Cheesecake Factory- a few facts

[tommy]

It tastes how it should, and isn't that what tasting good is?

i bet most piles of shit taste just as they should as well.

Edited July 14, 2003 by tommy (log)

[KateW]

   It tastes how it should, and isn't that what tasting good is?  

i bet most piles of shit taste just as they should as well.

Ahahahahaha. Good point. I'm not really sure what I meant now...

[MatthewB]

As for the sex comment, that's another can of worms you don't want to get into with me. 

And you can order stuff and "86 the cheese";)

Speaking of sex & a can of worms . . .

Remember Melville's chapter in Moby Dick where the sailors are kneading whale sperm?

It was always interesting to lead a class discussion on that chapter.

Oh dear...shall we start a new thread so you can explain this one? Or has this topic gone off-topic enough that we can just talk about it here?

You'll need to read the original version. I think the Classics Illustrated dropped that chapter.

[tommy]

   It tastes how it should, and isn't that what tasting good is?  

i bet most piles of shit taste just as they should as well.

Ahahahahaha. Good point. I'm not really sure what I meant now...

you probably meant that you like what you like, and there are no surprises at the OG, and you know exactly what you're getting, etc. nothing wrong with that. 'cept for the fact the place sux.

[MatthewB]

Given the pizza metaphor, if Uma's were closed would you eat at Divine's or cook at home?

Cook at home. At least I know I'm really really good.

[hollywood]

Given the pizza metaphor, if Uma's were closed would you eat at Divine's or cook at home?

Cook at home. At least I know I'm really really good.

Hey, you know exactly what you're getting.

[hjshorter]

As someone said before, some of us have limited money, kids, picky dining companions, limited diet, etc. and can't always get the best meal.

I fail to realize how this argument supports the ingestion of crappy food.

A rephrasing might be, "Some people are lazy."

I'm not sure how having children qualifies me as lazy.

Have you ever had a meal in a fine-dining establishment with a two-year-old? It's not pretty. They have a time limit of about 45-60 mnutes in a restaurant. If I'm with the kids and have to eat a meal out I would much rather have an ordinary meal in a place with high chairs, crayons, etc. (no kids menu though) than have a fabulous meal that I'm not able to enjoy and have to get most of it packed to take home.

[tommy]

I'm not sure how having children qualifies me as lazy.

Have you ever had a meal in a fine-dining establishment with a two-year-old?  It's not pretty.  They have a time limit of about 45-60 mnutes in a restaurant.  If I'm with the kids and have to eat a meal out I would much rather have an ordinary meal in a place with high chairs, crayons, etc. (no kids menu though) than have a fabulous meal that I'm not able to enjoy and have to get most of it packed to take home.

not to mention the added hassle of having to shop for and prepare dinner when you're dealing with a kid or two. and cleaning up.

but hey, we'll never convince the nay-sayers.

[MatthewB]

Kate,

Here's that Melville for you.

[Bux]

I'm looking for an explanation.  I've asked a couple times what's so bad about Olive Garden, and haven't gotten an answer.  So it's not serious food, but honestly, don't any of you ever eat just because you're hungry?  Not because you want to tell stories about the food you ate?

I've also said before that each time I go out to eat doesn't have to be an experience to remember.  Sometimes I don't want anything more than for the food to fill me up and not make me sick. (no small feat, as I've mentioned.  being filling and not making me sick is almost a contradiction.)  It would take a major toll on my time, health, weight and wallet to eat at an exceptional place every day, especially in the area where I live.  I would probably have to go to Boston (about 2 hours north) to see anything BUT chain restaurants.  Or maybe the Cape.  But heck, I just want lunch, not an all day excursion.

Cooking in a place like Tru is more interesting to me because I hope it involves more creativity.  Dumping food in a fryolater, taking it out when it floats and putting it on a plate is not creative.  Making food look and taste beautiful is.

Maybe I'm not as serious about food as most of you.  I want the food I eat to be good, but it doesn't have to be creative or unique.

