I think the problem with Olive Garden is not so much their basic recipes, but their execution. Maybe they are underpaying cooks and servers, or maybe nobody there cares. I am often dragged to Olive Gardens for work lunches, and it is really uneven.

For a place that specializes in pasta, their pasta is often gloppy, overcooked, old, cold in the middle, or just "wrong". I think that varies from location to location.

Safe bets:

The infamous all-you-can-eat salad

Pasta Fagioli soup

"Griller" steak thing

Tiramisu (thiugh I did get it still frozen once).