By mlblogssfgiants1

Salad dressing. That’s how you know you’re in a good restaurant. (Or if it’s TexMex, salsa.)

If you follow me on twitter (@bbelt9), you already know my favorite salad dressing is at Olive Garden with their unlimited salad and bread sticks. You might be surprised to know that not everyone thinks Olive Garden is one of America’s best restaurants. I’ve discovered that people in San Francisco hate chain restaurants with a passion. I come from a small town, and the way we knew we were in a city is if it had an Olive Garden. Then Lufkin got one six or seven years ago. I’ve been ordering the Tour of Italy ever since — lasagna, alfredo and chicken parmesan.

Even on the road, I’m opposed to trying new restaurants. If the food isn’t very good, my whole night is ruined because I could have gone to Olive Garden.

Back to salad dressing.

Lots of restaurants have kind of the same food so a restaurant that has really good salad dressing sets itself apart. So that’s how you know it’s a good place. House of Prime Rib had great salad dressing, so that’s my favorite in San Francisco.

When I tweeted about Olive Garden’s salad dressing, the restaurant sent me a message saying they wanted to send me free salad dressing. I tweeted that this was probably the best day of my life.

Haylee and I had a good time socializing with teammates in Arizona. Nick Noonan and his fiance bought a condo right before we broke camp. They had no furniture but invited people over anyway. It was a BYOC party — Bring Your Own Chair. It’s really nice getting together with guys off the field. I’m happy Nick’s here in San Francisco. He has a great chance of making the roster on Opening Day.

Tune into 95.7 on Monday afternoons. I’ll be talking to Bucher and Townie every week at 4:30. And I’ll be doing interviews with Amy G. on the Comcast website.

Thanks for reading!

Hope to see you at the park. Or at Olive Garden.

-Brandon B.