e a t e r y R O W

CHEESECAKE FACTORY

71 Isham Road
West Hartford, CT 06107
(860) 233-5588

The Cheesecake Factory should call itself The Money Factory. In the past couple of years, I've twice considered trying to eat there, only to be driven away by the long waits. I remember a couple years ago, my now ex-girlfriend and I showed up with two of her friends only to be told that the wait was going to be two hours. Two hours! For a chain?!? Since then, naturally, I've been dying to return to find out what all the hub-bub was, bub, and my salvation came in the form of my ol' college buddy, Seth.

Not long ago, West Hartford, Connecticut, an upscale suburb of Hartford, expanded its "downtown" with West Hartford Center, an urban-in-the-suburbs mini-city complete with wine bars, a Crate & Barrel, a New York Sports Club, trendy restaurants, a new movie theater, a boutique or two, expensive apartments, and a Cheesecake Factory. Seth and I gave our names to the hostess and waited outside by the fountain for our table. I can safely say that I will never feel compelled to go back.

Cheesecake Factory is unlike any other chain restaurant I've ever been to. It covers every single possible niche that a restaurant can cover without putting in amusement park rides, though it does have a gift shop (what classy restaurant doesn't?). The menu, which is made out of plastic for easy 409ing, comes complete with ads for Coke and jeans and Carnival Cruise Lines. Sure, it's tacky, but Cheesecake Factory is, don't forget, a food theme park. It has no real focus, except that it tries to cover every mass-market American taste as inoffensively as possible.

To put it another way, Cheesecake Factory's menu is geared to appeal to people who are scared of food; scared of trying anything too new or too different. Great for little kids, picky eater, grandparents who stick to whatever the diner has and small town uncles visiting from the midwest or the south. It's comfort food on a grand, grand scale. Egg rolls and spring rolls share a page with quesadilla and calamari. Hummus is next to Greek salad is above mozzarella sticks is next to corn dogs is above pizza. You can pick from a variety of a dozen burgers or choose the "Weight Management Grilled Chicken". Shepherd's pie, fish and chips, salmon. All of these foods have existed in the American lexicon for decades, ensuring that you won't find anything here you couldn't find anywhere. In fact, if my experience at Cheesecake Factory is any indication, you could even find these foods at the supermarket. Yes, they tasted like the kind of stuff you toss into the microwave for eight minutes and then peel the plastic sheet off the top of. At least the Famous Factory Meatloaf admits that it was made by a robot.

All this said, we didn't actually eat any bad food. But we did eat generic, forgettable food. What drives this insane popularity will forever escape me. Hey, I get comfort food, believe me. But a two hour wait for it? Uh, no.

Anyway, we ordered two appetizers. First, Chicken Samosas, Cheesecake Factory's experiment into Indian food. The samosas had a bit of a bite, which was nice, but they needed more. Still, there was a considerable amount of actual flavor and Seth and I agreed that the only thing that was required was some added heat to give the food some balls. The cilantro dipping sauce it came with was also quite good. The other appetizer we tried were the Tex Mex Eggrolls. These, also decent, were far more bland than they should have been. "More black bean would be appreciated, and more flavor wouldn't hurt either" was the way Seth put it. I have to agree. The overall concept was a good one, but if you're going to transfer an Asian food into a small chicken taco, do something more than deep fry it with MSG. We didn't regret ordering them, we just wish that they had a soul.

I decided that the Asian or Mexican themed comfort food was bound to be dumbed down versions of the real thing designed for people who still call cuisines from other countries "ethnic". I chose some down-home American comfort food figuring that it would be more honest. My dinner was therefore the Chicken and Biscuits. Chicken, served with some veggies over mashed potatoes with a shortcake biscuit on the side and then coated in a hearty country gravy. To better picture it, imagine a pot pie turned inside out. And that's exactly what it was. And it was good. It was also heavy, probably weighed seven pounds, and there's no way anyone wearing pants smaller than a 42 waist could possibly finish it. I had maybe ten bites, then packed the remaining 75% of it away to take home. Seth ordered the Fresh Grilled Salmon. He wanted fish, though I did try to warn him off chain restaurant fish. I was less than impressed, having stolen a few bites. The mashed potatoes had the consistency of caulk or thick glue. The asparagus was fine, but the fish was overcooked and had about as much flavor as you'd get from eating a Pink Pearl.

