Olive Garden

Watching Batali & Scott do their Iron Chef with cheese while writing this. I've never seen the chefs scurry so fast. I'm also cheering for Mario.

Today was a shopping day, so decided to eat out at the newest restaurant in Winchester (Olive Garden) and an espresso at Borders, the new Borders without windows in the coffee shop! Since there was no one ordering I decided to decide what a double espresso really cost there. It was not easy.

In a 12 oz. cup, a single shot is $1.70; one additional shot with the single shot is $.55 making it $2.25. In a 16 oz. cup, a double is $1.95. Now don't ask me what an Americano is, that's a whole different ball game.

So -- I ordered a double espresso in a 16 oz. cup, asking for about 1/4 cup of HOT water. I discussed with the person that I liked hot coffee the reason that I wanted a little water with the espresso. The person gave us a porcelain cup for our espressos (DH ordered same). Joy did not last long -- the person had put cold water into the espresso.

As we were getting a new Mp3 player installed in our car we had time to go to Olive Garden -- we had planned it this way -- even though it was around 1:00 pm, it looked like an hour's wait. We went back at 2:00 and were served at 2:30. DH ordered steak with noodles with alfredo/gorgonzola. Quite good. Me -- cheese raviolis -- nothing to write home about, but edible. Salad not as good as the I remember a few years back, I've never liked the little soft long garlic rolls. The wine that they were serving for $4.95 & $5.95 a glbutt I was familiar with and would not buy the wine for private use. So I decided to try the $3.25 per glbutt house brand and it wasn't bad, so we both had a glbutt. No coffee, no dessert. Lunch with 1 glbutt wine each with tax and tip, a little over $37.00. They have a different menu at night.

Since they have such an overwhelming amount of customers they are glad that Red Lobster will be coming soon. We'll try that once and just stick with straight fish -- no noodles.

Yahoo!!!! 53 Batali; Campbell 40!!!! On to Emeril making Comfort Foods, making a kicked up green bean cbutterole --- you be the judge - I wouldn't consider that a comfort food; others might. Dee Dee