orlando's italian restaurant

i am italian and grew up in lubbock. i know... unheard of! orlandos is something i would describe as tex-italian. the pasta is over cooked and gummy, thesauceis spicy tomatosaucebut it's not spaghetti sauce. more like a chili than italian. if you are an italian restaurant and yoursaucesucks, it's all over.

green chili chicken linguine. we love the green chili chicken linguine! best thing they serve! also love the honey wheat crust on their pizzas. love their alfredosaucebut it must either have too much salt or i'm allergic to something in it because the 3 times i've eaten anything with it (fettuccine twice and a pizza once), my hands and feet became swollen & painful. the 3 times were over course of 2-3 years, so it wasn't just a bad batch. i hate their red sauce! horrible! blah! from now on i'm sticking to the gcc linguine. always perfecto!!

my family had dinner there this evening. my daughter got the ravioli off the kids section in the adult menu. it's supposed to come with a free drink. our waiter ryan argued with me that i ordered a large. i'd never order a large for her, she has kidney issues and can barely drink a small!

my son and i also ordered the cheese ravioli. when i asked about the difference between half and full size, ryan said the plate is bigger.

thesauce(i asked for marinara but got meat sauce) was very spicy. my husband got the fantasy burger. he said he was fantasizing he was at 5 guys! all of our meals lacked salt.

the high point was the wisconsin cheddar soup my son and i got. that was delicious.

at the end of the day, this is not an italian restaurant. this was our first visit in over ten years and i don't see us ever returning.

the overall experience was okay. i had their fried mushrooms as an appetizer. crispy exterior and fully cooked in the interior. the taste seemed a bit flat but the ranch dressing helped. i'm not sure what made me get the wisconsin cheddar soup but i did. there's a really good chance i won't get that again. it didn't taste bad but cheese as a soup...not so much of a great idea.

finally, i ordered their lasagna as the main course. it was covered in too muchsaucefor my taste. the meat had a very one-note taste to it. i will say that the portion was huge. it came with about 4-5 slices of garlic bread but they were chewy. though some breads are meant to be that way, these seemed to have more of the stale quality.

i will go back because there were many other options to choose from and the service was good.

chef boyardee is better. severely overpriced for such small portions. the worst alfredosaucei have ever tasted. if they can't get the basics of italian food down, don't expect the specialty items to be any better.

it's alright. prob wouldn't wait an hour for it again. we had alfredo pizza with chicken on honey wheat. it's ok. friends had a foccia (sp?) pizza with chicken. i wasn't too sure about it when waitress described it assauceless but it was pretty good. the mafia queso was ok too. wish it had more chips and bread im sure they would have brought more if we asked though. definitely seems like a favorite of the locals.

best alfredo. my favorite italian place by far in lubbock. their alfredosauceis perfection. it can get a little pricey, but you're paying for the atmosphere and fresh food. i can never get enough of the garlic bread and i am constantly ordering the take out. i have never had a bad experience here.

ugh!. went to orlando's on saturday night. wife and i walked in and were quoted a 20-30 minute wait. 4 minutes later we were sat. we had been here once before for lunch and shared a pizza, but this time we were going to have dinner. wife got the tilapia while i tried the veal parm. we each had a soup as an appetizer. i had the minestrone which was good. wife had the potato green chile which was described by the server much different than it actually was. wife was not too keen on it. entrees came a few minutes later and things went down hill. the tilapia was slathered in an odd cheesysaucethat was described as a pesto. she managed to eat about a quarter of the meal, but that was all. i on the other hand maanged one bite of the veal. unfortunately there must not have been proper rotation of product since the veal was bad. as the first mouthful headed toward my mouth i noticed a horrible odor. stupidly i assumed it was just the cheese and i put that vile veal into my mouth. the taste was disgusting. the neighboting table notice there was something wrong and said they could smell the veal as bad also. that was it, check please and out the door. add another restaurant to the never to return list.

orlando's has gone down hill some in recent years, it's not as good as it was 8 years ago when i moved here. this shows a lot in the dining rooms. the carpets look old and dirty and they don't clean stuff on the walls. the restaurant has a dingy tired feeling that isn't very appetizing. i would recommend sticking to the indiana location, the food is consistantly better at that one. i agree with a lot of reviewers that it's tex-italian so it's not "authentic" but that's okay, it's decent food. the menu is quite large and pretty varied. i would recommend the mafia queso for an appetizer, it's this spicey queso dip with chunks of chile peppers and italian sausage. my husband keeps trying to recreate it and just can't get it right. i enjoy the rigatoni and sausage casserole with mushrooms, it's always hot and delicious. the focacias are amazingly good, and the pizzas are a regular for me. the honey wheat pizza crust is really good; i usually get the chicken pesto with sun dried tomatos. sometimes i'm just in the mood for pasta and i usually get the fettucine alfredo with chicken and broccoli. now, to be fair there have been a few times that haven't been so positive. i've had to send back fettucine more than once because the alfredosaucehad broken and it was greasy and disgusting. another time my husband ordered the down and dirty tortellini and it was hard and inedible. i do agree with another reviewer that their maranara is weird tasting; slightly metallic? i don't order the maranara so that limits some of what i eat. there are plenty of great dishes here and you should give a lot of them a try. oh, and if a dish says spicey next to it, it probably is, so watch out. they will make it as hot as you want it, so be careful if you can't take heat.