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Chain Gang tackles Olive Garden's Never Ending Pasta Bowl

Olive Garden's Never Ending Pasta Bowl allows guests to create their favorite unlimited combinations from a list of seven pastas and six sauces, plus soup or salad and breadsticks.

Olive Garden's "never-ending" pasta bowl.
Olive Garden's "never-ending" pasta bowl.Read more

Company description: "Back for its 18th year, Never Ending Pasta Bowl allows guests to create their favorite unlimited combinations from a list of seven pastas and six sauces, plus soup or salad and breadsticks."

Location: Olive Garden, 2314 Route 38, Cherry Hill, N.J.

Nutrition information: Since the special is "never ending," unwary diners could easily fall into a caloric black hole. The pastas range from 370 to 460 calories per serving; the sauces, 80 to 330. Add one of the three optional meats (chicken fritta, Italian sausage or meatballs) for an extra 130 to 280 calories per serving. Mangia!

Price: Diners can stuff their bellies with all the pasta, salad and bread they can muster for one easy payment of $9.99. An unlimited amount of one of the aforementioned meats costs an extra $2.99.

Review: This reviewer is Italian. Like, 100 percent Italian. Suffice it to say that my expectations were not at their highest. That said, our experience wasn't too bad.

My dining companion and I opted to combine three of the new items on the chain's rotating specials menu into one dish: Cavatappi (corkscrew) pasta, Asiago Garlic Alfredo Sauce and Chicken Fritta.

The pasta was cooked just fine, and the hearty Alfredo was sufficiently cheesy. The chicken fritta was mediocre - simply strips of fried chicken thrown lazily on top of the dish. Non va bene. We still had some room left to try the other new sauce, Sausage Pomodoro, a typical meat ragu made with pork sausage. It went nicely with penne.

Summary: Diners looking for value can't go wrong with a never-ending supply of pasta. Skip the Chicken Fritta and grab a meatball, if animal protein is a must-have.