 7 cups sifted flour
- 6 Tbsp. room-temperature butter
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 1/2 t. salt
- Additional butter for greasing and brushing
- Additional white and blond sugars
- Cinnamon
Directions
Dissolve the yeast and 1 Tbspl. sugar in the warm water. Add the milk and 3 cups of flour. Beat until it produces a smooth dough.
In a separate bowl, cream the butter with 1/2 cup sugar.
Add the butter to the dough and add the eggs, slat and the remaining 4 cups of flour. Mix well until you get a smooth, white dough. Knead the dough with your hands.
Butter a large bowl and place the dough on the bowl. Cover and keep in a warm place* until it doubles in size, about 2 hours.
* – If you don’t have a warm place at home you can heat the oven to 200F, turn off the heat and place the dough inside.
Once it’s risen, lightly flour a large working surface and roll the dough with a rolling pin to a 1/2″ height. Brush the dough with melted butter and sprinkle with white and blond sugars and cinnamon. Roll into a large roll and cut it into thick slices. Generously butter a large baking pan and place the cinnamon rolls on it, being careful not to crowd them. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 1 to 2 more hours.
Preheat the oven to 375F.
Bake the cinnamon rolls until golden, about 20′. Glace, remove and eat warm.
I need to learn to look carefully at the “cooking” instructions of frozen food items I buy. This is not the first time I buy something only to find out that it can’t be easily microwaved for serving. For me the whole point of buying frozen food is to be able to quickly heat it up – if I have to thaw it first, or oven-bake it or deep fry it, I might as well take the extra step and prepare the food myself.
Fortunately, most of the frozen taquitos out there just require that you microwave them for a minute or two. Unfortunately, El Monterey taquitos (and gorditas), which I got today at Grocery Outlet, demand that they be thawed before cooking. I can see, perhaps, thawing the whole box if you are going to be serving them at a party – but that doesn’t work if all you want is to fix a couple of taquitos as a snack here and there.
The box offers no instruction on how to cook the taquitos/gorditas from its frozen state. I decided to microwave two taquitos and two gorditas on high for 1 1/2 minutes. The result were taquitos that were very cold in places and boiling hot in others. Still, they were quite food for being frozen processed food – nicer than the taquitos I usually get at the supermarket or Costco. Still, the improved flavor does not make up for the inconvenience of having to thaw them first.
What I’d say is buy them if you want to serve them for a party, but skip them otherwise.
Last night I made London Broil with Soy Citrus Mayonnaise from epicurious.com It was fairly simple (though you need to marinate the meat for several hours) and the meat was quite tasty. It was a bit tough (it’s London Broil, after all), but I was quite happy with the results. That said it wasn’t special enough to make again.
Perhaps of greater interest than the recipe was the cooking method:
1 – Marinate the London broil (2-3 lbs/1Kg steak)
2 – Let it sit at room temperature for 30′
3 – Heat a skillet to high and sear on one side for 5′
4 – Turn the steak over, cover, lower the heat to medium low and cook for 10 – 15′ or until it reaches an internal temperature of 120F/49C for medium-rare
5 – Put the steak on a plate, cover with a kitchen towel and rest for 15′
I made this epicurious.com recipe for Chicken Breasts with Chive and Mustard Sauce a couple of nights ago, as chicken breasts were on sale at Safeway. We all liked it very much – even Mika (who was mortified she liked a sauce that had mustard and alcohol in it). Camila ate the chicken without the sauce, which is typical.
The one problem with the recipe is that it was very, very liquid – even though I only used 1 cup of chicken broth. Next time I’ll use 1/2 a cup and I may add some cornstarch to thicken it. The flavor, however, was wonderful.
For the last few days we’ve been having fruit flies pestering us. First they were after some fruit, then after some strawberry jam, and then after whatever they could find. Annoying.
Last night I unwittingly left out an opened bottle of Charles Shaw Sauvignon Blanc and woke up this morning to a fruit-fly-free kitchen. It seems that the little fruit flies are fatally attracted to this wine. A waste of $2, of course, but at least now I know how to get rid of fruit flies the next time they attack.
I made this recipe for Oven-Roasted Chicken Thighs with Carrots and Yukon Gold Potatoes last night and we all loved it. The flavors are not extraordinary, but the chicken was succulent, flavorful and utterly satisfying. This is really comfort food at its best. My only concern is that it’s pretty fattening, next time I’ll try to reduce the amount of fat a little bit – but I’ll definitely make it again.
I followed the original recipe closely, but I used regular yellow potatoes (which next time I’ll peel, per my daughter’s request) and forgot the chives and the nutmeg. The amount below will feed two adults and two children without leftovers.
Roasted chicken thighs with carrots & potatoes
- 3 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
- 6 large bone-in chicken thighs
- 1 Tbsp. Kosher salt
- 1 tsp. dried thyme
- 1 tsp. ground black or white pepper
- 1/2 tsp. nutmeg (optional)
- 2 lbs yellow potatoes
- 2 lbs carrots
- 3 Tbsp. chopped chives (optional)
Preheat oven to 450F
Coat a large rimmed baking sheet with 1 Tbsp. oil. Rub the skin of the chicken thighs on the oil in the baking sheet and then set on the baking sheet skin side up.
Mix the salt with the thyme, pepper and nutmeg, if using. Sprinkle half the salt/thyme mixture on the chicken thighs. Place baking sheet in oven and roast for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, peel potatoes and carrots and cut them into 3″ x 1/2″ sticks. Put them in a bowl, add the remainder of the salt/thyme mixture and olive oil and mix well. Set aside while the chicken cooks.
At the end of the 30 minutes remove the baking sheet from the oven and carefully remove the chicken thighs. Place in a bowl or deep dish, cover and set aside. Place the potatoes and carrots on the baking sheet and toss to cover with the drippings. Place in the oven and cook for 30 minutes.
Return the chicken thighs to the baking sheet, placing on the vegetables, and pour any accumulated drippings from the bowl on them. Cook for an additional 15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Sprinkle with chives (if using) before serving.
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