All in all, the meal wasn't terribly expensive and we had a good time. Still, I feel like dinner (especially when you wait so long for it) needs to be more than it was. More than what amounted to a microwave dinner served in a giant dining hall with a wine list.

Of course, this being the Cheesecake Factory, I had to try their cheesecake. They have over 30 varieties and since I love cheesecake, it was hard not to order all of them. Instead, I decided to try their Original Cheesecake. After all, if you can't get the plain one right, then why waste anyone's time with the fancier versions? Well, they got it right! It was very good. Better than Juniors?, we NYers must ask. Uh, let's not go crazy. But it was mighty fine cheesecake. Maybe I will come back, sit at the bar (which was much less crowded) and work my way through the other 30-odd flavors...

CHARM THAI
722 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10025
(212) 866-9800

With very few exceptions, Thai food is Thai food is Thai food is Thai food is Thai food. Charm, on the Upper West Side, is Thai food. Most of the time, Thai restaurants attempt to differentiate themselves with décor or some sort of theme. The hip one, the romantic one, the clubby one, the authentic one, the fancy expensive one, the one that has an even bigger wading pool in the center of the room with even more candles floating in it than the previous champ of trendiness, the one with the giant gold Buddha statue (after all, if the Buddha preached about anything, it was pad thai eaten under the din of house music). But from a food perspective, they all pretty much serve the same thing the same way. In fact, one of the best Thai meals I can remember having was at a depressing little hole of a place in my neighborhood that looked like it was just this side of filing for bankruptcy. It went against the grain, but was worth it.

This time, I ventured out to Mr. Dogz’s hood. We wandered aimlessly for a little while. A few joints stood out to me but he vetoed them for being either too expensive or too vegetarian. Charm, a Thai place that yet to try, was where ended up ending up. I don’t want to say that Charm fancies itself to be among the "romantic" Thais, but it does have soft lighting and roses at every table. Still, there were no couples that I could see. Only friends or groups or single people eating while they read.

Charm isn’t expensive, with appetizers costing $6 and entrees coming in at about $15. I ordered two things that are comfortable staples of my Thai dining experiences: (1) the Curry Puff, a pastry filled with a curried mush chicken, potato, and onions with a sweet cucumber-onion dipping sauce. The curry puffs were somewhat on the dry side and were in dire need of the sauce in which they were liberally drenched by me; and (2) Tom Yum Goong soup, a spicy soup with chili, mushroom, lime, lemongrass and shrimp. It was good. Not spicy enough to get my nose to run, though, and they skimped on the shrimp (two of ‘em). Dogz ordered the Steamed Dumplings, filled with minced chicken, shallots, peanuts, and radish which he thought were “pretty good. They’re very flavorful.” I didn’t try them.

As we sat eating the appetizers, looking around at the food ordered by other diners, I was surprised at how artistically the plates were arranged. My duck dish was arranged in this artistic style. It was a nice touch. Dogz ordered a simple Green Chicken Curry, which came in a triangular bowl with a side of white rice. I liked it, in the sense that I didn’t think it was bad. To be blunt, I thought that the chicken was, like my curry puff, a bit dry and the curry somewhat average Joe. My entrée, the Duck Tangerine, was described as a “crispy roasted duck with eggplant topped in a sweet tangerine sauce.” One look at the layer of fat under the skin in the photo and you can see that "crispy" may have been a poor definition. Duck is admittedly a pretty complicated bird to cook in large part because getting all that fat from between the skin and the meat without turning your duck into a cinder block takes a lot of trial and error to get right. I enjoyed the meal for the most part, but there was a lot of fat to discard. Get past this and the eggplant and sauce was just fine. Still, I think I'll leave the crispy duck to the French from now on and order something more noodle-based the next time I find myself eating Thai.

Three appetizers, two entrees, a soda, tax and tip, totaled less than $52.