The buzz around town is all about The Cheesecake Factory that opens on Tuesday, September 1st. I got to attend a soft opening and let me tell you, they don’t mess around!
To start off, I had the guacamole made-to-order ($11.95). It had ripe avocado, onion, tomato, chiles, cilantro and fresh lime. The guacamole was served with tortilla chips, salsa, and sour cream. You can really taste the lime. The guacamole is chunky, lightly salted, has a hint of spiciness to it, and there’s a nice amount of cilantro. You can tell that everything was made fresh. The chips are thin and crunchy, just how I like it. To be honest, I didn’t even need the chips. That’s how good the guacamole was. I appreciated the side servings of salsa and sour cream. You normally don’t see that and the sour cream just made my guacamole creamier.
For my entrée I went with the Americana Cheeseburger ($13.50). The burger has American and cheddar cheese, crunchy potato crisps, lettuce, tomato, grilled onions, pickles, and secret sauce. There’s a creamy vibe going on with the two cheeses blending together. It’s literally melting in my mouth. The burger is juicy and meaty. The ground beef patty is perfectly cooked. By the way, the portion is HUGE and messy. It’s a delicious and fun messy, though. I had to fight to get the whole thing into my mouth. Challenge accepted. However, I failed. I wound up packing half of it to go and got two meals out of it. The secret sauce tastes very similar to ranch dressing and the potato crisps are pretty much thin, straw-like fries.
Last but not least, dessert. How could I go to The Cheesecake Factory and not have any cheesecake?
I went with the Oreo Dream Extreme Cheesecake ($7.95). With a name like that I should have just quit while I was ahead, but go big or go home! I wanted to do this right! Oreo cookies are baked into this cheesecake with layers of fudge cake and Oreo cookie mouse. Then it’s topped with a milk chocolate icing and a piece of an Oreo cookie! The cheesecake is rich, creamy, sweet chocolatey goodness. That’s all I’ve got for you. Really, you have to try it for yourself. It’s to die for! I will say that the Oreos on the inside of the cheesecake are soft and there appeared to be chocolate chips on the side of the cheesecake that were nice and crunchy. It made for a great texture change. The whipped cream served on the side with Oreo crumbles freshened everything up. I ate that separately! YUMMY!
Trust me, you’ll want to be the first in line when The Cheesecake Factory opens Tuesday. Especially if you’ve never been!
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