The Old Spaghetti Factory - New Westminster

This Old Spaghetti Factory location is right underneath the New Westminster skytrain station.  We got there for dinner on a early Friday evening and the restaurant was just getting busy.  We didn’t have to wait for a table though.

Similar to Olive Garden, this is not the place for authentic Italian food.  It is known for its value priced meals because the meals come with a coffee/tea, garden salad or minestrone soup, and ice cream.  Prices vary depending on the type of pasta you order.  This location even has a locomotive eating area for kids.

Each table gets endless sour dough bread.  It looks like they changed their bread to Panini like bread.  it comes with regular butter and garlic butter.

We both opted for tea.

The garden salad is a small portion and was quite fresh.  You can get any dressing you like.

Since we hiked during the day, we were a bit more hungrier than usual.  We got their featured calamari.

The calamari was disappointing because it was such a small portion.  For $9, this was definitely not worth its price.  It was quite oily too and the pieces were not breaded evenly.

The meet lasagne was cooked well with a nice cheese crust forming on the edge of the dish.  It was topped with a nice layer of cheese and had a good portion of meet.

For our second main, we got the penne with chicken.  It is tossed in a light cream sauce and was not drowning.  The penne was al dente.  They could have been a bit more generous with the chicken though.  Flavour wise, it was quite balanced.

Ice cream for dessert!  You can choose either chocolate or spumoni which has 3 flavours including chocolate, vanilla and pistachio.  We love the pistachio and today we were lucky as you can see we both got a big chunk of the green pistachio flavour.

Parking is not that great at this location as it is pay street parking.  The server was friendly except he got us the wrong tea flavour.  We asked for honey lemon but got the orange pekoe.  We should have asked but we thought they eliminated the other tea flavours.

The food was good but the calamari is definitely not recommended.

Any suggestion on more authentic Italian restaurants in the lower mainland for Sanfan to try out?

SFDD Gives 2.5 out of 5 Delights

Olive Garden - Bellingham

You can find Olive Garden all over the USA, plenty in Washington State especially around the popular shopping areas that Canadians like to hang out during the weekends.  Now, it’s not the place to go to for authentic Italian food if that is what you are hoping for. It’s would be a place to go to for a somewhat value priced meal.

We’ve been to several locations and they must be doing something right because it is always busy with customers.  They are quite efficient though as wait time was always less than 15 minutes.  The restaurants are quite big with different sections, even a bar area.

Olive Garden is known for their unlimited breadsticks, and a choice of bottomless soup or salad with your meal.

The bread is very soft and fresh out of the oven with some butter or olive oil glazed to give it some taste.  The salad is also very fresh with lots of croutons.  In fact this one had too much.  We were unsure of the salad dressing, it was very tangy perhaps a house Italian dressing.  There was too much dressing tossed with the salad so it overwhelmed the greens.  Next time we would ask for the dressing to be on the side.

We were undecided so thought it would be good to try the build your own plate where you can choose 3 items.  We chose the Eggplant parmesan, lasagne and spaghetti with meat sauce.

The eggplant was deep fried and lightly breaded. It was quite good with a nice crisp to it.  It was nicely balanced with the sauce and melted cheese on top.  The meat sauce spaghetti was quite meaty and thick so it was good in our books.  We couldn’t taste any red wine in it though.  I specifically asked for ‘al Dante’ pasta because one time we got soggy pasta.  This time it was done a bit better, but still not as al dante as we’d like.  The lasagne was about a 1/3 serving and was also quite meaty with lots of ricotta cheese inside.  Overall this was not too bad for the price as the portion was big.

For our second dish, we got Cucina Mia.  We opted for the rigatoni with Garlic white wine sauce.

We added a piece of grilled chicken breast as well.  The pasta was done pretty good and it was not drowning in sauce.  The sauce was definitely buzzing with white wine too.  It was a good sized portion.

Service wise, our server was friendly and we did not have to wait too long for our food.  Olive Garden’s parking lots are usually quite big so you should have any trouble finding spots.  Extra points are given for their extra fresh breadsticks.  One suggestion if you visit is to ask them to keep the salad dressing aside so the greens are not drowning.

SFDD Gives 3 out of 5 Delights.

Cheesecake Factory - Bellevue, WA

One of our stops during our pre Xmas shopping trip was at the Bellevue Square Mall.  We opted to hang out here instead of at Downtown Seattle due to the wet weather expected that weekend.  We stopped by Cheesecake Factory which is located just underneath the Macy’s department store.

From previous visits, this place gets jammed pack at lunch time.  Waits can be as much as 45 minutes.  Knowing this, we headed for an early lunch, arriving just before 11:30am.  The restaurant was almost full but gladly, a table was immediately available for our party of 5.

The ladies asked to start with hot water since it was a chilli day. The waitress added an extra touch by bringing us lemon and honey for the hot water.  This was a nice gesture as other places would not normally do this.

Unlimited dinner bread/butter is available.  They provide sour dough or a dark wheat loaf like this.  We like this one better as it is sweet and feels healthier with those nice grains and oats on top.

Most of us ordered from the special lunch menu as those are a smaller and inexpensive choice available.  This is the Pasta Da Vinci. It is Penne with sautéed chicken, mushrooms and onions in a  wine sauce.  The penne was well done, Al Dente.  Sauce was a bit on the sweet side.  It was a good size for lunch.

We also ordered the soup and salad special.  The soup of the day was a baked potato cream soup. It was presented rather nicely with bacon bits and a line of sour cream across the top. The soup was very hearty with chunks of potato  inside.  Although it was a cream based soup, it was not overly rich.  The salad greens were fresh and crisp as it should be.

Next up is the lunch sized spaghetti and meatballs, and for comparison the one underneath is a full sized portion.

The lunch size was about 2/3 of the full sized portion.  The meatballs were about the size of a golf ball.  They were well made, tender and tasty.  Unfortunately, they messed up and overcooked the spaghetti.  It was soggy, with no chewy factor at all.  No al danteness whatsoever.

Finally, we ordered the original cheesecake.  We were conservative and didn’t want to venture out to taste the dozens of other available flavours on their menu.

Their cheesecakes are consistent with a nice texture and tastes superb every time.

Go early before the prime time rush. Service was good but in terms of the food, they really need to work on cooking their spaghetti to get the correct tenderness before dishing it out to the customers.  Definitely try one of their famous cheesecakes when you get a chance to visit.

SFDD gives 3 out of 4 Delights.