The Worst Olive Garden Dessert According To Over 26% Of People
When you think of eating at Olive Garden, what comes to mind? The chain's ever-popular all-you-can eat breadsticks, soups, and salads, most likely, as well as their ginormous bowls of pasta. You may even wash down your mega-meal with a great big glass o'vino, but after all this gorging, how could you possibly have any room left for dessert? Some people do manage it, though, either through iron-willed self-control or because they have Joey Chestnut-sized stomachs, which is why Olive Garden does offer a dessert menu.
Which, if any, of Olive Garden's desserts are worth foregoing an extra breadstick or two? Such a question can't be answered lightly, so Mashed consulted with not one, but 606 different U.S. experts — "experts," in this sense, being defined as anyone who's ever made it all the way through an Olive Garden meal to the dessert course. Our panel was given the choice of six candidates from the restaurant's dessert menu: Black Tie Mousse Cake, Chocolate Brownie Lasagna, Dolcini, Sicilian Cheesecake with Strawberry Topping, Tiramisu, and Warm Italian Doughnuts. While there was just a vote or two separating the least-hated (and therefore most popular) desserts, the biggest loser by a clear margin was a chocolate train wreck.
Brownie lasagna is just too much of a good thing
Admittedly, the best time to deliver an honest assessment of a dessert isn't right after you've just finished a massive, carb-heavy meal. As Italian Grocer DeLallo reveals, in Italy most meals actually finish off with nothing more than fresh fruit. Olive Garden, however, isn't the kind of place you go to enjoy a sweet treat with a cup of coffee, so a sizable majority — over 26% of the chain's dessert eaters we polled — gave a big thumbs-down to a dish that just doesn't sit well after all that pasta. The restaurant's Chocolate Brownie Lasagna, consisting of brownies layered with cream cheese frosting and topped with chocolate syrup, is just too heavy and too much to stomach when said organ is already stuffed to capacity.
In case you're wondering about the also-ran candidates, those would be the Italian doughnuts, which nearly 18% chose as Olive Garden's worst dessert, and the tiramisu, unfavorited by over 17%. A middle-of-the-pack 16% disapproved of the Dolcini, but there was an almost-tie for the title of least-hated menu item — the Black Tie Mousse Cake came in with just over 11% of the vote, while the Sicilian Cheesecake was just under that number. If you want a dessert you can truly appreciate after eating at the chain, though, your best bet might be to let your meal digest for a few hours, then go somewhere else for gelato.