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| - Going to the Cheesecake factory was a walk down memory lane. I remember back in high school when I was so excited to go here. I thought I was so fancy bringing girls here after a movie, where the ceilings were so tall, the walls decorated with classy moulding, and stone flooring where the click of heels can be heard as crisp as a bell. High school me thought that this was the Waldorf. Now that I've lived a bit, I know how silly it seems to be so impressed with the Cheesecake Factory, but coming "back" here after so many years gave a helpful heap of nostalgia in a time of the year of thinking back.
The Cheesecake Factory is a chain restaurant with the same corporate structure (I think) of others like the Olive Garden or Applebee's. The food has stayed impressively uniform across time and space, and even the architecture and decor are carefully curated to produce the same ambiance across all of their restaurants. The food is a cross-section of presentable but comfortably familiar American foods, such as shrimp scampi or steak Diane, as well as delightful Asian fusion items like Thai spring rolls that are scattered within the menu to liven up the palate of their extensive menu. And, as the name of the restaurant might suggest, there is cheesecake and plenty of it.
First, my order: a crab and artichoke dip for appetizer; chicken marsala (chicken in a mushroom and Marsala wine sauce) and pasta (I asked for angel hair instead of the default farfalle*); and a Godiva three-chocolate cheesecake. A lot of food, that's for sure. The food is not bad. Sure, it's nothing to be blown away by, since it's a chain restaurant and not run by a celebrity chef. The crab in the dip was probably canned or frozen and lacked the oceanic umami typical of fresh crab. The chicken was pretty tender, the pasta not overcooked, and the mushrooms well-seasoned and the main source of savory in this dish. A small part of me suspects that the sauce was premade because it feels thickened artificially, but it could just be the quirk of the chef to prefer their Marsala sauce with a slicker and thicker consistency than what I'm used to.
I guess in hindsight this shouldn't really be a surprise, but the cheesecake ended up being the highlight of the evening. It is composed of three forms of chocolate cake layered on top of each other. On the bottom is a flowerless chocolate cake. In the middle is a traditional cheesecake of chocolate flavor and composition. The top layer is chocolate mousse. All of the chocolate are from Godiva, and you also get a hearty slice with two large clouds of whipped cream (I'm pretty sure canned though) on the side. I was particularly happy with the cheesecake because 1) I haven't had chocolate in a very long time, and this reminded me of how delicious chocolate is; and 2) it's not too sweet, which I was afraid of going in. There were tons and tons of other options, so I can really only vouch for one very specific choice among the cornucopia of cheesecake options available.
For me, if this meal were served to me without any hint of what restaurant it was from, I'd be less impressed with the food itself. But for me, and I hope for many others, the Cheesecake Factory is delightfully innocent. In other chain restaurants, there are always promotions and deals that make you aware of how commercial the entire endeavor is, and then when enough food for four people are put in front of one person, your eyes glaze over and you're focused less on tasting and more on eating. I don't want to feel like a deal hunter on Black Friday, out hunting for the highest calorie count with the lowest dollars. The Cheesecake Factory, with their menu of familiar food items culminating in a winning dessert, brings in the mind of this reviewer the comfort of familiarity and pleasure of being disarmingly charming. And it's not expensive! This three-course meal came out to $40. The Cheesecake Factory is meant to be accessible to everybody, and without feeling exploitative. Here I am just reminded of decent food and a fun and cheerful experience.
*I strongly dislike farfalle because it's never cooked evenly given its uneven thickness. The edges are mushy while the "knot" stays doughy and uncooked. I feel that too few people notice this, so consider this a PSA against farfalle.
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