Dining Out............

Olive Garden's Lobster Cannelloni w/Shrimp - Photo by Gerald Donnelly

One of the drawbacks of living in a small town is the lack of good restaurants. Sure, within 20 miles, we have most of the fast food franchises represented.

If you want real food, you need to choose between microwaved entrees at the locally owned places or you could spend a few dollars more and drive a few more miles to visit the corporate franchised places. Corporate owned franchises like Applebees, TGI Fridays, Outback Steakhouse, Chilli's, Ruby Tuesday's, Cheeseburger In Paradise, Tumbleweed, Red Lobster, Texas Roadhouse.....you know - places that are corporate owned by people who look at our area as nothing more than a line on an accountant's balance sheet. 

I prefer to keep my money LOCAL. Usually, I do. I've found a few places that are trying.

So, last Saturday, Mrs. General Tom and I went to the local Olive Garden. I like it because rednecks don't go there! There's nothing worse than going out to dinner and the guy at the next table looks like he just crawled out from under his 4X4. But, I digress. At the Olive Garden I ordered Lobster Cannelloni with Shrimp. It's shrimp and mascarpone cheese-filled cannelloni in a creamy seafood sauce, topped with shrimp, mushrooms and spinach. OH-MY-GOD! My taste buds woke up from a four decade slumber! My grandmother was a native of Italy and she used to spend many hours in the kitchen in a grand effort to give us a multi-course Sunday dinner that we'd talk about for the next six days.

The Olive Garden's Lobster Cannelloni w/Shrimp reminded me of my grandmother's cooking. Wow! Good stuff.  If they cooked like this in the Army, I would have stayed in!

I attached a picture of the dish.  I did not take this picture.  By the time I realized that it was delicious enough to photograph...it was gone.