And now I have to go order Chinese food for the SO and me.  Anyone got a problem with that? 

Good and bad are subjective. What are your standards? If there's nothing bad about the food, there's nothing good about it either and that's bad. There may be no negative factor, but the food can still be a zero to some. I'm at a loss here as I've never been to an Olive Garden and I'd owe both you and them that much if I had to make critical comments. My point here is solely that I've heard nothing positive enough to arouse my curiosity enough to spend my dime there.

We all eat because we need nourishment. Many of us eat on limited budgets. These are relative things and I have more money than I did when I was just out of school, so I will assume my budget is much larger than yours is now. However I need to ask how much a meal costs at OG and is it good value. Value is also relative. I'm lucky, not in that I have a large food budget, but that I'm in NYC. I can eat in Chinatown. I suspect the food is far more interesting, cooked with great skill and probably less expensive than at OG. Tommy's already mentioned the local diverse and inexpensive ethnic restaurants. Matthew has the other alternative. Eat at home. For the first 20 years of my married life, we rarely ate at a restaurant that wasn't less than moderately priced. We could cook a lavish dinner for six or eight for what it might cost the two of us to eat fairly well and that was how we spent our money.

Okay, people often eat just to stave off hunger. What is there to talk about here? Why should we talk about food that isn't serious? What can we say about it. Once again, we're not talking about food that's humorous. Ferran Adria does some really humorous stuff. Read a recent post about dinner at Marc Veyrat in the France board. There was some humorous food that night. This was food worth talking about. I'm not saying don't eat at OG. I'm not even saying don't talk about it, I'm asking what you can say about it.

Be forewarned that most of what's done in the best kitchens, those that are turning out the most exciting food, is repetitive work and in itself, not very interesting when done day after day.

I have no problem with Chinese food. It's one of my favorite foods, however I also think it's one that doesn't lend itself to take out very well. Nothing sufferes so much in a container as stir fried food. Unfortuantely most Chinese restaurants in the US are so bad, it doesn't matter. They may be worse than OG. I don't know.

[Andrew Fenton]

Remember Melville's chapter in Moby Dick where the sailors are kneading whale sperm?

You do know that the sperm in that chapter is spermaceti, not semen, right?

That said, it's pretty hard to avoid cracking a smile when referring to "sperm whales." It's like "homo erectus."

[MatthewB]

Remember Melville's chapter in Moby Dick where the sailors are kneading whale sperm?  

You do know that the sperm in that chapter is spermaceti, not semen, right?

That said, it's pretty hard to avoid cracking a smile when referring to "sperm whales." It's like "homo erectus."

The way it's phrased by Melville, undergrads always wanted to talk about that chapter!

[tan319]

CF sucks.  Overpriced, and like other chain restaurants, they irresponsibly over-serve food.  An entire serving dish of pasta for one person?  

Speaking of irresponsibly overserving, has anyone eaten at a Papadeaux recently?

I hate wasting food, and it killed me to walk away with half of my plate uneaten the last time I was there. Simply a gluttonous amount of food. It's no surprise why we have such problem with weight in this country - and in San Antonio specifically - when you look at the portions in places like this.

What do you think drives the portions? Is it "our" appetite, or did the portions drive the appetite? Great chicken-egg question.

Oh, and to stay on topic, I've never eaten at a CF - and don't know that I will, now. Awesome post.

Exactly what I think, concerning portions.

I ate at a Pappadeux once for the whole deal and I thought the amount of food they served for the entree alone was ridiculous!

Just gluttonous. Also, their red beans and rice was awful. It was sweet! You could fold in some pastry creme and some whipped cream and you would have dessert.

However, the drinks are good, and the oysters are too.

Jason, do you think a Q&A would really be cool?

Those guys are pretty spooky

I agree that the some of the stuff actually looked good, especially the miso salmon, which I think they stole from Blue Ginger or Roys. But those 1st plates they showed, over filled steaming bowls of something pasta-ish something looked

gross!

