I tried Olive Garden's new 'pasta pancakes,' but the new lasagna menu item looked nothing like its ads

Irene Jiang / Business Insider

I tried Olive Garden's new pancake-like Lasagna Mia, and I was utterly confused.

• $4 rolled out $4 called the "Lasagna Mia" on Monday.
• Twitter users have been baffled by the shape of the new lasagna, with some describing it as appearing to look like "pasta pancakes" in the photos advertising the new item.
• I went to the Olive Garden in New York's Times Square to try the new pinwheel-shaped Lasagna Mia and founds its new shape definitely did not work in its favor.
• I still ate most of it, though.
• $4

Olive Garden released a build-your-own personal lasagna on Monday called the Lasagna Mia.

It's not the first time the Italian-American megachain has rolled out the Lasagna Mia, which is designed to be a personal, customized serving of lasagna. It had $4 in the summer of 2018 when it took the form of a standard cubic lasagna serving.

This time around, it looks a little different.

Olive Garden

What the Lasagna Mia looks like in Olive Garden's product shots.

Instead of the classic cubic lasagna, Olive Garden has decided to go with a pinwheel design that has drawn some less than enthusiastic reactions from the Twittersphere. Several users described the new Lasagna Mia design as "pasta pancakes," comparing the ribbons of sauce cascading down the sides to maple syrup down a stack of flapjacks.

But make no mistake - no unflattering description of food can keep me from eating it. I had a solemn moral responsibility to give Lasagna Mia a fair trial. It was, as far as I was concerned, pasta until proven a pancake.

Read more: $4

I stuffed my Canon 5D camera and a handful of Kirkland Signature lactose pills into my giant inconspicuous handbag and hopped on the train to the Olive Garden in Times Square.