I like cheesecake as much as the next person, so while I was out running errands with my husband a couple of weeks ago, and he suggested we go to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner, I went along with it. I hadn't been there in years, and I couldn't remember much about the place, but I figured I would at least get some good cheesecake out of it.
We had to wait 15 minutes to get seated, which was kind of ridiculous for a bland chain restaurant in the 'burbs, but it gave me time to peruse their monsterous menu. The Cheesecake Factory menu has full-page third-party advertisements inside. It looks like a magazine. It also has page numbers! Page numbers, people! The menu is literally 30 pages long. That is just crazy. I was starting to think that this place falls into the "jack of all trades, master of none" category.
I was halfway through the menu when we were seated at our table. I remembered that CF portions are huge, so I tried to combat that by ordering a salad. This was the largest salad I have ever seen in my entire life. I think there was an entire head of lettuce in there. Thank goodness I asked for my trough of dressing on the side. Despite its size, the salad was just ok. Honestly, I could replicate the same exact thing at home, with fresher ingredients.
I was really looking forward to dessert. This place has an entire cheesecake menu. I ordered the "tres leches cheesecake," because I absolutely adore tres leches. It's one of my favorite desserts in the entire world. I wasn't sure how it would work in cheesecake form, but I had high expectations. Unfortunately, they were not met. The cake did not look or taste anything like tres leches. It was more like a layer of regular NY-style cheesecake on top of a layer of vanilla pound cake. Mediocre at best.
This was a good reminder of why I usually don't eat at big chain restaurants. I'm amazed that The Cheesecake Factory is so popular. People will literally wait over an hour for a table there. I'm sure some of their cheesecakes are good, and I can understand ordering a slice to go, but the overall experience is not worth it.
Like a waterfall in slow motion, Part One
3 years ago
2 comments:
Realizing that I'm quite late to respond but oh my GOSH, I couldn't agree with you more. Why the 2-hour wait at the Cheesecake Factory on Friday/Saturday nights? They most definitely subscribe to the quantity over quality school of thought, but huge portions of mediocre food doesn't make it taste better...it's still mediocre food.
(This is alg576, BTW...)
This is the future calling. It's 2017 and cheesecake factory is still mediocre at best with 2 hour long waits still to this very day... Maybe one day people will see.
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