Ok, I've got to jump into this stuff about Olive garden, etc.

Kate, kate, Kate....

Look,if you like OG,I don't think anyone is holding that against you.

It IS a helluva lot cheaper to cook that stuff yourself,though. And you can work on your cooking too.

The thing I don't like about the majority of these places is that it's all about cheese, cream, overportioning, and it's usually not that cheap. And I empathize about living in a place that doesn't have a lot of choices but chains.

But as a culinary student, do you think it would behoove you to search out the little guys around you so you can see what they're doing?

The thing I think we're addressing mostly about a CF is that their prices are probably in line with most casual fine dining indie places and if you don't support those indies, they're going to die. And chances are the food is going to be more interesting and have a little more "taste". It's not going to be dumbed down.

The one thing those corp. places DO have over indies sometimes is service.

But I'm willing to bet that is because the chains never have to worry about the fact that the last 2 weeks have been slow and they didn't have to bring in the dishwasher later to save money and cut some bussers because that would save a few dollars, etc. Cut a server or two and then get slammed like crazy and the dining room get's all fucked up because there's only 2 people on the floor and instead of doing 30 people for lunch today you did 60...

Edited July 14, 2003 by tan319 (log)

[pariah_kerry]

I've asked a couple times what's so bad about Olive Garden, and haven't gotten an answer.

It doesn't taste good: it has one big overriding flavor for every

menu item. The consistency is mushy. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

Thinking about eating or working at an Olive Garden brings out my autism:

I am about to start grunting and rocking back and forth violently. That is what I don't like about the Olive Garden. Oh, the service sucks, too.

Edited July 14, 2003 by pariah_kerry (log)

[SobaAddict70]

*sigh*

This discussion (not THIS particular discussion per se, mind you) has popped up on egullet before in innumerable ways and all sorts of variations, forwards and backwards. I thought we'd left this topic a long time ago.

Anyway, eGlutton is whatever you want and its a large enough site that it can accomodate all sorts of people who like what they like. If you like OG, fine. If you like haute cuisine, fine. If you like Mrs. Dash on cottage cheese and broiled skinless chicken breasts, fine. And if you like ethereal meal experiences every night of the week, that's fine too. What I don't get is why people seem to be offended that

a) if you like OG, you automatically become lower class

b) you can't like something like McDs or OG without eliciting shudders of horror

c) you can either go for cheap eats or high end dining but not both and god forbid you mix the two

among other things. Personally, I would never go to a place like OG for the reasons that MatthewB describes above. Plus I'm an impatient bastard. I want my food NOW, not two hours down the road and if I'm paying $50+, it had better be damn good or at least the upper end of passable for that type of money. This is not to say that I haven't gone to McD's (I do all the time), never gone to a BeniHana when I was a kid (I did all the time), HoJos/Friendly's/Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips (ditto) or the local takeout Chinese palace (read the dinner thread and you'll see that I do as often as I can get). My childhood experiences have no relevance to my current likes or level of sophistication. They have no relevance to what I think of yours or others' level of sophistication. As far as I'm concerned, dragging childhood experiences is pretty irrelevant to this discussion, for the most part.

You like what you like, and no one should mold you into a cookie cutter just because they wish you should be. This is directed to both sides of this argument, not at anyone in particular.

'Nuff said.

Soba

[SobaAddict70]

I should add that several years ago, a bunch of friends and I went to Little Poland in the East Village. Little Poland, for those of you who don't frequent NYC, is a local East Village establishment on 2nd Avenue, near 12th Street (I don't remember the exact location but its around there). It serves the type of food you would see at Odessa, Vaselka's and other Ukranian/Eastern European places -- borscht, stuffed cabbage, kasha varnishkes, blintzes, etc.

