MMM Desserts!  11-15-16

My last visit will be tonight and I’m not sure how crazy I can go (I know how crazy I WANT to go with it) so we will see what happens. I wanted to type out a quick post beforehand to get caught up and I will make a follow up to tonight’s meal when I get a chance.

I know that I have not been making too many posts here, but I would say I end up going to Olive Garden around 2-3 times a week. I may have mentioned it, but between all of the other food challenges and events I have been doing, I just haven’t had the need or even the want to go and pig out, even if it was for free. When it comes to eating challenges, I like to have a “cool off” period between them so it really doesn’t make sense to go and have an all I can eat event at Olive Garden the following day. Anyway, regardless of how many times I went, I feel like I have more than gotten an adequate amount of food value for my pasta pass.

Onto the pictures I have above this, tonight I decided to bake and bring a few things for everyone for old times sake. Freshly baked carrot cake and M&M Cookies! Everyone thoroughly enjoyed them and we had a nice night chatting and eating. Eating is nice and all, but it has been a blast reconnecting with all of fantastic people I have met at the restaurant. Even though a lot of them have moved on, that only means it has opened opportunity to meet a new set of people. I can’t even being to say that I have met even half of the new people, but over the past two months, I can confidently say that I have gained a little bit of popularity and the staff are starting to recognize me. The only shame is that I did not get to meet everyone and the pass ends tonight.

Below are a few recaps from some of my other visits:

10-24-16 - Before and After

A reasonable meal tonight, nothing too crazy.

10-28-16 - Hey, I’m NOT at the bar for once!

Whether I’m at the bar or a table, the other guests nearby often ask questions, but I like the attention anyway.

A closer picture of just the food.

I wanted to be on the safe side so I went ahead and ordered more chicken and shrimp!

11-4-16 - Back at a table today!

Good old cavatappi.... Why cavatappi? you might ask, well, I think it’s the most efficiently small pasta in terms of volume. When I get angel hair or something similar, I feel like I am eating a brick of pasta, whereas cavatappi is hollow, squiggly, and just feels like less dense pasta.

11-9-16

Every time I sit down, it’s pretty much expected and fairly straight forward what I end up doing. I try to save everyone from the back and fourth and I just order everything all at once, along with a few family sized salads.

I guess I really felt like eating today, so I got more chicken.

11-10-16 

SOUP! Zuppa toscana is good stuff and while I have been here I have not had a chance to eat too much soup, so here we go, lots of soup tonight.

And to accompany all of that soup.... my delicious meal!

11-18-16

This whole week has been madness with the food. Saturday was a gigantic pizza challenge, Tuesday Olive Garden, Thursday 5.3 lb sandwich challenge (yay for national healthy lunch day!), and today... I just got out of control here, but screw it, it’s only food! Timing didn’t allow me to go to my regular Olive Garden where it has essentially become the norm to see someone order 30 orders of protein, but we ran into some trouble tonight at this location. No one gave me a hard time or anything like that, but the bartender was having trouble putting in 30 orders of protein, but the manager assisted and we got it all squared away.

Never Ending Pasta Bowl is Back!

Ok, so I haven’t posted for half of the promotion, but you better believe I have a pass again this year and I have been using it like a mad man. My first night I ended up at a different location rather than my usual one (it’s just how timing and other things worked out). I noticed that they changed a few things, most notably that you can no longer get the two orders to go - sorry guys, I can’t give away free food this year. If you haven’t seen it yet, I have a second blog for my food challenges (and everything else I do) - Sagebuffet.tumblr.com - and I have spent quite a lot of time writing in there, but I am behind on that too right now. Anyway, let me do a quick recap on the past few weeks!

Here we go, Day 1 of NEPB this year!

In addition to the to go orders, a lot of menu changes also happened. I can no longer get my precious mezaluna ravioli, chicken pomodoro and the basil sauces are both gone. On the plus side, they now have GRILLED CHICKEN! This time I don’t have to ask and hope someone decides to be nice and grill chicken for me. I started off very conservative, just to make sure that the changed rules didn’t catch me with my pants down. I ate like a “normal” person and ordered my meal and had about 6 refills of soup. I also had two refills and decided to test the waters a little and order a side of italian sausage.

zuppa toscana

pasta fagoli

more chicken, pasta, sauce, and my sausage on the side.

another refill

chicken and gnocchi

And there it is! my bill was exactly how I wanted it to be. The next visit I will push on the card a little more, to make sure everything goes well.

Well, as you can see, I went straight into it on my next visit. Mmmm, food :)

Just in case I was still hungry, I ordered more.

I am always having my pasta sauce salads; I like doing weird things. 

In the end it was of course $0.00 just the way I like it.

Ok, so beyond just the eating a whole lot of food, it was nice to see all of the familiar faces at the restaurant that I haven’t seen in so long. The restaurant layout as well as the staff have dramatically changed since the last time I came. It has been great meeting up and talking with Demitrius, Daniel, Wadhir, Dylan, Monica, Kevin and a few others. While they are no longer at this particular location, I see Zula and Maria now and then and it has been nice chatting with them as well. I decided that with all of the food competitions and other silly things going on that I wouldn’t be able to dedicate every single day to Olive Garden, but I try to go at least a few times a week. Ahead are a few more images from my visits:

Another day of food...

And another day... (1/2)

round 2 (2/2)

Well, today I decided to eat a whole lot (no surprise there im sure).

And some more chicken to go with it :)

This is how the pasta should come - completely loaded with shrimp.

Alright, so, here is my giant belly after eating all of that food. I look like this just about every day I pig out, but at least it’s just a temporary thing.

I tend to eat roughly the same thing each time, but after eating NEPB at least 70 times by now, I have a feel for what I generally enjoy.

I try to order everything all at once, but when I get more or it comes at different times, it just means I need another picture to show what else I got.

I have photos from the following days, but it is essentially the same things as you have already seen.

Ok, one more set of food, just because someone asked for a before an after.

There it is, lots of empty bowls (and I normally have 4 of the family salads). I don’t always eat all of the noodles (I’m trying to eat healthy!) it just depends on whether or not there is enough sauce and how I am feeling. One more thing that happens quite often, are the reactions from guests around me. On this day, the couple next to me took pictures of all of the food and they were just shocked. People usually ask me what I am doing and if I am ordering food to take home. I tell them no, I am going to eat all of it - “you mean eat the rest at home later?” no, all in one sitting right now. It’s not normal to eat like this and it sometimes leaves people shocked.