Restaurant Review of Olive Garden(for vegetarians)

Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant having many branches in the US. My love story with Italian food started with this restaurant. It was like love at first bite! And the love story has ever since continued.....

This Italian haven has quite a good  number of vegetarian dishes. The decor is so simple and pleasing. The service has been good most of the time we have visited excepting a couple of times.  The complimentary bread sticks are so always fresh out out of the oven served warm many a times.
I will be mentioning only the vegetarian dishes in this review.

Starters include bruschetta, caprese flatbread, artichoke spinach dip, lasagna fritta, smoked mozarella fonduta. We have tasted the first four and without a doubt all taste good excepting the lasagna fritta being too cheesy and heavy for my tastebuds.

The best part of this restaurant is their signature salad with their own dressing. I could just visit this place and order just a salad and still could be 100% satisfied. They also have a minestrone soup which I personally did not like much. But still it isn't bad to try once a while!

You can find a good variety of main courses among pastas. My personal favorite being ravioli de portbella. Never have got bored of it until now.

The below is a picture of Eggplant Parmagiani. It is a wonderful dish, which could also be substituted with penne pasta upon request.

They also have a good variety of wines and desserts. My favorite dessert is tiramisu, and the best part is that you can also get small portion of any dessert called dolcini. You wont even feel the guilt of eating all that decadent yumminess! 

You can also order an italian pizza which we have tasted and is good. Something different than the ones we usually order from dominoz or pizza hut.

This picture is a seafood dish which my friend had ordered the other day! It just goes without saying that non-vegetarians have lot of good options to choose from.

So my overall experience is always good visiting this place, the price is not bad for the amount of portion size and of course the good taste. Even the complimentary mint chocolate at the end tastes good!
Would I visit this place again?
I have already visited this place many a times and I would surely do so in future.

So if you are a vegetarian and you have an Olive Garden nearby, I would boldly suggest you to visit it and you wouldn't be disappointed.

Hope this review helped all fellow vegetarians.

Have fun you all!

Restaurant Review Of Village Tavern (For Vegetarians)

OK! So me and Hubby are 'good food' hunters! Thank God for our mutual love for all type of food(only vegetarian), we don't mind exploring all the restaurants in our vicinity. But being Vegetarians(VG) and being in US, you do not have myriad foods to savor . But the good and best part is that with almost every restaurant having atleast one or two vegetarian dishes to offer, you get to taste and enjoy foods from different cuisine. So I finally thought of making this section of restaurant reviews to help all my veggie friends out there.
Should have started this long time back, but like they say 'Better Late than Never'.

Review of Village Tavern (For Vegetarians):
We had been to this restaurant on july 4th for lunch. This is located in Pembroke Pines, Florida. Not many branches do they have in US.

The feel of the restaurant is very cozy, but there wasn't much so village-y about it though. Like most in US, the service was pretty good. Though the one thing I do not like in any restaurant for that matter is that they are always in a hurry to take away the menu as soon as they get the order  !!

Coming to food, We ordered Sweet Potato fries for starters. It tasted pretty good, but it wasn't seasoned with salt or pepper which we can always season it according to our taste.My very  picky eater of a son also liked it!
The other starters for vegetarians on menu were Bruschetta (which is one of my fav dishes) , Spinach tortilla dip, freshly fried potato chips. Good number of options are available in starters. The only salad available for VG is Greek Salad.

For our main course, we ordered Spaghetti Squash and Zucchini. This was some kind of a preparation with broccoli , cauliflower, shaved zucchini and squash, tomatoes and pine nuts. It tasted wonderful on it's own, low calorie food. My biggest problem with this was the price. It was priced a big $13.50. I do not mind paying that much money if it had a good portion size. But this dish had no protein of any kind, nor were there any whole grain, only the good taste. It wasn't worth the price!

The other main dish was the small sized, pretty thin crust Margherita Pizza made with mozarella, reggiano parmesan ,tomatoes and basil. Though simple it looks, the taste was very amazing. Priced at $8.75. 

The other main dishes on the menu were veggie burger, portbella mushroom sandwich. Me not a fan of burger, hence did not order that. There were also other side items like corn, beans, mashed potatoes, sauteed spinach, asparagus, loaded baked potato. Lots of good choices of beers and cocktails available. You can also see a variety of desserts on the menu.

So yes, there were quite a few good options for us VG's.The 3 dishes we ordered were enough to fill our small tummies. I still felt the price is high considering the portion sizes. The taste , service was very good. 

Will I visit this again?

Definately, when my wallet feels heavy! Occasionally ,yes . Regularly, No.

Chao.

Next review: Olive Garden.

Tomato and Herb Chutney - Indian Style

My last post - April 10th, 2012
Today -June 26th, 2012

My Last post - Today = Approx 2.5 months(75 days).
I hope someone keeps me accountable.

Anyways, it all looks like I've lost my blogging mojo these days. I need to get recharged for the very same reason. If I had a genie asking me for 3 wishes right now I would ask for - creativity , creativity and allergy relief. Ok! let me not go further about the third point.
But the first 2, yes.

I guess everyone goes through these low period times, when the brain just slows down, takes a nap, refuses to wake up. I am exactly in that phase  for sometime now. So what do I do now?

Should I just swim across the Caribbean and go to Venezuela?
Should I just buy a puppy or a cat ?
Should I just gorge on a dozen donuts from Dunkin?  Should I go on a shopping spree? (Oops! Hubby would not love that! Will ya??)
Should I paint?
Should I steal my neighbor's TV for the fun of it?

OK I guess I'll stick to the 5th one, 'coz the 4th one might just irritate my hubby, all others would be so easy to do, it wouldn't do anything to recharge my brain, would it? ;))
That's about all the hoopla about loosing my mojo.

But for now you can take a note of this 'so insanely addicting that I wanna make it again and again' tomato herb chutney.

Ingredients:
Tomatoes - 6
Almost a handful each of Basil, Cilantro and Mint (If basil isn't available, worry not, use the other 2, It still should taste wackily good !)
Salt to taste
sugar- 1 tbsp (or more)
turmeric - a pinch

To Roast and Grind:
Coriander seeds - 1.5 tbsp
Sesame seeds - 2 tbsp
Chana Dal - 3 tsp
Saunf - 2 tsp
Red Chillies - 4 to 5
Tadka:
Oil , mustard, hing, curry leaves

Method:
Wash the tomatoes ,herbs, line it on a plate neatly. The plate should be a white one, with a navy blue rim. And then click it, just like I did.
Skip the above step. (except washing y'all!)

Roast and fine grind the ingredients mentioned above in a mixie. You can increase the number of red chillies as per your taste.

Now take a pan, heat some oil.

 Fry the tomatoes, herbs until done. Add a pinch of turmeric, salt and sugar. (Amount of sugar depends on the amount of tartness you desire).

Once this tomato mixture cools down a bit, add this to the same mixie having all the roasted powder. Run the mixie again enough to keep it a lil chunky or smooth chutney if you desire. 

now put the chutney back into the same pan, check the taste, adjust the ingredients, cook for a minute or two again on medium heat.

Once it is done, make the tadka and pour it over the chutney.

It tasted wonderful with dosas.

If it isn't so addicting like I earlier mentioned, don't blame me, OK? I guess your tomatoes weren't so good as mine. Gotcha!!!

Did I mention that my son is having his summer vacation, and he's so much enjoying the summer camp in his school right now?? There, see I just mentioned it. See now I know how to reboot my brain. Join summer camp.  The solution always lies in my own blog.

 I better call Miss Lisa and register myself for the summer camp in my son's school before there are no more seats left.

Have fun you All!

Love,

Ashwini.