Anyway, when we went there for lunch, I took a look at the menu and never having been there, I saw an item that *I* like, but most people shudder at -- tripe soup. Some of the guys in our bunch think they're open-minded and adventurous, but not THAT adventurous. When I ordered it, I got stares and looks of disgust, as if to say, "how dare you order something like that when the rest of us are having recognizable things like burgers and hot sandwiches?" And I even got a few comments my way to that effect as well. I took it all in stride, but to this day, I get ragged on for my choice. I like tripe, and to be quite honest with y'all, I don't give a flying fuck whether people do or don't.

That's what I stand by, and I wish certain people on this thread would understand that sentiment. The world would be a better place, I think.

Soba

[Marlene]

Facinating. Fyre made a terrific first post that spawned 4 pages, - and has yet to be heard from again on his/her own thread .

The house of blues in downtown Disney actually did take our driver's license as "collateral" for their beeper. I don't think I'd ever seen that done before.

We walked past the CF in Las Vegas, and never got anywhere near the place, it was so packed. However, I can't imagine waiting three hours. I won't go back to Moishe's in Montreal because we had an hour wait for our table even with a reservation. I just have other things to do in life. I depise waiting in line ups for anything. I don't care how good it is.

[dave88]

i rarely eat only to get filled up.  it's like having sex just to have sex...going trhough the motions so to speak.  what's the point?   

Interesting analogy. Would you rather eat at Uma's or Divine's?

Damn!

[pjs]

Yeah, but Divine heated up her shoplifted steaks in her own little oven.

PJ

[Eat_eat_eat]

I don't think I am as snobbi...uh, serious about food as some people here. But I love Cheesecake Factory. CF is definitely in the upper echelon of chain restaurant. The food is above average. I expect consistency when I go out to eat and CF manages that well. I always avoid dining out in the busiest hours so I never have to wait long. I can imagine the service at any restaurant can be bad when it is as busy as CF. I like pasta and I think CF has good ones.

Imagine if you take away the CF name, make the restaurant a lot smaller, make the portions smaller, replace its clientele to an older opera crowd, how would you feel about this new restaurant with the same quality of food? How would you feel if French Laundry opens a few branches with the same name? I think the French Laundry name would be dumbed down and frankly, some people may not want to go there anymore because it has lost its prestige and mystique.

[rdailey]

I agree Eat. You said the same thing I did on page 2. Its all about the mentality that the food "being served is corporate" and "it's a chain" and "they have research kitchens", etc.

French Laundry is headed in that direction already. Kellers empire is growing like truffles in Perigord.

[nyfirepatrolchef]

Fyre~

welcome to the asylum

That was a phenominal post...be it first, last, or somewhere in the middle. Based on what you went through in that culinary hell...all I have to say is kick off your waitressing shoes...pop your feet up on the coffee table and Id be PROUD to massage them for you just before freshening the nail polish on the toes. Finally a place that sounds worse than macy*s in terms of crap you had to deal with.

Can I get you anything while youre here?

[pariah_kerry]

French Laundry is headed in that direction already. Kellers empire is growing like truffles in Perigord.

So...that means they are still difficult to find and expensive?

You're right about the mentality; I have it and avoid chains for independents as much as possible.

[tommy]

The food is above average.

but that's the thing. it's not above average for me, for example. it's way below average. and that's the crux.

Edited July 17, 2003 by tommy (log)

[IrishCream]

I am late once again but....my last boss loved CF (he was a very big eater), so I had several meals there. My first reaction on attempting to read through the menu was negative. In my experience, restaurants that try to serve everything...cutting across several cuisine types...serve nothing well. And that was the case for CF...at least in the Galleria in Houston.

Further, I was offended by the waste of food. A dinner salad for one was enough to serve 4. And so on.

To me, the Cheesecake Factory belongs in the same category as Bennigan's, TGIF, etc. The difference being that CF tries to overwhelm with quantity and charges more. A lot of food is wasted. And the cheesecake was not exceptional...and I was in Texas! Bet it came frozen there also!