Biaggi's Italian Restaurant

Tonight I had a lovely dinner with my friend Becca & a group of her friends to celebrate her birthday.  Biaggi's is like a step or two up from The Olive Garden.  Don't get me wrong - I love me some Olive Garden!  But it is to Fazoli's what Biaggi's is to it.  Does that make sense?  I guess it probably does if you're familiar with all three of these restaurants.  *laugh*  For those of you not familiar, here's a quick reference guide.


Fazoli's: Italian food fast.  Has a drive through.  Serves pretty good pasta and pizza, but is kinda overpriced for fast food.  


Olive Garden:  Chain restaurant, so the menu is the same and dishes prepared pretty similar in all locations.  Fairly quick and good.  Yummy breadsticks, but you kinda get the feeling they were made somewhere else & frozen to be baked up in crazy batches that can never keep up with the customer demand.  Kinda small dessert menu.  


Biaggi's:  Chain restaurant, but a little more upscale that OG.  Portion sizes are huge, dishes can be shared between two people.  Main courses feel like they were made from scratch right there, no frozen components (this may not be true, but it's how it feels).  Bread basket filled with various fresh breads, with oil, parm, and pepper at the table for dipping.  DELICIOUS.  I don't even know for sure what kinds of bread are in the basket, but they are amazing.  : ) Huge dessert menu, including various coffee options.  Yummy!


This is where Becca chose to have her birthday dinner.  There were about 16 of us, I think, so a rather large group!  Our waitress did an awesome job.  We were there for about an hour waiting for everyone to arrive, munching on the much anticipated bread.  We went thru many baskets, and didn't have to wait for fresh bread.  


Many ladies had some adult beverages, and they were very pretty, as you can see with the Bix Blue Martini and the Cherry Basil something-or-other below.

For my main course, I chose one of the night's chef specials, Penne Portabella? I actually just realized I don't remember what kind of mushrooms they were, but they started w/ a P and that is the only kind of mushroom I can think of that starts w/ a P!!  LOL  Anyway, along w/ the penne & mushrooms, it had some basil & tomato salsa, a cream sauce and spinach.  

YUM!  I brought over 1/2 of it home for dinner tomorrow because I'd eaten so much bread, tho.  *laugh*  Cassandra had this gorgeous chicken salad, with avocados, which almost made me wish I'd ordered salad.  Almost.  I could have sub'd spinach for the iceberg... heh.  

For dessert, I just had a big cup of coffee w/ cream & Splenda.  They have excellent coffee!  One of the girls very kindly offered to let me photograph her creme brulee for the blog.  Thanks, much!  : )  

Isn't it lovely?  Other desserts chosen included tirami su, bread pudding, cannoli, lemon tower, and a divine chocolate cake.  


A very enjoyable evening, and I'm so glad I was able to join in on the festivities!  : )  


Until next time - what's your favorite pasta dish or Italian dessert?