BTW, wife and I were stationed in Italy for two glorious years, and made many friends and loved the country and food. Wife got an excellent spaghetti sauce recipe from a Sicilian friend which we still use today.
Have been to Olive Garden twice. First time was mediocre at best. Second was and will probably always be my worst restaurant dining experience. Flat beer, surly wait staff, disgustingly poor food, etc. Told the manager midway through the meal and he just shrugged it off as if to say "so what do you expect me to do about it?"
My mother likes Olive Garden so I get to go once in a while. I like it, as far as chain restaurants go, and so does my wife, but they seem to be too popular for their own good - overly long waits due to postage stamp sized restaurants and panicked wait staff. One time, as they are wont to do for some reason, they used linguine instead of spaghetti for my mom's to-go order (spaghetti & meatballs...how can you screw this up?) and she took it back the next day and asked for a replacement, because she doesn't like linguine. Should be a no brainer but the typical hostess-wenches they employ there couldn't even do this right without the manager finally telling them to shut up and make things right.
If you complain, they get defensive and adopt an 'its not MY fault' attitude. To be fair, our waiters are usually pretty good, but the hostess-wench never fails to try to seat us at the worst part of the restaurant that gets the brunt of the AC, summer or winter. I like the food but I am getting tired of them, especially with Macaroni Grill being so much closer.