Obscene portion sizes

Yep, this "Celebration Cake" really was as gross as it looks. Supposedly a red velvet cake, it was just white cake that was tinted with food coloring. But the bait and switch wasn't the problem. The size was. I mean, look at it. It looks like the bow of the frickin' Titanic! It was put together with two giant wedges of a three-layer cake stacked on each other. Blech.

If this was our entire dinner, we might have been able to choke it down. As it was, we were already stuffed. At the recent CHA Trade Show in Anaheim, a group of us headed to Buca di Beppo for our last supper.

There were five of us.

We ordered a calamari appetizer, a large salad, and two entrees (they serve everything family style). We were on a good pace during the app and salad but collectively groaned when the chicken parm and spicy sausage penne arrived. The bowl of penne was particularly egregious. To give you an idea of scale, the giant white bowl looked big enough to soak my feet in. Both of them. And the pasta was mixed with sausage and several links were sliced and laid across the top. Tasty, sure, but the size was just plain offensive. The restaurant is in the midst of hotels so I suspect that the primary way leftovers are taken away is via Dumpster.

And that's sick. At least Olive Garden waits until you finish the first basket of breadsticks and bowl of salad before the waiter brings you more.

Quantity does not equal quality, especially when it comes to Celebration Cake. Cut that cake in half (and while you're at it, try making a real red-velvet cake). When I'm not punching this cake's lights out, I'm rubbing my belly in pain.