Pasta is one of those foods everyone seems to have a great recipe for, from a delicious carbonara to a simple kids pasta-pesto dish. When picking pasta at a chain restaurant, there are plenty of great options to choose from but not every pasta entree is a hit with customers. Based on social media comments and reviews, some pasta menu items suffer from quality control issues and inconsistency, even if the restaurant’s menu as a whole is pretty solid overall. Here are six pasta dishes to avoid at restaurant chains, according to the most common complaints from diners.
Olive Garden Lasagna Classico
Olive Garden
Some Olive Garden customers are not impressed with the Lasagna Classico, saying it tastes bland and mushy. “Why is the lasagna so bad? It tastes like I’m biting into a whole tomato. There’s no other taste to it,” one Redditor complained. “My biggest complaint, the red sauce they have. I got the tour of Italy, and the red sauce was abysmal. So the lasagna Classico and the chicken parmigiana was really bad. Didn’t taste good at all because of the sauce,” another agreed.
Cheesecake Factory Cajun Jambalaya Pasta
Cheesecake Factory
The Cheesecake Factory guests say the Cajun Jambalaya Pasta can be bland, especially for something marketed as spicy. “Nothing resembling Cajun, nothing resembling jambalaya, and absolutely zero spice despite it indicating a ‘very spice sauce.’ Most of the dish was onion and pepper which were clearly from a frozen bag (as expected and acceptable if not for the rest) and the sauce was basically a broth that sat at the bottom,” one Redditor said. Another pointed out the vegetables have to be caramelized for the dish to be good, so if that step is skipped, the pasta won’t work. Another Yelper said the consistency of the “gummy” pasta was off.
Panera Mac & Cheese
Panera
Panera‘s Mac & Cheese is impacted by issues like inconsistency and poor quality control, with customers saying it’s either too thick or too watery. “Tastes so bland, there’s no flavor. The texture of the cheese is also super chunky and not silky/creamy like it was before. The pasta also seems to have disintegrated after being heated and stirred,” one Redditor said. One employee recommended ordering it at lunchtime only. “The Mac is GOOD but definitely order it during lunch and not later in the evening. After dinner (at least at my cafe), the Mac’s get microwaved instead of heated in the rethermalizer. It’s not as good microwaved :(,” the Redditor said.
Jollibee Spaghetti
Jollibee’s
Jollibee‘s Spaghetti is a controversial dish—the sweetness puts some customers off, others say that’s how it’s supposed to taste. “The spaghetti is weird. You either love it or hate it. It’s very sweet. I’d give the burgers a shot though. I’d say they’re very good by fast food standards,” one Redditor said. “The spaghetti is too sweet. I personally didn’t find it pleasing,” another customer said via Yelp.
Applebee’s Broccoli Chicken Alfredo
Applebee’s
The Broccoli Chicken Alfredo at Applebee’s is another bland dish. “I recently ordered the Broccoli Chicken Alfredo from Applebee’s, and when I received it, it looked dry, with barely any sauce. I asked if I could pay for extra sauce and was told it would cost $2.69—almost $3,” one customer said via Facebook. “I’m sure the Alfredo sauce came out of a can. The chicken was grilled and tasted good. It has a surprising amount of broccoli, which I was happy with. I probably wouldn’t get this again, but it wasn’t terrible,” another customer said via RateMyFood.
Dominos Chicken Alfredo Pasta
Domino’s
The Chicken Alfredo Pasta at Dominos is very hit or miss, customers say, complaining about the pasta being overcooked. “This dish would have benefited nicely from a dash of salt. There was a decided lack of chicken for an entrée with chicken in the name. The sauce did not have the creamy texture you would expect from an Alfredo sauce,” one reviewer from Cleveland.com said.
